Dorran held his hand towards Clare. She hurried to him, grateful. Ezra blocked the hallway, and she had to pass so close to him that she could smell the tang of aftershave. She kept her head down, but she felt his eyes following her. She took Dorran’s hand and slid close to him, half hidden behind his arm.
Ezra blinked slowly. His smile hadn’t budged. “Best not to do any more exploring tonight. There are too many rooms with hollows inside. If you want apples, tell me, and I’ll get them for you.”
“Yes,” she managed.
The smile widened a fraction then dropped. “Sleep well.”
Clare tugged on Dorran’s arm, pulling him back into their room. The door clicked closed. Clare released her breath and keeled forward to rest her forehead against Dorran’s shoulder.
He wrapped his arm around her. “Are you all right? What happened?”
Clare took a breath to answer then bit her tongue. She reached around Dorran to turn the room’s lights off. As darkness swallowed them, she looked towards the base of the door. The red emergency light sent a thin band of colour through the gap between the door and the carpet. The line of red was interrupted by a shadow. Ezra stood outside, so close that she could have touched him.
“I went looking for an apple,” Clare managed.
Dorran followed her gaze. She could barely see him in the light coming through the window, but his eyebrows lowered. Clare lifted a finger and pressed it over her lips, and he gave a single nod.
His voice was relaxed and easy. “You shouldn’t explore alone. Stay here with me for the rest of the night.”
Thank you, Dorran. “Yeah.”
They crossed to the bed, and Dorran shook out the sheets. They sat on the edge of the mattress, facing the door. Dorran’s arm circled her to hold her possessively. Clare clung to his hand. Together, they watched the door. Minutes ticked by. Thunder crackled. Clare flinched, and Dorran squeezed her hand, wordlessly reassuring. Then the shadows outside the door shifted as Ezra paced away. Clare waited, straining to listen, but she didn’t hear Ezra’s bedroom door open.
Dorran dipped his head so that he could whisper into her ear. “What happened?”
“That’s not Peter. It’s Ezra.”
The hand holding her twitched. She heard him open his mouth, but he didn’t immediately speak. Clare knew he must want to ask, Are you sure? But he didn’t.
While they were still in Winterbourne, he’d made a promise to never doubt anything she told him again. He hesitated for only a second before asking, “What did you see?”
She briefly told him about the things she’d uncovered in the labs above them: Peter’s body, his ID badge, and the hollow kept alive in the observation room.
“Damn it,” Dorran muttered.
“I should have known he wasn’t being honest,” Clare said. “Remember when he was telling his story, and he mentioned hiding his neighbour’s body? When you called him out on it, he backtracked and tried to say he was just hiding her from sight. I bet he only said that because he realised it put him in a bad light. He would have covered up her death if the stillness hadn’t interrupted him.” Clare shook her head, incredulous. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it sooner.”
“You had no reason to doubt him before this. Nor did I.”
Clare tilted her head up to see Dorran’s expression. He was frowning. She wondered if he was thinking along the same lines she was—that he’d been mistrustful of Peter. Dorran had discounted it as jealousy, and Clare had assumed he was just uncomfortable around strangers, but she wondered if his instincts had been picking up on the things she hadn’t noticed.
“He said he spent the morning of the stillness calling news stations,” Clare said. “He claimed he tried to get the word out and tell people to find an airtight place to hide. But I watched the news that morning. So did my sister. No one had any idea what was happening. I bet he never called anyone. He wasn’t focussed on saving people; he was in damage-control mode, which meant keeping quiet. He just edited that part of his story because he knew it would sound bad.”
“Which also explains why he was so unconcerned about how quickly the USB would reach Evandale. People are dying every day, and he pretends to care, but the truth is that he is more concerned with shoring up his own position. It does not matter to him whether the stillness is ended in a week or six months, only that he comes out of it blameless.”
“Did you notice, when he spoke about Ezra, he praised his brilliance and tried to mitigate his faults? Even when he was trying to paint Ezra as another person, he couldn’t stand to speak badly about him.”
Dorran was silent for a moment. His fingers traced over hers, creating soothing patterns. Clare tried to focus on them and not on the red glow seeping under the door.
“He will be dangerous,” Dorran said.
“Yeah. He has a gun. And he used it once before to keep his secret. Dorran…” She swallowed. “I don’t think he believed my excuse. At best, he had doubts. I think he’s paranoid.”
A hint of terse protectiveness entered Dorran’s voice. “I only caught the end of your conversation. Did he say anything to threaten you?”
“No. But I don’t know what he would have said if you hadn’t come out then.” She remembered the intense, almost unnatural look on Ezra’s face. “I think he’s afraid of you.”
“As he well should be,” Dorran muttered. “I will see him thrown through a window before he lays a hand on you.”
Clare chuckled, but then her smile dropped. The extent of their situation was starting to dawn on her. “I don’t think we can leave Helexis Tower without his help. He controls the speakers and the spotlight. There’s no way to get through the hollows without them, and I don’t know how to turn them on.”
“And he will not let us go if he thinks we know his secret.”
The stress was almost unbearable. Clare wanted to move about to expend some of the overflowing energy, but she made herself keep still. Ezra wouldn’t hear their whispers, but he might hear footsteps.
“We can’t leave the room again tonight,” she said. “We can’t give him any more reason to doubt us.”
“Is there any way to regain his trust?”
“Maybe.” Clare chewed on her lip, her mind racing. “He’s paranoid, but he has an ego too. He doesn’t just want to destroy the hollows; he wants to make sure people know it was his doing.”
And for that, he needed witnesses, people who would know him as Peter, watch him work on the cure, and help deliver it to the Evandale research station. That was why he’d sent out the broadcast and why he had been so friendly, so kind, and so eager to please. Clare and Dorran had been intended to carry accounts of him across the country as they journeyed home.
Dorran said, “We are the only people to arrive in the weeks he has been broadcasting.”
“Right. And that’s probably the strongest factor in our favour right now.”
Dorran rested his head next to hers, his eyes still affixed to the door. “What do you propose?”
“We stay here tonight. Tomorrow, we walk into the office as though nothing happened. I’ll try to find a way to talk about other survivors we met on the way here and how we’re hoping to meet up again when we leave. If I can do it in a natural way, it will put the idea in his mind that people will be waiting to hear us talk about him.”