He leaned close, his breathless voice in her ear. “Mechanical, I think. It blends into the thunder, but it is something different.”
Clare took another step. She was nearly at the carpet. A faint light blinked at the other end of the hall. She hadn’t seen that light before, and it took her a second to realise where it came from.
He brought the elevators back online.
Ezra had realised they could outmatch him in speed, so he’d taken away that advantage. But it gave Clare an opportunity. She grabbed Dorran’s arm. “We need to shut off the power. Quickly!”
He turned back towards the stairs, Clare following closely behind. She could make out the mechanical noises of the elevator gears turning as it drew closer. They skidded around the corner and onto the highest floor. The door to the maintenance room was locked, but it was only made of wood. Dorran lifted his foot and kicked. The wood cracked as it splintered, and when he kicked it again, the door burst inwards, the lock surrounded by a halo of broken wood.
“Get the lights.” He was already fumbling for the lids on the generator.
Clare felt for the switches beside the door and turned them. Rows of lights blinked on overhead. Dorran bent over the generator, his face full of hard angles and his hands buried inside the machine. The lights stayed on for all of two seconds before they died with a long, drawn-out whine as the power drained out of the building.
The darkness was oppressive. Clare closed her eyes and tried to remember the last time they’d visited the highest floor. Ezra had brought a torch. He’d been forgetful with it. He’d put it down on the workbench, and she didn’t remember him picking it up again after that. Clare moved towards the surface, clipped her hip on the edge of a pipe, and hissed.
“Clare?”
“Just a moment.” She found the bench and ran her hands across the surface. Her fingers found something cylindrical and cold. Light exploded around them as she turned on the torch.
“I think we’re okay.” She moved back towards Dorran, her ears trained on the lower level. “I think we cut the power before he could open the elevator doors. He’ll be trapped in there until we turn the power back on.”
“Good.” Dorran turned so that his back was against the generator and slid to the ground. He exhaled deeply as his long legs stretched out.
Clare dropped down beside him. She finally had a chance to get a good look at him, and what she saw filled her with quiet dread.
Blood ran from his nose and lips, though it was already drying. It was tacky in his hair too. He’d taken on an awful grey shade. His beautiful eyes were deeply shadowed and duller than she was used to.
Clare ran her fingertips across his cheek as gently as she could, and he leaned into the touch. “Does it hurt?”
“No.”
There was an undercurrent in how he carried himself that made her think he was lying.
“Oh, Dorran.” She trailed her fingers over his chin, where the blood had cracked. “What did he do to you?”
Dorran closed his eyes. He looked exhausted. “Don’t worry about that. We just need to find a way out of the tower.”
Clare bit her lip and turned the torch across the space, scanning the room. Ezra seemed to have spent a lot of time up there, probably trying to keep the generator running. Bottles of water lay discarded on benches, along with thick manuals and open boxes of supplies.
If we can find his computers and figure out how to activate the lights and alarms, we might be able to leave while he’s trapped in the elevator.
Her stomach coiled. Leaving Ezra to starve might be even crueller than unleashing hollows on him. Clare tried to balance her perspective as her mind, panicked, darted between ideas. Ezra would probably figure out how to get out of the elevator. She just hoped that wouldn’t happen too quickly.
Dorran suddenly moved. He bent over, facing away from her, and retched. Her torchlight picked up bright-red blood pooling over the ground, and Clare clutched at her throat. “Dorran?”
He held up a hand, asking her to wait. The fingers shook.
Please, Dorran, please hold on.
The panic was rising like a tsunami. She didn’t know what had happened to him, and there was precious little she could do to help. She couldn’t even give him time to rest. Each minute inside Helexis was an extra minute Ezra would be working on opening the elevator.
Leaving the tower was only one issue. Even if they figured that out, Clare didn’t know what they would do afterwards. Dorran wouldn’t be able to run much farther, or even walk. She wasn’t strong enough to carry him. Blocked roads meant not even a car could help. She felt like she was being pressed in on all sides, with no routes to escape.
Dorran slumped back against the generator. The muscles in his face were slack. He’s dehydrated. That, at least, is something I can help. Clare crossed to the bottles she’d seen on the bench. She found an unopened one and broke the seal as she returned to her companion.
“Dorran?” She crawled to his side, afraid to touch him in case she somehow made him worse. “We have water. It might help.”
“Mm.” His eyes cracked open. “Thank you.”
“Shh, don’t try to talk. We’ll be okay. I… I’ll…”
Clare wanted to promise him she would solve everything. That he didn’t need to worry. That he just needed to stay alive, and everything would be all right. She felt like a liar.
He drank slowly then lowered the bottle while it was still half full. “Is there a cloth anywhere?”
“Hang on. I’ll find one.” Clare sprang back to her feet. The room was cluttered, but for all of its chaos, she couldn’t find any fabric. She took up a knife and used it to rip the sleeve off her jacket, then she returned to Dorran and offered it to him. “Sorry, this is all I could find.”
“It’s perfect.” He poured water on it and used it to clean his face. Clare huddled at his side as he worked. His spare arm slipped around her shoulders, and for a moment, Clare was transported back to a better time. When they had been at Winterbourne, they had often sat like that in front of the fire: on the rug, legs stretched towards the flames, Dorran’s arm around her. She leaned her head against his chest to complete the picture. She wished she could pull back the smells from those earlier times too—clean linens and burning wood, instead of the blood, metal, and stress that surrounded her.
Dorran threw the cloth away. He’d cleared the blood off his face, but she could still see some of the stickiness in his hair. The grey shade wasn’t improved. She wrapped her hands around his arm, desperately holding him against herself.
“Don’t be afraid.” He tilted far enough to kiss the top of her head. “We will make this work. We always do.”
“We always do,” she echoed.
All the while, her subconscious was tracking each passing second. Dorran needed rest, but the amount she could give him—a minute or two at most—seemed horribly inadequate. She stretched them as long as she dared, counting the seconds, pushing for just a little longer.
A noise echoed from deeper in the building. Clare squeezed her eyes closed, praying it was just the metal complaining under the storm’s strain. If Ezra had gotten out of the elevator, they were sitting ducks. The torch at her side gave them a little bubble of light. She could turn it off and let them take shelter in the darkness. But even that would only delay the inevitable. Ezra would be coming up to restore the generator. If they tried to run, they would meet him on the stairs.