I turned slowly and stared back down the dark hallway behind me. The shadows at the far end were thick and unmoving.
Nothing there.
I stood up, tightened my grip on the spear until my knuckles ached, and started back toward the office.
* * *
I made my way back up the spiral walkway two steps at a time, the speargun still tight in my hands. Adrenaline coursed through me like a current that wouldn’t shut off. Every sound snapped my head around, eyes searching the shadows behind me.
Nothing followed.
I didn’t slow down until I was standing outside thedirector’s office door.
I knocked twice.
“Sloane, it’s me.”
A pause, just long enough for my mind to go somewhere terrible.
Then the lock clicked.
The door cracked open and her face appeared, eyes scanning me from head to toe in one fast sweep—my hands, the speargun, my face. Whatever she saw there made the color drain from her cheeks.
“Callan…”
Her gaze lingered on the dark smear still drying on my cheek, on the wet stains on my sleeve.
“What happened?”
“It was Jason.”
She blinked.
For a moment, the name didn’t seem to register, as if I’d said it in a language she didn’t speak.
Then it hit.
“Jason?” She leaned past me, looking down the empty hallway. “Where is he? Is he okay?”
I swallowed hard. The words felt like swallowing glass.
“Jason was one of those things, Sloane.”
Her face changed. I watched it happen in real time—confusion shifting into shock. Her lips parted, but nothing came out.
“I think he stumbled against the keypad outside,” I said, keeping my voice as steady as I could. “Triggered the door. Wandered in.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. My hand was still shaking.
“He never made it home Wednesday.”
She stared at me, trying to reconcile the Jason she knew—the one who always burned his lunch in the break room microwave, who talked too loud on the phone, who left passive-aggressive notes about the coffee pot—with what I was telling her.
“Is he…” she started quietly.
“He’s dead.”
I hesitated.