Page 156 of The Girl Who Inherits the Dead

“Should be,” Maison says, his voice tight. “Then let's hope the Wight knows what she’s talking about.”

Gurlien throws a look to Chloe, whose eyes are at least a bit more aware now, and she swallows down the protein bar.

“I can move,” she says, and her voice is raw, like she spent the last hour screaming. “Alarms have got to be ringing, we can’t stay here forever.”

She takes a deep breath, then hugs her backpack to her chest, standing up, and is far less shaky than Maison is. “I’m okay.”

“It’d be more believable if I wasn’t aware of your headache,” Delina says, and Chloe sighs, pulling out another energy shot.

“I’ll be okay, I’ll just be hungover once we get out of this,” Chloe grumbles, and that, at least, seems reasonably likely. “Let me take a look.”

Maison leans his cheek against the top of Delina’s head, as Gurlien and Chloe debate the inner workings of the runes, and tremors run up his side.

“If you have to run, it’s okay,” he whispers to her, “take my mom and run, I’ll be okay.”

“Oh fuck off,” Delina whispers back. “Stop with the self-sacrificial bullshit, we both know I won’t do that.”

He sighs against her, and she tightens her grip around his middle.

“We’ll find something for a splint, and then we’ll get out,” Delina whispers back.

“I can do this side,” Chloe says, with a pale glance to them. “Delina, you’ll have to do the matching switch when we get over there.”

“Okay,” Delina replies, and, despite the exhaustion still on her mind, Chloe deftly draws something in the box, and the entire hallway groans to life.

Maison twitches, like he wants to pull Delina behind him.

Instead, shutters, giant ones, clatter and roll up, on either side of the hallway, revealing tall windows.

Each into a small, individual room. Hundreds of them, all barely bigger than a closet, stretching down the entire length of the hallway.

Delina’s breath hitches.

“Have you ever been down here before?” Chloe asks, voice hushed.

“Not this one, but a different one,” Maison whispers, and Gurlien nods as well. “It’s only a good threat if you know what you’d be facing.”

And with that, they start down the hallway.

In the first room, someone sits in the corner, eyes listless, staring out into nothing. There’s blood on the side of their head, fresh, but their clothing is about two decades out of date.

The display plate reads a name, then ‘murder.’

They don’t react as Delina passes, as if they can’t even see out of their little room.

The next room, a young woman stretched out on a cot. Her eyes stare up at the ceiling, and her display plate reads ‘insane.’

Another, and a sickly young man, skin clinging to bones, curled up on the floor, with the display plate ‘failed Half Demon.’

Next, a twisted mass of flesh, not even identifiable as human, though breath flutters against the skin. Display plate reads ‘experiment, won’t die.’

Delina swallows, then looks back down the hallway.

There are too many rooms.

“How can a place like this exist?” Delina asks, and her voice echoes hollow through the shining hallway.

“Oh, this isn’t even the only one,” Gurlien replies, mouth grim. “There’s one in Paris, one in Atlanta, and one in Mexico City.”

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