Persey felt a gentle push as five people pressed in behind her. “Don’t move!” she yelled, stutter-stepping away from the edge. If they accidentally (purposefully) knocked her and her night-vision goggles into the spikes, they’d all be dead meat.
She felt a strong hand on her arm, holding her steady. Kevin. “We can’t stay here.”
“I know,” she snapped, instantly wishing she hadn’t. He was right, of course. But they also couldn’t go forward until she found a way across.
“Tell us what you see,” he said. Again, cool and calm.
Right. “The floor drops away right in front of me. Ten feet, maybe twelve.”
“We should be able to jump down without breaking anything,” Riot said. “Drop and roll, parkour style.”
“Only if you’d like to add a few dozen holes to your body,” Persey said grimly.
“You’re kidding.”
“The entire floor is riddled with those spikes.”
“Okay, so jumping is off the list,” Kevin said.
“There’s a door on the other side,” Persey continued, “directly across. But I’m not sure how we get to…” She stopped as her eyes fell on something all the way down the room to her left. It was light green against the blackness of the pit, and Persey realized what she was staring at. “There’s a bridge!”
“Really?” Wes said. “That seems too easy.”
It did seem too easy. But what choice did they have?
“We’ll cross that, er, bridge, when we get to it,” Kevin said with a laugh.
Persey groaned. “So glad you’ve retained your sense of humor.”
“If I can’t laugh in the face of death,” he replied, “when can I?”
Persey could think of like a million other times where bad puns were more appropriate, but she didn’t have time to banter with him. “This way!” she said, then remembered that no one else could see her. “Sorry. To your left. Put a hand on the wall so you stay away from the edge. I’ll go first.”
Even with the night-vision goggles on, Persey followed her own advice and kept her left hand against the wall, tracing its smooth surface with her fingers as she led the group down the narrow ledge toward the bridge. She kept her eyes moving, half expecting to feel the moving wall of spikes crash through the stucco at any moment, but the wall never so much as shuddered from the grinding movement of the iron maiden, and as she carefully hugged the wall, she realized that the mechanical rumble of the engine had also ceased.
“How much farther?” Mackenzie whined like a kid in the back seat of the family minivan on a cross-country road trip.
“I warned you to use the potty before we left,” Riot said, taking the joke right out of Persey’s mouth. “Now you’ll just have to hold it.”
But Mackenzie’s nerves were too frayed to see humor of any kind. “THE. FUCK!”
“It was just a joke.”
“Not funny.” Mackenzie choked down a sob.
“Everybody stay calm,” Kevin said. He strode confidently behind Persey, despite the darkness. “Listen to Persey and we’ll all get through this.”
I really hope so.
“Perhaps everyone would feel better,” Neela began, her voice higher pitched than usual from nerves and adrenaline, “if Persey narrated what she’s seeing? I think the silence is more terrifying than the darkness.”
“Yeah, for you,” Wes grumbled.
“Okay.” Persey swallowed. Listening to herself monologue was probably the least stress-reducing thing she could think of, but if it helped her get everyone through this room alive and in one piece, it would be worth it. “I can see the bridge clearly now. It’s thin. Like the plank on a pirate ship and…”
Persey’s throat closed up. Wes had been right. A bridge had seemed too easy but now that Persey was steps away, she realized that this thin piece of wood, only wide enough to allow one person to pass at a time, had no railing. One false step and impalement awaited on the floor below.
“And?” Wes prompted, impatient.
Persey sighed. The trust exercise just got a whole lot more trusting. “And there’s no supports on either side. No handrail. Nothing. If you don’t walk directly straight ahead, you’ll fall.”
Wes emitted a sound somewhere between a growl and a gasp. “I knew it seemed too easy.”
“We’re here,” Persey said, stopping before the bridge. The shuffling of feet behind her ceased as she stared out at the bridge. It was a foot wide, if that—more than a gymnast’s balance beam but narrow enough that they’d have to walk one foot in front of the other, further diminishing their stability. To make matters worse, unless the wooden beam