Chương 15: And Then There Were Three

We spent those last seven minutes productively. Sameer continued rifling through files. Isabel patched up Austin's shoulder as best she could. I stared at my phone, needing to see if the three clues we'd collected pointed to any clear killer reveal. CLUES COLLECTED: >Doc Mosley was murdered (papers in throat, eyes bleached) >Rafael Ortiz vs. Anika Patel - who was drunk?

>Evan's father was a recovering alcoholic >Austin's brother saw Rafael at Murphy's the night of the crash Two of the clues were about the crash, confirming for me that the murder of Doc Mosley was directly connected to it. But it wasn't nearly enough to unmask the killer. Isabel pressed her face to the door's small window.

"Hallway looks clear, but hazy."

"Yeah, but for how long?" Austin stood, testing his shoulder.

"That guy's still out there." I shoved the phone back into my jacket.

"Then let's move while we can. And stick together." They nodded. I unlocked the door and eased it open. Thick, gray smoke rolled along the ceiling, curling down toward the floor. The smell hit me immediately; acrid, filled with chemicals. The first breath burned my throat.

"What the fuck?" Austin coughed.

"Fire?" Isabel pulled her hoodie up over her nose and mouth.

"Principal's office is still the plan," Tre said, unbothered by the smoke.

"We just have to get there." We stepped out into the hazy hallway. Trekking to the principal's office was brutal, as the temperature climbed the closer we got. The air became so hot that every inhale burned like breathing in steam off a pot of boiling water. The smoke thickened. Hacking coughs erupted from the group with each step. Visibility plunged to zero, and I worried we'd gotten turned around or something. Then an orange wound opened in the haze ahead of us, revealing the source of the smoke.

The hallway was lined with three classrooms, two on the right side and one on the left. All three were on fire. Angry flames beat against the windows, as smoke billowed into the hall from under all three doors. It struck me as odd that the infernos somehow remained contained to the rooms themselves, though.

"The office is around that corner." Austin pointed to the left side of the T-junction at the far end of the hall. Heat turned the air into a wavering wall between us and the corner. Though the flames hadn't reached the hall itself, the sheer temperature radiating from those rooms would be like walking past open blast furnaces. The whole corridor was an obvious trap. Heavy metal tracks were set into the ceiling. There was one at this end, one halfway down, and one just before the bend in the hall. Fire doors.

Isabel backed up a step.

"We can't go through that." Sameer wiped sweat from his forehead. We weren't even close yet, and he was already dripping.

"There's gotta be another way."

"There isn't," Austin said.

"The main office is in the administrative wing. One way in from this side of the building."

"Then we go the long way around—" There's no way those tracks aren't door triggers, Tre said in my head. The game wants you to run it. There has to be another way. I checked the hallway behind us. Still empty. It didn't give me any relief.

"We don't have time to navigate the whole school," I said for Austin and Tre's benefit. Sameer stared at the crackling orange glow.

"What if the glass breaks? What if the doors burst?" My eyes ricocheted between the burning doors and the impossible calm of the ceiling. It should have been on fire, but it wasn't.

"They won't." I wasn't as confident as I sounded, because with Maltheris at the wheel, everything was unpredictable.

"You don't know that," Isabel insisted.

"No. I don't. But the ceiling isn't catching fire, which makes no sense, unless the fire's controlled by the game," I reasoned.

"We need those keys; the game wants us to try for them, not burn us before we begin." That's the thing about gauntlets, Tre said. The game is waiting for someone to flinch. So, once you go, you don't stop. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings. I zipped up my jacket, even though it wouldn't help.

"Cover your faces. Move fast."

"Once we go," I said, "don't stop." Sameer held his shirt up over his nose.

"Fuck it. Let's go." We moved toward the first classroom. Through the wire-reinforced window: fire. Bright and clean, the kind that devours everything. The heat radiated through the glass, searing my skin. I raised my arm to shield my face and kept moving. Behind me, Austin grunted in pain.

"This is worse than I thought!"

"Don't stop!" We hurried past, and the relief of getting beyond the first window was immediate. The air was still hot, still thick with smoke, but bearable again. For about three seconds. Just long enough for me to glance up at the metal tracks for the second fire door, halfway down the hall. It was still raised for now. The second classroom burned hotter. And it wasn't empty. It was filled with students. The flames burned bluer, and the smoke pouring out was thick enough to sting my eyes.

But the scene inside the room was impossible. Some students were completely engulfed, others were untouched, and still others burned only in patches. Yet they all sat in still silence, flipping pages, staring at the board while the fire bloomed up the walls behind them. One boy had his hand raised in a question; his arm was burned down to exposed tendons. The heat coming off that window was a physical force. It stopped me mid-step, my body refusing to move closer.

"It's too hot!" Isabel's voice was muffled through her hoodie.

"I can't—""YES, YOU CAN!" I grabbed her wrist and jerked her past the second window. The heat seared my right side, the side facing the glass. My jacket heated up like metal left in the blazing sun all day. My cheek burned. My ear burned. Even the air I dragged into my lungs felt like it was scorching me from the inside. Sameer was wheezing behind us, doubled over. Austin had his hands pressed to his face. Tre scaled my back and around to my front, burrowing into my jacket like he was trying to hide inside me.

