Chapter 23
Katya
My muscles all froze, leaving me unable to budge.
“Katya?”
I couldn’t even look at Carter. My body was stuck facing the now-open wall. I’d spent so long hoping to find the secret wing. Now I wasn’t sure I could face it.
Maybe I should have listened to Carter and gone to Tap’s. What if he was right about not wanting to find out what was inside?
Could it be worse than my shifter relatives?
“Katya?” Carter repeated. “We can always come back. Nobody else knows what we’ve found. We—”
“No.” I sucked in a deep breath. “We’ve made it this far. Walking away would be foolish.”
“So, you want to go in?” He tugged on my arm.
I didn’t move.
“The wing isn’t going anywhere. We can always grab a bite to eat and think this over.”
“No. Let’s do this.” I took a deep breath, allowing it to reach every inch of me. Then I stepped toward the dark hallway.
Carter kept his arm around my shoulder, and we stepped into the dark, musty hall together. The blackness clung to us like a heavy weight, pressing on all sides.
“It reeks of illness,” Carter whispered.
“Sickness has a smell?”
“Yeah. It’s that pungent odor in the air.”
I sniffed the air and sucked in dust. After coughing, I sneezed twice. “Well, I guess if anyone’s living here, we’ve alerted them that they have company.”
He squeezed my shoulder. “If they’re as ill as they smell, I doubt they can do much damage. Though I have to wonder how anyone could survive in here for so long, especially when sick.”
“They could infect us. Or what if it’s the ghost? The one that tried to drown me?”
“Do you want to turn back?” he asked.
“No way. Anyway, I’m fully vaccinated.”
“There might be a disease from a long time ago. Something nobody can protect us from.”
“I know you can’t see me, but I’m glaring at you.”
“I’m just saying it could be anything.” He turned on his flashlight. It shone a small beam, exposing very little. More doors, just like all the others.
Though it should’ve felt familiar, a chill ran down my spine, and I shivered. It may have looked the same, but it wasn’t at all.
We crept down the hallway, only able to see what Carter’s tiny flashlight exposed.
“Is there a way to turn on the lights in here?” He stopped.
I nearly bumped into him. “I wouldn’t know. It’s my first time here, too.”
“How do you turn on the lights in the other sections?” He shone the beam slowly up and down the wall. “I don’t see any light switches.”
I thought for a moment. “There’s a master set of lights in the employee’s area of the lobby.”
“And there’s nothing for a wing that nobody knows about? I’d think that’d answer everyone’s questions about this wing.”
“So would this.” I panned my hands around us. “I don’t know anything about that control panel. It might just be a general set that turns it on for the whole building.”
“But you’d think there’d be something separate for each wing.”
“Don’t ask me. I’m not some electrical wizard. Plus, I can’t explain how people from a hundred years ago or more thought about wiring this huge building.”
“True.” He started walking again. “If the lights are connected, I’m sure they burned out years ago. Let’s see what we can find.”
The farther we crept, the closer I moved to Carter. Goose bumps had formed on my arms, and they weren’t going away.
It seemed to take forever because he shone the little light everywhere. Had the wing not been sealed off and dark, it’d have been just like all the others.
We both froze simultaneously.
A light moan sounded. Where from, was the question.
I held my breath, waiting. Listening.
It sounded again. I couldn’t tell where it came from.
A million questions ran through my mind, but not one found its way to my mouth.
Part of me wanted to run. The rest of me wanted to find out who or what was moaning in a place that had been sealed off for decades, maybe longer. My feet didn’t move.
Moan.
I grabbed onto Carter’s arm. He put a finger to his mouth and glanced around.
One long moan sounded. We both pointed to a door on our left.
My mouth went dry, and my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.
Carter walked toward the door, nearly dragging me since I couldn’t get my body to cooperate.
I’d been the one insistent on finding the answers. Now I was nothing more than a scaredy-cat. I could shift into a jaguar but now feared the dark.
Carter reached for the doorknob. I held my breath, my mouth somehow managing to grow drier.
He shone the light up and down the door. There was nothing special about it. He grasped the knob.
I clung to his arm, but at the same time, I was prepared to run. Run, and never look back. Although if we’d just woken some ancient evil, running probably wouldn’t do me any good.
A chill ran down my spine. The temperature seemed to drop ten degrees.
Carter twisted the doorknob.
It actually turned.
I stared in horror.
Why had I been so insistent? So curious? If I’d have stopped for a moment to think about it, I’d have remembered that curiosity killed the cat.
Carter and I were both part jaguar. Members of the cat family.
What had I done?
There was no turning back now.
Carter pushed the door open.
The moaning grew louder.
I wanted to grab Carter and pull him down the hallway, close the hidden door, and never return. Maybe live out the rest of our days in Tap’s spare room.
Instead, Carter walked into the room.
I stared at his back, unable to speak.
“Katya,” he said. “You have to come see this.”
“Katya?” came a dry, ragged voice. “Katya’s here?”
Whatever it was, it wanted me.