Page 32 of Splitting Secrets
“They could come back at any moment,” Ava calmly reminds, her voice resolute. She’s already accepted her fate.
“And if they find me gone, they’re going to kill the three of you just to prove that they can,” I argue, shaking my head to rid myself of the thought. “No. I won’t leave you. We’ll figure this out. Give me a minute.”
“If only we had something to pick the lock,” Jonah ponders.
Don’t we? I try to recall all the things I came across when looking for the key in my cell, my feet already taking me back in there. Surely, something can help.
I tuck the key into my bra, then slide the cinder block in the path of the door as an extra precaution. The last thing we need isfor me to get locked in here all over again, and with the way my luck has been going, it’s not out of the realm of possibility.
“What are you doing?” Jonah calls across the corridor.
“I’m looking for something to pick your lock. You should look, too. There’s a ton of stuff on the floor in here. I’m sure yours is the same.”
I feel around for the screws that I found before, picking them up into my palms. The teeth on them might be too big to fit into the lock, but I’ll try anything. With those secured in my bra beside the key, I scoot around on my knees and keep searching. When my fingers brush against the sharp razor edge again, I pause. “Do you think a razor will work?”
“A razor?” Ava repeats, as if she can’t believe what I’ve just said. “You’ve been sitting in there with razors?”
“It depends what kind they are,” Beatrix answers me. “Is there a skinny part at the end?”
I shift the cool metal around in my hands, careful to only touch the dull side. “I think so. It feels like there’s a thick sharp side, and then a longer thin side. Maybe to fit into a handle?” I guess.
“Let’s try it.”
Tired legs lift me back to my feet, then drag me over toward their door again. If this doesn’t work, I don’t know what I’ll do. I can’t leave them down here—even with the promise of finding help. Someone from the Syndicate could pay them a visit at any time, and I already know how that will end.
What sort of cruel universe am I living in where I’m given the freedom to leave, but only if I offer my friends as sacrifice?
I won’t accept that.
Beatrix talks me through sliding the thin side of the razor into the keyhole and it takes me a few moments of maneuvering it around, careful not to let it slice into my palm, before something clicks into place against it.
“That was the first spring. Keep bumping them,” Beatrix encourages.
Each time a spring pops out of the way, allowing the razor to press further in, the tight knot in my chest loosens the smallest bit. I keep going, raking through five more springs before the razor stops and the lock finally turns.
My hands are wrapping around the handle and yanking the heavy steel into my arms before any of us can speak. I’m too afraid to risk losing the pick and having it somehow relatch to move any other muscle. But once the door is open, the four of us can’t stop our squeals of excitement as they come barreling into my chest, their arms wrapping around my shoulders in a celebratory hug.
“When we reach the top, we’ll crack the door enough to see if anyone is around,” I tell them a few moments later, when the excitement dies down and the reality hits that this was only the first step in our escape.
“That’s a horrible idea. What if they have guards standing by?” Jonah quips.
“No one was standing watch when they brought us down,” Beatrix supplies.
I shake my head, forgetting they can’t see. “Same. Raze said no one will be watching, however reliable we find that information is. When I was brought, there wasn’t anyone to guard and when you were brought down, it was likely by those who would do the guarding,” I surmise, avoiding mentioning that those two are the ones who will be killing us unless Raze does it himself.
I can’t shake the thought that he sent them down here to handle Matilda. It just doesn’t match with the blind faith Matilda had in him, or his behavior in that room.
I’m missing something and it’s driving me insane.
“Then we can assume there isn’t anyone there now,” Ava agrees.
I run through every possible scenario in my head so we can work out solutions. “What about the lights when we get up there? I was nearly incapacitated for a few long minutes before my eyes adjusted to the artificial lights in the interrogation room. That’s precious time we don’t have.”
“Agreed. I’m still seeing white spots from when you set the lights off earlier,” Ava tells me.
“I’m telling you, I didn’t?—”
My words die off when a soft ember of light begins to glow in someone’s hand, so dim that it hardly has any effect on me. I look at the arm attached, surprised to find Jonah wielding it.
