Chapter 52: 52. Flushed Out

It's just out of reach of Waylon's flailing hand. Thin wires; the cold, metal tracks of the overhead door; a lever with an unclear purpose. All felt, but not what he's searching for: the telltale feeling of the squishy, rubber button that triggers the door's motor. Pain screams warnings through his mind. The hole worn away by his breath is shrinking around his shoulder, digging into his armpit. A grunt slips out; he stretches until threads of fire burn inside his arm's tendons.

There.

His hand brushes against rough, plastic housing, then a pad of rubber at its center. He slaps the edges of his fingertips onto the button. After a momentary shudder, the door jerks; it climbs up its metal tracks and steel slats clatter with each inch of travel.

Waylon slips his arm out. Metal creeps from the hole's edges in a crystalline pattern, like water turning to ice. Pain still burns in his armpit: a cut probably. He rubs at the spot, but — at even a ginger touch — his brow furrows and his hand recoils. Gah— that was almost bad. If I made it any larger I'd have passed out, though.

"Someone else just got here." Thea says, her eyes wide.

He slams a fist on the aquarium's exterior brick wall. Shit. A hero? No, why would a hero be here? It has to be one of the employees.

The possibilities swirl around his mind. All the ways this can go wrong... they turn his stomach to a pit; his heart hammers adrenaline through his veins and a nail into his temple. He wipes away blood from a fresh scrape on his hand. No. You've planned for this. Keep it under control.

Ivan and Thea exchange glances. A moment later, they both fix their eyes on Waylon: Thea's accented by fear, Ivan's by indifference.

Waylon swallows his own fear. "Where?" He says.

Nostrils flaring, Thea sniffs. "O-other side of the building, I think. Parking lot?"

"It's probably just an employee. We'll be fine, let's keep going."

Her shoulders creep up around her neck, like a turtle going into its shell. "R-really? Still? They're going to catch us!"

Ivan bends down until he's face to face with her and pats her on the back. "Hey, that's why you're here. Right, Sister?"

Thea wrings her hands around the handle of her cane. "Yeah. R-right."

The loading dock's overhead door clicks into place above them. Moonlight only illuminates a few feet of the room, so Waylon squints into the darkness. Loading carts of various sizes and colors litter a concrete expanse of dangling wires, exposed steel girders, and workplace safety posters.

He waves the others to follow and he passes the threshold. The inside of the loading dock is more cavern than building: each exhalation sends fog floating up into their eyes, and a sinister whisper echoing off the walls. He mentally sifts through the aquarium's blueprint. Three branches from the loading dock. Left one by the forklift leads to the aquarium's largest tank; center door surrounded by crates goes to the offices; right door off near the bathroom has a maze of maintenance hallways.

A wooden cane clacks along the concrete floor behind him and Thea's voice comes as anxious vibrations. "Which way was it?"

Heat boils behind Waylon's temple, but he heads off toward the bathroom without saying a word. They'll follow. Did any of them even listen to me back in the garage?

Both hurry after him and Ivan snorts a laugh in between footsteps. "Oh. Should have peed before we left, Waylon."

Heat turns to throbbing pain. Waylon pushes through the door and whirls around, stopping just inside the dark, narrow hallway of pipes and wires. "Keep it down. From here on, we stay quiet. Thea, whisper if you smell someone coming down the hallways ahead of us."

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Thea forces an unconvincing smile through her jitters. "O-okay. I've got it."

He leads them off, winding through the blueprint in his mind in sync with them winding through hallway after hallway. First fork, hard left; skip the door straight ahead, take the left before it; center hallway at the broken exit sign— are they whispering back there? Whatever, it doesn't matter.

Standing under the exit sign, a single straight hallway and a closed door stands between them and The Hall of Discovery. That and a variety of scattered janitorial detritus: three-tiered shelves buckle under a rainbow of cleaning chemicals, a push broom leans against a wall, rags hang from screws driven into concrete.

Waylon raises a palm and whispers back over his shoulder, nearly flinching at the noise. "Wait. Do you smell anything, Thea?"

Thea's hair brushes over her own shoulders as she answers with only a head movement. He inches his head around to glare at her.

"O-oh. No, nothing." She whispers.

Waylon picks at the inside of his cheek with his teeth. "Okay." He starts to weave around the clutter toward the door, before a thought hits him: do they even know what's next? They can't mess this up for him: he flips back. "After we make it to the door, I'll open it quietly and we'll run over to the maintenance hallway on the other side. Quietly. Okay? No chatting."

Ivan shrugs. Nonchalant, but he at least keeps his voice down. "Yeah, we just follow your condescending ass. You already went over the whole plan in the garage, remember?"

Waylon glances to Thea and she nods. He lets his gaze linger, the pressure build. They can't mess this up.

Her shoulders creep back up around her neck. "Y-yes, follow you. Hurry. Be quiet."

Satisfied, he starts off. They dodge low hanging rags; the occasional bucket; and stacked, plastic wrapped packages of bamboo paper towels. Waylon tiptoes around the leaning broom and hurries through a clear stretch.

The sound of the other's footsteps follow behind him, along with the steady, soft clack of a cane. Good. This is going fine. This'll all go fine.

Thea whispers ahead. "Wait, wait!"

They all freeze, but Thea doesn't elaborate. Instead, silence weighs them down with a mixture of fear and anticipation.

"You smell something?" Waylon says.

"They're right out—"

Light floods the hallway; it overwhelms his vision with dancing starbursts and static. Sweat drenches his body and despair locks him in place. It's — it's over. This is it. It's a hero out there and they've found us.

Then the daze fades and everything comes back into focus. What was overwhelming light now trickles through the cracks of the door ahead, casting sharp shadows from anything that catches it. Panic fades just like the daze and Waylon's hammering heart slows with each breath. He inches his head around, intent on glaring down Thea again. "Couldn't have warned us just a little—"

Smack. Out of the corner of his eye, the wooden handle of the push broom clatters against the ground. Thea vibrates over it like she's a statue in an earthquake, like a gargoyle that can only watch on in horror as it crumbles apart. "I— I— I'm so sorry, I don't—"

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