by Eliza Green
A hand rocking her shoulder startled her awake. She blinked away her blurry vision and sat up straight on the beanbag. The mass of beans readjusted, shifting her lower to the floor.
‘Wakey, wakey.’ Dom looked alert and brighter than she felt.
She rubbed sleep from her eyes. The others were there: Frank, Lucas, Lilly and Sheila, who stood with her arms folded. Her skin tightened. Maybe Sheila had forgotten how she’d humiliated her. It was a few weeks ago.
But the look on Sheila’s face said otherwise.
She crawled forward and climbed to her feet, waving away Dom’s help.
‘How long have I been asleep?’
‘A few hours. Not sure. There aren’t any clocks in here.’ Dom looked around. ‘Did the supervisor come?’
Lucas chewed on a bread roll. Frank had gravitated towards the dartboard.
She shook her head. ‘I can’t figure out what we’re supposed to be doing here.’
Dom smiled.
She blushed. ‘What?’
He reached out and adjusted a piece of her hair. Her fingers fumbled blindly over her scalp. After a lot more blushing, she coaxed the unruly piece back in place again.
Lucas was too busy eating to notice or care. Lilly tried to reach one of the cans in the kitchen and Frank was helping her.
But Sheila’s smirk was all Anya saw.
‘So, are we still pretending, Dom, or can I drop the charade now?’ said Sheila. She stood more confidently than Anya remembered: her arms folded, one foot out to the side. She was also quite a distance from Dom.
‘Not now.’ Dom muttered.
Sheila planted her hands on her hips. ‘Because I thought the plan was to get her this far. And now here she is.’
‘I said, not now.’
Anya looked from one to the other.
‘What are you two talking about?’
‘Nothing,’ said Dom. ‘Just Sheila shooting her mouth off.’
He glared at Sheila and she held up her hands.
‘Oh—kay. You’re the boss.’
Dom avoided Anya’s gaze.
When he finally looked at her, his eyes were liquid, soft.
‘I, uh, I’m sorry about Tahlia.’
‘Thanks.’ Anya dropped her head to hide her guilt behind her hair.
‘So what did you find out while we were all horizontal?’
‘There’s—’ Anya coughed to disguise the tremor in her voice. ‘There’s nothing in this part, other than the kitchen and communal area. I can’t figure out what the black section is for.’
Sheila, Frank, Lucas and Lilly all listened now.
‘It appears to be a series of corridors that split out into further paths. Some have doors at the end, but they’re either locked or lead nowhere.’
‘What do you mean, “lead nowhere”?’ Frank said. ‘Doors have to lead somewhere.’
‘I mean, there’s no way to go through them. I found brick walls behind some.’
‘That doesn’t make any sense,’ said Lucas. ‘What’s the purpose of the black maze, then?’
Anya shrugged. Sheila looked excited by the idea of exploring. Anya stared at this new, bold version of her, different to the one on the ground floor who’d spent hours talking about hair and clothes.
‘Come on, there must be something there,’ said Sheila, walking away. ‘I mean, why would they put us in this giant room with nothing to do?’
Frank followed her. ‘I’m on for that plan. We need to explore every last part.’
Anya smiled at Frank, glad to see him back to his old, happy self.
They gathered in the map room and stood at the entrance to the black section.
Anya led the way to the first set of corridors that split out into three. Lilly stayed close to her.
‘There’s nothing down this one.’ Anya pointed to the split on the right. ‘It’s a dead end.’
‘Let’s split up,’ said Dom, turning. ‘We can cover more ground that way.’
His hand briefly grazed Anya’s causing her to stiffen. He jerked his hand back and stepped away from her.
‘We should double-check where you’ve been, just to be sure we’ve covered the entire section. Let’s meet back here once we run out of options.’
Anya couldn’t remember when they’d elected Dom as boss, but they agreed.
Frank and Lucas followed the middle route. Dom and Sheila took the corridor on the left. Lilly and Anya started for the dead-end corridor.
