The phone slipped from her fingers and clattered onto the floor between us.
She recoiled from it, scrambling backward until her back slammed against the interior door, breathing fast and broken. Her hands trembled, pressed against her mouth as if she were trying to hold the sound in.
“Sloane—”
I grabbed the phone.
The screen, still lit.
A picture.
A man. Slumped against a concrete wall in what looked like a stairwell. The image somewhat blurry, poorly lit, taken fast by someone whose hands lacked steadiness. But there was no mistaking what I was seeing.
His neck appeared ripped open.
Not cut. Not slashed cleanly. Torn. Like someone had bitten into him and chewed on him.
Blood soaked his shirt, crimson red and wet, spreading down his chest and pooling beneath him on the steps. His free hand was pressed against the wound, fingers red.
His eyes were wide with terror. Aware. Gazing directly into the camera.
Beneath the image was a single message.
help. trapped in stairwell, please
My stomach dropped.
I looked up slowly at Sloane.
She was staring at the phone in my hand, her entire body trembling. Not just her hands—all of her.
“Do you know him?” I asked quietly.
She didn’t answer right away. Her lips quivered. Her eyes were glassy, unfocused, as if she were seeing something faraway that I had no ability to reach.
“SLOANE!” My voice sharp, hoping to reach her.
“My boyfriend,” she whispered.
The words broke apart in her mouth. She said it again, quieter, as if she were trying to make herself understand it. “He’s my boyfriend. Peter.”
I looked down at the photo again. At his face. At the fear in his eyes. At the blood still spreading beneath his palms, dark and impossible to stop.
He was alive.
At least he was.
But whatever had done that to him was still there. Still in that building. Still between him and any way out.
And we were here.
Locked inside an aquarium.
Miles away from being able to do a single goddamn thing about it.
* * *
I stared at the phone for another second before lowering it slowly.