His little vinyl hands were so hot they stung when he gripped me. The third classroom burned white. Orange-white flames that hurt to look at, that made the air waver like the world was melting. Before we even got close, a wall of heat slowed our pace to a crawl.

"I can't do this," Austin yelled, voice breaking.

"I can't!" But we had to. He was wasting time. My eyes shot from his terrified face to the final set of tracks just before the corner. We're not gonna make it. The thought should have scared me more than it did.

"MOVE!" I shouted, charging forward into the fire. We staggered forward, and the heat became something alive, something malicious. It pressed against every exposed inch of skin, blistered my lips, and dried out my eyes so fast it hurt to blink. The smell hit first. Sweet, fatty, human. Inside the room, everyone was on fire, including the teacher. Suddenly, they were moving and screaming. The students, fully ablaze, clawed at their own skin as it blistered and split.

Flesh peeled off in sheets that stuck to their desks. Their eyes— Fuck. Their eyes boiled in their sockets before bursting, steam hissing from the holes. I squeezed my own shut reflexively, but the image was already burned in. I retched as my body tried to physically expel what I'd seen. They thrashed around, blind and burning, colliding with one another as the teacher at the front writhed silently, mouth open in a scream I couldn't hear over the fire.

A girl lurched upright, hair a torch, and slammed her fists against the window. Once. Twice. The glass spiderwebbed with cracks, her skin sliding off her knuckles like wet paper.

"IT'S BREAKING!" Isabel screamed. I sprinted away, dragging her with me. Tre held me close, and I prayed his skin hadn't started to melt. Get past the window, get past the window, GET PAST THE WINDOW — Smoke filled my lungs, and the heat singed the ends of my hair. Someone was sobbing, I think Isabel, and then we were around the corner, stumbling into cooler air, collapsing against the far wall. We stood there, doubled over, gasping. The air finally didn't feel like inhaling needles.

Tre released his grip on my jacket, and I checked him for damage. His vinyl skin had bubbled in places, but he was otherwise unharmed.

"Everybody okay?" My right cheek throbbed and was hot to the touch. Isabel nodded weakly, staring at her blistered hands.

"Yeah."

"Austin? Sameer?" Nothing. I looked up.

"Guys?" It was just the three of us.

"Where's—" Isabel started. Austin, yelling, muffled by the fire, cut her off. Through the smoke, I could just make out two figures in the hall between the second and third classrooms. Austin was on his knees. Sameer crouched beside him, tugging at his arm.

"COME ON!" Sameer's voice was barely audible over the fire.

"WE HAVE TO MOVE!" But Austin wasn't moving. He had his arms wrapped around his head, body curled in on itself. He shut down completely.

"AUSTIN!" I screamed.

"GET UP!" He didn't respond. Didn't even look up. Sameer pleaded with him.

"Please, man, PLEASE! We're almost there!" Austin shook his head furiously. Whatever had gotten him through the first two windows had just... broken. The third one, with all the screaming, had been too much. Sameer tried again, covering his face with his arm, but the temperature was too intense. He couldn't get close.

"COME ON!" Sameer screamed at Austin.

"JUST MOVE!" Austin didn't even flinch. Just stayed curled into himself, arms clamped over his head as if he was hiding from the fire. The sound of heavy machinery fighting itself filled the hallway.

"What's that—" Isabel started. The fire doors descended from the ceiling in sections. They were heavy barriers designed to compartmentalize the building. CLUNK. The first one slammed down behind Sameer and Austin, sealing the corridor behind them.

"SAMEER! RUN!" Isabel screamed. But Sameer was already moving. He'd released Austin's hand and was sprinting toward us. The second fire door fell fast. Sameer dove headfirst to slide under. The door slammed down with a metallic CLANG, inches from Sameer's feet, separating him from Austin. Meaning, Austin was trapped in the far part of the corridor by himself. Sameer crawled on his hands and knees, gasping, trying to get up. The third door would drop any second. We all screamed.

"RUN!" He staggered to his feet and lurched forward. Ten feet from us. Eight feet. Five. The last fire door crashed down from the ceiling with overwhelming finality. Isabel lunged forward, slamming her burned hands against it.

"NO! SAMEER! SAMEER!" Muffled banging from the other side. Then, his voice, distorted through the metal: "I'm okay! I'm okay!" He was okay, but he wasn't with us. Three separate compartments. Three fire doors. Austin was trapped at the far end with the burning classrooms. Sameer was sealed in the middle section. And we were here, cut off from both of them.

"We have to get to the office," Tre said.

"There's gotta be a control panel! Or a fire suppression, or door overrides." Isabel looked up, tears streaking through the soot on her face.

"You really think we can shut it down?"

"We have to try," I said.

"It's the only move we have."

"Then let's fucking move." Isabel pushed away from the door, hands shaking. Behind the metal, Sameer's voice, muffled and distant, calling for help. We ran toward the principal's office.