‘There’s no point checking this one,’ Anya muttered. Lilly held on to her arm. She felt like a dead weight.
They walked along the corridor that started out straight then curved back on itself to a dead end.
Anya was about to tell Lilly they were done when she noticed a glossy black door beyond the curve. It hadn’t been there before, and its position seemed to suggest it connected to the middle corridor. She pulled her arm out of Lilly’s and tested the handle. The door opened.
‘I thought you said this was a dead end?’ said Lilly.
Lilly looked like June: fine blonde hair and thin frame. But Lilly was weaker-minded than June. Would she survive a place like this? Yet, Tahlia had been strong, and she’d died. Anya couldn’t figure Arcis out.
‘It was, the last time I checked.’
Anya stepped through into another corridor, half-expecting to bump into Frank and Lucas. She examined the smooth grey ceiling with no markers to use as a guide.
Further on the corridor twisted, then doubled back... And they were back at the three-way split where they had begun. They hadn’t emerged from the middle corridor as she had expected, but from the corridor they had started with.
‘I don’t understand,’ said Anya, turning around.
Lilly shrugged and wrapped her arms around her birdlike frame.
Lucas and Frank appeared, then Dom and Sheila.
‘There’s nothing down there,’ said Dom. ‘It just runs on for a while and comes to a dead end.’
‘The middle corridor splits off into four,’ said Lucas, beckoning for them to follow.
At the four-way split, they each took a corridor. Lilly insisted on staying with Anya while Frank and Lucas stayed together. This time, Dom and Sheila separated, taking one path each.
The corridors started to look the same. Again, a new door appeared at the end of Anya’s split that she didn’t remember being there the last time. She tried the handle but it wouldn’t open. They doubled back.
The others emerged from their corridors. Only one of them had anything worthwhile to report.
‘Mine seems to run to the end of the maze,’ said Sheila to Dom. ‘It may be a way out.’
They all followed Sheila back down her corridor, which ran closest to the outer wall. Doors stood out as before, shiny and glossy against the matt-black of the walls. The lack of light gave Anya a headache.
They tried each of the doors as they passed. Some had a brick façade behind them. Others didn’t open.
The corridor widened slightly and they emerged into a larger space; not quite room sized, but big enough that they could all fit into it.
Anya looked at the gold-coloured door with a sign that read: Danger. Do not open.
‘There’s nothing here,’ said Anya, turning to leave. ‘Come on. Let’s go back and see if there’s a way to communicate with someone inside Arcis.’
But the boys stayed put.
‘Why is this door a different colour to the others?’ said Lucas.
‘Yeah,’ said Frank, ‘and why is it the only one with a warning sign?’
‘I think we should open it,’ said Lucas.
Anya shuddered at a recent memory: a sharp white light massaging her heart; pain pulsing through every nerve in her body; that same light searching for a way out.
This was a bad idea.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Has everyone forgotten the first floor?’
Lucas scoffed. ‘This is hardly the same.’
‘I agree with Lucas,’ said Dom. �
�This isn’t the first floor, but it could be a test.’
‘What kind of test?’ said Anya. ‘If we open the door, are we right or wrong?’ She couldn’t bear the thought of anyone else getting hurt.
Sheila arched a brow at Anya, forcing Anya to look elsewhere.
‘We agree to open the door together or not at all,’ said Dom. ‘Let’s have a show of hands.’
They were tied. Lilly and Anya were against opening it, Lucas and Frank were for. Sheila was also for. Dom had the deciding vote.
‘I’m with Anya and Lilly for now,’ said Dom. ‘We need to know more before we open it. Let’s go back to the communal area. Do something else for a while. I’m sick of strategising.’
Lucas, Frank and Sheila looked disappointed. Anya battled both relief and confusion. She’d pegged Sheila as the run-away-from-danger type.
The further away they got from the gold door, the more she relaxed. But both Lucas and Frank seemed antsy.
Ω
In the communal area, they set up a darts tournament. Anya admitted to never playing before, so she teamed up with Dom to make it fair. They lost three games and won three before the novelty wore off.
