Page 37 of His Angel

But before we’re in the all-clear, a dagger flies past my shoulder, embedding itself in the wall ahead of me.

Stalking through the entrance door is someone else in a black mask. Red crosses the face in a wicked slash, and the eyes behind it are cold and dead. He’s here to kill, and that was a warning shot.

Wyatt is barely through the door as Emmerson starts pushing it closed, almost trapping him in it, or worse, on the other side, as I grab him by the shirt and yank him through. After all, it’s Wyatt that literally just saved our asses.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Wyatt yells, shoving him in the chest.

Electricity crackles between them, blood in the air, until the door handle moves and all attention flies to the key in Wyatt’s hand. Bracing my body against the door, I push it, Emmerson joining me as Wyatt attempts to get the key in and turn it. But every time I think we’re almost there, the door jiggles and the lock won’t engage. Infuriating.

It feels like a million years before we get the door secured, and my body sags against it, resting my head against the wood until whoever is on the other side bangs it harder than my heart is hammering in my chest.

We all take a beat, nothing but the sound of our panted breaths echoing in the enclosed space, but we eventually get our senses together and look around. I realise we’re in nothing more than a corridor, two doors beside us with writing on.

“Only two may enter,” Wyatt reads. “Well, that’s easy, Jacob you’re with me. Like fuck I’m going with the guy who just tried to push me into a room with a killer to save his own ass.”

“Hey, what about me?” Jasper asks, his offence clear.

“Wyatt is my brother’s roommate, I’m kind of obligated to keep an eye on him,” I intervene. “Can you imagine the shit Nick would give me if I left this fool to figure it out without me?” I scoff.

But it falls flat.

I’m not even buying this fake bravado shit myself, never mind anyone else.

“Look, I’m sorry. It was instinctive,” Emmerson says, his very own attempt at an apology. “I didn’t realise you were still in the doorway.”

“Sorry, bro, the damage is done,” Wyatt clips. “Good luck, Jasper.” He shrugs, grabbing my arm and shoving me through the closest door before slamming it shut behind us.

The second we enter, a new timer glows, forty-five minutes counting down above an old wooden door. The soft carpet has been swapped for concrete, the stained oak panels are now nothing more than planed wood, and with a stack of hay bales piled in the corner, it’s a long way away from the train carriage we left.

Double-checking the door behind us and the one opposite, I shrug my shoulders. “Emmerson was right, it’s worth a check.”

I follow as Wyatt strides towards the bales, picking up the bright yellow note I missed and reading aloud.

“Congratulations on making your escape from Timeless Trains,” he begins. “Unfortunately, in your last-minute escape, You were spotted, and the escapee is hot on your trail. Take solace in this abandoned Barn, but not foR too long…”

“Ominous,” I reply with a sigh. “But at least the floor isn’t rocking here. I swear I was starting with some kind of motion sickness by the end.”

I huff out a laugh, but I guess neither of us really find it funny, instead looking around and considering where we should start. There’s not much to go on, some old tools piled up in a corner, this bunch of hay, and some sacks of grain, or feed, or something.

“I’ll go see if there’s anything in those tools,” Wyatt says. “Can you have a look in and around these bales and see if there’s anything here? It’s just a side door, so a normal-looking key is what we’re after.”

“If we have to search through all those bags, I might go insane,” I comment, watching him move away as I stuff the note in my back pocket, running my hands over the top and ends of the bale.

“Looking for a key in a grain sack is not my idea of a good time.” He winks.

“Agreed.”

The two of us work quickly but efficiently, piling anything that looks like it might be of use in the middle. It might be counter-intuitive to follow someone else’s lead, but he was right with everything last time, so why not?

I find three coloured squares in the hay bales, and a number sentence underneath, and Wyatt finds a lockbox stuffed right at the back of the tools and a couple of numbers on the tools themselves.

It’s an odd selection, that’s for sure.

“So, if we put the numbers in the equation, that should give us the combination for the lock box, right?”

He nods, clattering the tools together as he drags them across the room and puts them in the simple number sentence.

“Assuming there’s a key in there, what’s it for?” I ask.

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