Page 34 of Together We Rot

He scrunches his nose. “I don’t have keys for this.” He jangles the keys in his hand, four separate pairs conjoined on the same rusty loop. Kevin fumbles with the ridges of each one, muttering to himself as he does so. “Front door, back door, conference room...”

“I’ll kick it down,” Wil volunteers readily.

“See, this is why I came in,” Lucas groans. “If I was back in the car, you would’ve punched a hole through this door or something.”

“And?” she challenges.

“And you can ruin your own future all you want, but leave Elwood out of it.”

“Lucas, for the last time, stop being such a jerk,” Veronica snaps. “Wil’s my friend.”

“Well, Elwood’s my friend. He’s smart and—”

“Wait!” Kevin’s done muttering to himself and has resorted to shouting at all of us to get our attention. It definitely does the job. Everyone shuts up at once, and he waves the fourth key in our face like it says it all. “Front door, back door, conference room, and then this.” He taps his nail against the ridges. “Guys, this is Mrs.Beasley’s set. I—I have no idea how I mixed them up, but I definitely did. Mine only has three. But this should open it.”

“Your call, Elwood,” Lucas tells me. If he’s wondering what career to go into in the future, I think he’s got the “concerned principal” expression down pat. “I don’t know if this counts as breaking and entering or not.”

Wil meets that with a roll of her eyes. “I don’t see how it can be breaking and entering with a goddamn key.”

So this is what it’s like to have a devil and an angel on my shoulders.

I swallow down my nerves. Here goes nothing, I guess. I give my consent with a shaky nod and Kevin puts the stolen key into the lock.

Lucas might be right. This feels... illegal. I shift my weight from one foot to the other. The world around us seems empty enough, but I know it isn’t. There’s got to be a camera tucked away out of sight, eyes on us somewhere, a sensor that will start blaring the moment we step foot inside.

I already know God’s watching.

I sniff, digging my own nail into my thumb. I scrape away the skin and shift my weight again. Would this merit jail? A fine? A slap on the wrist? Libraries count as government buildings, right? So breaking into one of those is even worse than breaking in anywhere else? Is it really breaking in if we’ve got the key?

What is my family going to do now that I’ve run away from home and broken into a library? Then, that same dark voice: Does it matter?

The door creaks open like a mausoleum vault or a centuries-old tomb. Either of which is probably riddled with curses.

“Guys... this doesn’t look like a janitor’s closet.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

ELWOOD

“Maybe they keep their supplies in the basement,” Lucas offers with a flip of the switch. Muted, dull light floods the room, but shadows still cling to the far corners. The wooden steps leading down from the door shift to accommodate my weight. They’re flimsy and rotting, dark sludge spread across each board like a layer of film. Abandoned spiderwebs litter the gaping crevices in the stone.

“Yeah.” Wil snorts. “That’s where I hide my Windex. In a secret lair under lock and key.” Lucas says something under his breath in response, but I’m too busy shivering to hear it.

From the lens of my childhood, it always felt... normal for something so important to be locked and hidden away. Now it’s the same as crawling into the mouth of a beast in search of its heart. Sinister and deadly and exceedingly foolish.

“Dude, you may need to talk your boss into a better security system,” Lucas says to Kevin.

“I’m sure that’d go over well. Hey, I accidentally stole your keys and broke in, Mrs.Beasley... You should really be more careful next time. In my defense, Lucas Vandenhyde pressured me into it,” Kevin retorts. “Easy scapegoat, since she doesn’t like you.”

“What have I ever done to that woman?”

“You’ve got fifteen dollars in library fees. Pretty sure you’ve had the same book checked out since you were ten.”

I’ve stopped listening. They’re still chatting behind me, but the world has grown silent in the book’s wake. It’s encased in the distance, likely kept behind glass to feebly protect it from the damp chill of the air. It lures me forward, a moth to a flame.

Wil beams ear to ear at the sight of the terrifying subterranean room. “I’m sorry, what were you saying earlier, Lucas? I forgot.”

He swallows. “Okay, so it’s not a custodian’s closet, but that doesn’t mean anything. What exactly is that book?”

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