‘I need to get out of here,’ said Sheila, shaking out her hands. ‘I can’t stand how this place closes in on me.’
‘The exit door is locked,’ said Anya.
‘I’ll come with you, see if I can figure out the screen with the map,’ said Frank. ‘Maybe we should try communicating with someone. The screen is the only thing here that might carry a signal.’
Lucas seemed up for it, but not Lilly. She settled into a beanbag at the front of the room and put on a set of headphones.
Sheila smiled at Dom. ‘While I’m gone, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.’
Dom’s jaw tightened as he glared at her.
With the others gone, Anya felt nervous at the thought of being alone with Dom. It had been too long since they’d spoken properly. She didn’t know where to begin.
She flopped into one of the beanbags at the back of the room. Lilly who looked ahead, bobbed her head in time to the music. Dom pulled up a beanbag beside Anya’s and sat on it.
He fiddled with the drawstrings on his hoodie. The tension between them cut the air like a knife. Something had changed. Maybe she had. Since Dom had injected her with something following the shock, her thoughts had become crystal clear. Now, she paid better attention to things. Before, she wouldn’t have bothered.
‘So,’ she said, staring down at her lap. ‘What was life like on the second floor?’
‘Exhausting.’ Dom gave a short laugh. ‘If you can’t already tell from the dark circles under my eyes.’
She glanced at his paler-than-normal skin. At least he was more alert than he’d been a few hours ago.
He stared at a spot on the floor. ‘We were on call day and night. Things were busy enough on the higher floors. Sometimes I didn’t sleep at all.’ He flashed a familiar grin that made her heart flutter. ‘But, hey, I found out where all the coffee mugs came from.’
Mugs that would fall from above and shatter into pieces on the atrium floor.
The more they talked, the more the tension eased. Anya settled into the beanbag.
‘What were the upper floors like?’
‘We weren’t allowed to see them. I guess they didn’t want us gaining any advantage. So we had to treat people in private rooms.’
Anya frowned.
‘There are medical prefabs on the fourth floor in Tower A. None of us had been on the floor before, so they brought the injured to us there. The first floor was different. We’d all seen it. We all knew what was going on.’ He paused and looked around the room. ‘I never treated anyone on third.’
‘Maybe there’s no need for first-aiders here.’
‘Maybe.’
His eyes pressed into every corner of the room before settling on Anya. He watched her for a quiet moment before his gaze drifted to her mouth, staying there a moment too long. She followed the hard movement in his throat as he looked into her eyes.
‘You’re different,’ he said.
‘Yeah, so are you.’
He hesitated, like he wanted to ask her something. She sat straight on the beanbag and stared at her lap, waiting for the inevitable question.
‘How are you... you know, after Tahlia?’ He shifted his weight and angled towards her. He sat forward in the bag, his knees pulled up, his arms wrapped loosely around them.
Anya chewed on her lip, tasting blood. ‘I’m still shaking.’
‘I’m sorry I couldn’t see you after, you know, when she died. I asked, but they wouldn’t let me. I even tried to pretend it was part of some routine check-up.’ He laughed and folded his arms across his broad chest.
Dom had tried to see her? Why?
‘It was probably better you didn’t. I was in a foul mood.’
‘No different to normal, then?’
He smiled and nudged her foot with his.
The tension eased some more and gave her body some relief from it. This was the Dom she remembered; the one from the playground. The one without Sheila or secrets. She thought about the older man in Southwest Essention and new questions began to pile up.
They both fell quiet. Anya stared at her hands but she felt the heat of his gaze on her.
‘There was something else I wanted to ask you,’ he said.
A thousand hummingbirds beat their wings against her chest. This moment was too good to last.
‘Why did you tend to Tahlia after she was shocked? Why not any of the others?’
She shrugged and examined each finger. ‘I was the closest, I guess.’
‘That’s not what I heard.’
Her face bloomed with a guilty heat. She didn’t look up. ‘What did you hear?’
‘That the power didn’t cut, so you had to break the contact manually.’
