Page 79 of The Whispering Night
Isaac looks sick all over again, and Winnie quickly adds: “But no one will eat you, okay?”
“Are you sure? Because right now, they’re all wondering why you asked to seeme.”
“Tell them I’m friends with Katie, so I trust you.”
“No one’s gonna believe that.”
“I promise they will, Isaac.” Winnie lays her hand on his again. “Katie was at the party last night, so it’ll make enough sense at casual glance. Plus, you’re going to act totally clueless if anyone asks for more details. You’ll shrug and say,She just said Katie told her about me.And they’re going to believe it.”
“But when they realize you’ve escaped—”
“I’ll wait, okay? I’ll wait until you’ve been gone a while, and then I’ll make my move. Then it won’t look like we coordinated anything. Now hurry, Isaac: we’re losing time. Tell me how to get out of here.”
CHAPTER
33
It’s not that Winnie intends to lie to Isaac. As she was telling him her plan, she really didbelieveshe would give him time to exit before she snuck out. Unfortunately, logistics and sheer terror make a liar out of her.
Because while Isaac walks Winnie down “prison cliché” hallways to her cell, she glimpses nary a single guard. On top of that, the one guard who first answered the door at Winnie’s pounding is busy brewing herself a pot of coffee in the lounge area when Isaac marches Winnie by.
It’s mind-boggling. All these terrifying Tuesdays, and yet most of them are upstairs duking it out inside the boxing rings or sprinting across a soccer field. So for a single day, their security issodeeply lax, a sixteen-year-old can evade it. Or, at least, Winnie sure hopes she can.
And to be fair, if she didn’t have a newly assembled map imprinted on her brain of this subterranean lair, the odds of escape would be stacked against her. Plus, there’s the undeniable fact that once out of the Tuesday underground, any escaping prisoner would have an entire town of nightmare hunters to contend with. So really: only a fool would try to break out of this place.
Or a Wednesday bear with literallynothing left to loseand absolutelyeverything to gain.If L.A. was small fry to the Crow, well, the Crow has now become small fry to the great whites circling Winnie’s raft.
With a silent apology to Isaac, Winnie cracks open her door a mere minute after his departure. He’s gone. Which means it’s time for Winnie to get gone too, before her single guard finishes brewing coffee.
Here’s what Winnie knows about the layout: all halls are arranged likea grid. No space is wasted. Which, if she were going to be nitpicky, that makes it more like abeehivethan a scorpion’s nest. But whatever. It makes busting out of here a wholehelluvalot easier.
One left. Two straights. One right. One left. Three straights. And then on the right there will be a stairwell. Two flights up, and Winnie will reach Hangar D, where Isaac has told her assorted Tuesday vehicles are stored. Since the hangar is laid out like a mechanic’s shop, she will be ejected into the grease pit used to access car underbellies—which should be empty right now, since the hangar is currently open to the public. On the opposite side of where Winnie will enter, there will be one more staircase, which she can use to join the throngs of excited Luminaries.
From there, Winnie just needs to blend in long enough to get the hell off the Tuesday estate.
The first stretch of hall goes without hiccup. Although Winnie’s heart is pounding so hard, she’s shocked she doesn’t develop real hiccups. But by the time she reaches the end of the hall and makes her first left, her heart has settled into a more reliable rhythm. Her muscles have warmed up too. And while her full hunter senses haven’t switched on, she does at least feel competent.
She’s also desperate, and damned if Shakespeare wasn’t right about diseases desperate being relieved by desperate appliance. (Aren’t you proud, Ms. Morgan? I remember my Dickinson and my Shakespeare! Now please don’t be mad if your boyfriend gets in trouble because I’m escaping on his watch.)
It’s during the long stretch of three straights that Winnie is finally forced into evasive action. The sound of voices sends her twirling down an unplanned intersection. Then into a darkened bathroom, where she mistakes her reflection for a person and almost faints.
But it’s just herself, and after puffing out a breathy, pained laugh, she forcefully looks away from the mirror. That shadowy reflection looks too much like the dead changeling from the forest.
And that dead changeling looked very,verymuch like peering ahead into a horrible future she can’t avoid.
With a little shake to rattle such visions loose, Winnie makes herself use the moment wisely. First, she zips off her leather jacket. It’s got a gnarly gash across the front pocket from the hellion. Then she wiggles out of her Save the Whales hoodie. That thing is familiar enough to be iconic at this point.
She turns the hoodie inside out, changing the faded green exterior into a dark, fleecy shade that melts into the bathroom’s shadows. Then she slides back into her leather jacket.
Next, Winnie braids her hair, tucks it inside her collar, and finally she tows up the hood. Since she is still dressed in her Nightmare Safari gear of dark jeans and boots, she actually looks like any old hunter or Luminary about to head out for a snack.
Lastly, Winnie removes her glasses. It’s not ideal, but she’s also notsovision-impaired that she can’t see where she’s going. No, she won’t recognize faces on the street, but given thatshedoesn’t want to be recognized either…
This is safest.
Plus, if she could go almost her whole third trial without glasses in thenightmareforest. Atnight. Then navigating the scorpions’ hive and the Tuesday Olympics will be easy-peasy.
Winnie gives herself a quick, blurred once-over in the dark mirror. She doesn’t look like the changeling; she doesn’t look like herself.
