Countdown

“I heard it.”

“So?”

“I could have sworn this was the right turn. I know this neighborhood. At least, I used to know it. It’s been a while, though. Things change.” His dark brows drew together.

I was now bracing his full weight against me to keep him from toppling over. “Yeah, you’re a whole lot of help.”

“I guess we won’t be winning the grand prize, will we? Knocked out at level two. It’s embarrassing.” He said it so wryly that I knew he was joking.

Joking. At a time like this? He was even crazier than he looked.

He was also very pale, and there was a sheen of perspiration on his grimy face. My hand was pressed to his chest to hold him steady, and his heart beat erratically. I pulled at his shirt to take a quick peek at the wound underneath. It looked raw and open, as if it had been inflicted with a sharp object like a big butcher’s knife. Definitely not from a gun. I’d seen bullet wounds up close and personal before—the image seared into my brain forever, along with my father’s glazed, unseeing eyes.

Blood oozed steadily out of Rogan’s shoulder.

“You’re a mess,” I informed him.

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“You stink, too.”

“Again, well aware. Like I said, they didn’t give me a few hours at the spa before locking me up in that room so I could smell like a flower for you.”

My throat thickened with panic. “You really think this is where we should be? Are you sure?”

“I was. But there aren’t any doors. There’s nothing. And if we’d reached the finish line, you’d think there’d be some sort of sign.” His words finally betrayed a sharp edge of strain.

“I’m going to let go of you now,” I said.

“Thanks for the warning.”

He eased back against the concrete wall behind him, and I stepped away to stand in the middle of the alley. I turned around slowly, trying hard to ignore the ticking that was potentially counting down the last seconds of my life.

“I used to watch TV shows like this,” I said. “Not exactly like this one, of course, but they have the races and the puzzles to solve. Usually at this early level of a game, it’s still fairly easy. Or at least, not insanely impossible to figure out.” I glared at the camera hovering in the air four feet from my face.

“You don’t know the people who set this game up. It’s all about the losing, not the winning, for them.”

“I’m just saying that it can’t be the end. Not yet. What’s the fun in eliminating contestants in level two?”

I scanned the alley. Two brick walls. One concrete wall, gray and unyielding, behind Rogan’s hunched-over frame. I looked up. A sliver of slate-gray sky showed above the thirty-story buildings that surrounded us like cold, emotionless sentries.

“What did you think we were running toward?” I asked. “What did you see on that map?”

He looked around. “It was an office. I remember it from before I got sent away. I could have sworn it was right here.”

“One minute remains in this level of Countdown.”

“59...58...57...”

There was a Dumpster to the side of us, full to overflowing. Strange, considering that the neighborhood was deserted. A rotting apple core lay to the side of it, the fruit turning brown. No flies, though. It didn’t seem as if anyone or anything lived here anymore, but that piece of fruit didn’t seem as old as it should have, considering the surroundings.

“What kind of office was it?” I asked.

“What?”

“What kind of office?” I repeated, loud enough to be heard over the countdown.

“It was a...a doctor’s office. A psychiatrist.”

“Let me guess, your doctor?”

Rogan’s expression shadowed. “I had a few appointments there, yeah.”

“Obviously he wasn’t very good at what he did if you went psycho, anyway.”

He glowered at me.

A doctor’s office. Right here. But now it was gone? Was Rogan tripping out, or was he remembering something important?

I sure hoped it was something important. We didn’t have time to be wrong.

I went toward that Dumpster and jumped in.

“What are you doing?” Rogan demanded.

“Trying very hard not to die.”

I plunged my hands into muck and filth. Rotting food, discarded boxes, plastic bags filled with rancid garbage. Living on the streets had given me a necessary talent for Dumpster diving. You could find some really good stuff if you had the time and motivation to go searching.

Currently I didn’t have the time, but I sure as hell had the motivation.

I didn’t know what I was looking for. Even when I found it, I still wasn’t sure.

“24...23...22...”

It was a bell attached to a sign that read: Please ring bell and the receptionist will be right with you.

Okay, it was something.

I held my breath and rang the bell.

Nothing happened for a moment, and what little hope I had started to fade, but then I heard something. A heavy, metallic sound.

“Kira. Look.” Rogan pointed at the ground.

I looked over the edge of the Dumpster to see that a door in the ground had slid open. I hadn’t even noticed the edges of it before.

“10...9...8...”