Anya bit her lip. Her eyes moistened. ‘I had to. Tahlia needed me. You don’t understand...’
‘It was dangerous, Anya. You could have been killed.’
‘I can handle myself.’
‘You need to be careful in here.’ He touched her hand. ‘I need you to be careful.’
She couldn’t bear his sympathy. She snatched her hand away and turned her damp eyes on him.
‘It was my fault, okay? Is that what you want me to say? I killed Tahlia. It was my fault.’ He tried to console her again but she twisted out of his reach. ‘I felt guilty. That’s why I helped.’ Her chest rose and fell, too fast. She stared at him. ‘And where were you? If you’d gotten there quicker, then maybe she’d still...’
Dom said nothing as he watched her. His own chest heaved with anger, or possibly regret, at ever having known someone like her. She covered her face with her hands and slouched into the beanbag, but then sat upright when Dom peeled away one of her hands. She looked at him, surprised, as he slipped his fingers between hers.
Anya blinked back her shock and sat rigid, her lips pressed together while she waited for his lecture. She focused on the warmth of his hand. Her ragged and uneven breathing sounded just like his.
His pity—or whatever this was—tore new holes into her already damaged heart. She tugged in an attempt to reclaim her hand, but Dom wouldn’t let go.
‘It’s not our fault that she died. It’s theirs. They ran the electricity for longer than normal.’ He rubbed his thumb in small, soothing circles over the back of her hand.
‘It was my fault,’ she whispered.
Dom stared at her. ‘How?’
She dropped her gaze. ‘I delayed her. She asked me to get her file. She was late because of me.’
Dom’s grip tightened. He lifted her chin and looked at her.
She sucked in air.
‘Listen to me. The same thing happened when I was on the first. There was a girl. Brianna. We were told the slowest had to be sacrificed for the rest of us to progress. We thought it meant get left behind, not killed.’
She looked at hi
m through tears. ‘Was it you?’
He looked away. ‘It was all of us. We were set up.’ He looked back. ‘It wasn’t your fault and it wasn’t ours. And I’m guessing you didn’t come up with the idea all on your own.’
Anya shook her head and swallowed hard. She dried her tears with her free hand.
‘I went back the next night, after the self-defence classes. But you weren’t there.’
His lips parted as his gaze drifted to her mouth, her throat, and then back to her wet eyes. He swiped a thumb across her tears. The hummingbirds returned in force. His touch felt like it was setting her skin on fire.
‘Arcis forced me to stay after my first shock. Then Sheila was shocked the next day.’
Sheila. She’d forgotten about her.
She snatched her hand out of Dom’s. He seemed reluctant to let go.
‘I don’t think Sheila would like it if we were, you know, holding hands.’ She swiped at her cheek to erase the feel of Dom’s fingers on her skin.
‘Yeah, I wanted to explain about that...’
They heard voices, and Anya stood up, almost to attention. Their moment was over. She needed to move on, to forget whatever feelings she had for Dom.
The others appeared just as Dom climbed to his feet.
‘Anything?’ he asked Sheila.
Sheila looked from Dom to Anya, then back to Dom. She rolled her eyes at him.
‘So, Frank here tried to bypass the screen by taking it off the wall. He managed to get the back off, but it shut down as soon as he did. Looks like we’re stuck here for now.’
This new brazen Sheila drew Anya’s attention. She had tied her long golden hair up in a ponytail, which showed off her equally golden skin and perfect bone structure. She wore a white sweatshirt. The Sheila she’d known on the ground floor would have complained about being in a sweatshirt.
Sheila folded her arms and lifted her perfect brows at Anya.
‘What?’ said Anya.
‘Why were you and Frank bumped from the first to the third floor?’ she said.
‘I don’t know. They said I’d done enough to impress the ninth floor.’
‘And I was just lucky, I guess.’ Frank flashed his teeth.
Sheila ignored him. ‘Like what, exactly? What did you do to impress?’
More than she should have. Not enough. Anya dropped her gaze.