had been crafted around a titanium core, it was going to sag in the middle as they crossed. There were no additional support beams.
“It’s narrow,” she said, trying not to understate the danger but unwilling to instill panic. “And I don’t think it will hold the weight of more than one or two people at a time.”
“This isn’t fair!” Mackenzie stomped her foot, her voice nearing hysterical. “She’s the only one who can get out of here. What the fuck are we supposed to do?”
“How long is the bridge?” Kevin asked.
Persey wasn’t great at judging distances, but it didn’t seem that far. “About as wide as a swimming pool?”
“Anything on the other side?”
“Just the door.”
Kevin sighed. “You’ll guide us across one at a time. There doesn’t seem to be a clock in here, so we have all the time in the world.”
“For fuck’s sake!” Wes cried. “Don’t say that! Every time you say that something awful happens.”
“Like what?” Kevin said. “How could this possibly get worse?”
A whoosh of air blew past them. Persey felt the breeze against her cheek and turned in time to see something green streak past her from right to left across the length of the room. A split second later, a thud. It sounded like an arrow hitting the bull’s-eye.
“What the hell was that?” Riot asked.
The green streak had struck the wall on Persey’s left. She could have guessed what it was without looking at it, but one glance confirmed her worst fears. “That was a spike. Like the ones on the floor. Only it was shot across the room.”
“Okay, my bad.” Kevin sounded sheepish. “It’s worse.”
Persey didn’t look at him. She was still fixated on the spike on the wall. Beside it, glaring white in her night vision, a countdown clock.
“Can you guys see what’s on the wall?” Persey asked. “On your left.”
“We can’t see anything!” Mackenzie scream-sobbed. “Not a single fucking thing.”
She was going to have to get her shit together if she wanted to survive.
“How much time?” Riot asked.
That was the weirdest part of all. “I don’t know.”
“Huh?”
“It’s not a clock face. It’s just a number. Eight hundred and twenty-one point three.”
“Huh,” Riot repeated, this time without the inflection of a question. “Elizabethan poetry.”
Now it was Persey’s turn to be confused. “Huh?”
“The call numbers. Eight twenty-one is poetry, point three is Elizabethan. My specialty.”
As he spoke, the numbers began to move. “Eight twenty, eight nineteen,” Persey said. “It’s still a countdown.”
“Thirteen minutes and forty-two seconds,” Neela said. “In seconds. Approximately.”
Persey had no idea what the Dewey decimal number for poetry meant or how she was going to ferry five people across that spike-filled gap in under fourteen minutes even if they did manage to evade the spikes flying across their path, but she knew she had to try.
“Okay,” she began. “I’m going to take everyone across one at a time.” Without waiting for a volunteer, she reached out and took Neela’s hand, pulling her around Kevin. In the night-vision goggles, Neela’s monochrome black on black was now white on white. Her mass of curly hair looked like a Santa Claus wig on steroids, and her eyes, rimmed in real life with heavy black liner, were huge and sparkly. Persey couldn’t tell if she was crying or if the sparkling was just an aftereffect of the goggles.
“What do we do about those flying spikes?” Neela asked.
Persey wasn’t entirely sure. If she saw one coming, she and Neela might have time to flatten against the bridge before they were impaled. Might. It was a chance she had to take. “When I say duck, duck. Ready?”
Neela squeezed Persey’s hand. “I trust you.”
“Of course she’s taking the lame one first,” Mackenzie cried. “The. Fuck.”
“I’m not lame,” Neela said, bristling. It took all of Persey’s self-restraint not to push Mackenzie into the pit and be done with her.
“No, you’re not. Come on.”
The plank felt surprisingly firm beneath Persey’s feet. A little wiggly as Neela joined, but not enough to make her lose her balance. She walked slowly, purposefully, Neela’s hand still clasped in hers. The bridge wasn’t particularly long, but Persey wasn’t taking any chances. She kept her eyes glued to the far wall, which had shot the initial spike, praying she’d have enough warning to dodge the projectile.
They weren’t even a quarter of the way across when the barrage began.
The first spikes came in a cluster. Four of them, aimed at the beginning of the bridge, behind where Neela now stood.