Chapter 13
The voice outside said move and the door frame rattled without opening.
It wasn't a knock. It was a test. The dark wood shivered in its frame and the frosted glass on the right flooded solid red, that emergency light sweeping across the entryway floor, up my olive cargo pants, across Zora's jacket. I could see the dust in the lamplight suddenly sharp, the gold pendant against my black zip top catching the red and going copper. We hadn't touched the handles. We were still side by side facing the doors like the video prompt had frozen us there, her phone in her hand showing ZORA BANKS EXEMPT in green, my phone showing NYLA BANKS SELECTED in red, both screens lit.
Zora's fingers dug into my wrist. Not grabbing my hand. Grabbing the bone.
"Don't," I whispered. I didn't know what I meant. Don't open it. Don't move. Don't leave me.
The frame rattled again. Louder this time. The deadbolt buzzed against the strike plate and stayed there, humming. From outside, not loud, that same flat voice we'd been hearing through the door: "Continuity response. Selected subject located. Remain at doorway."
Zora didn't remain. She pulled.
She yanked me backward off the rug. My sneakers caught and I stumbled a half step before my body remembered how to run. The warm lamplight in the entryway fell away as she dragged me toward the interior hall, away from the double doors, away from the red wash on the glass.
"Garage," she breathed. It was barely a word. "Back hall. Come on."
The second scene was the hallway and it was too narrow for how loud we were.
We'd scouted it twenty minutes earlier when the SUV first parked — the little jog past the coat closet, the laundry door that never latched, the back hall that ran straight to the garage interior door. Then it had felt like planning. Now it felt like falling.
My chest was doing that shallow thing it did when I was scared, small fast breaths I couldn't control. Zora's reddish tint caught the hallway light as she pulled me. Her brown crop top under the dark open jacket rode up a little and I could see her ribs moving hard.
"Phones," I said, and my voice cracked.
They were both on the entry table. We'd put them there like an altar, both screens up, both FINAL NOTICE interfaces glowing. Green and red side by side. I'd been holding the red one. She'd been holding the green one. When she pulled me, we'd left them.
If we left them, they would track split. If we took one, the other would be a beacon at the door.
I twisted out of her grip and lunged back two steps. The entryway was still red. The door frame gave another hard rattle, wood popping. I snatched both phones, one in each hand, the glass hot from being lit so long. The red SELECTED icon pulsed against my left palm, the green EXEMPT steady against my right.
Zora stared at me for a fraction of a second, eyes wide, then nodded once. Understanding without discussion.
"Both," she said. "Don't drop either."
I shoved them together into my left hand so my right was free, my gold bracelet clinking against the cases. We moved again.
The third scene was the laundry doorway and the choice that wasn't a choice.
The back hall was dark except for the kitchen light bleeding in from the far end. The garage door was at the end, white, with its little square window. Between us and it, the laundry door stood half open, and the house's smart lock there — the one that had never worked right — clicked.
It clicked locked.
We both heard it. Zora hit the handle anyway. It didn't turn.
"House thinks you're the threat," she said under her breath, angry at the house like it was a person. She pounded the door once with the flat of her hand, then instantly changed course, pulling me left around the little hall table. Her shoulder knocked a framed photo askew. Neither of us stopped to fix it.
Behind us, from the entryway we'd abandoned, the buzzing at the front doors stopped. That was worse than the rattling. Silence meant they were done testing and were starting something else. A new tone started out there, lower, a steady electronic beep that carried through the wood.
Zora didn't look back. "Keep moving. Don't listen to it."
My legs were moving but my head wanted to turn. Selected subject located had been the line from the audio. The next line was supposed to be the door opening. I kept waiting for the cold air from outside to hit my back.
It didn't. Not yet.
The last stretch to the garage was ten feet of linoleum and shadow.
Zora got there first, hand on the white garage door handle, and I crowded right behind her, both phones clutched so tight my knuckles ached. Her back was against my front for a second, her hair brushing my cheek, both of us breathing fast and shallow. I could smell her shampoo and the faint detergent from the laundry we'd never folded.
She looked at me over her shoulder. Her face was tense, protective, exactly what the prompt called her, but her eyes were doing that micro-expression thing — a quick flick down to the phones in my hand, up to my face, holding there.
"You good?" she whispered.
I nodded. I couldn't speak. My throat had closed around all the lines we hadn't said yet. I'm exempt. No. I'm not letting them take you. I'm not talking about them. I'm talking about you.
The garage door handle was cold under her palm. The little window showed black inside, no light yet, our old car in there somewhere behind that door. The beep from the front entryway kept going, steady, patient.
Zora turned the handle.
It turned. It wasn't locked. The house had let this one stay open.
She pulled it an inch and cool garage air with a faint gasoline smell slipped out. From the entryway behind us, far enough now that it felt like another house, the front door frame gave one more sharp rattle — still holding, not breached — and the red light swept down the hall and touched the back of my cargo pants.
May you like
We were no longer at the doors. We were in motion toward the garage, both phones in my hand, pursuit shifting from a siege at the front to a chase inside our own perimeter.
Zora pulled the garage door wide enough for us to slip through, and I went with her.
