Chapter 14 · Run Before the Clock Hits Zero

"Mark." Emma's hand closed around his wrist, hard. "We need to move."

He couldn't look away from the door. The one Emma's voice had come through. The one that sounded like David Roy—her dead husband—asking her to open up.

"Mark." She yanked him back a step. "That's not him. You know that's not him."

"Then what the hell is it?"

"Kyle." Her grip tightened. "Playing another card. We go now or we don't go at all."

Footsteps. Heavy. Coming up the stairwell behind them.

Mark's hand went to his waistband. Empty. He'd dropped the gun in the last room when the blackout hit, when he'd seen Emma's face in front of him and his own hands reaching for her throat.

"Cops," Emma said. "Someone called it in. Gunshots, screaming, the works."

"How do you—"

"Because I would've called it in." She pulled him toward the fire exit at the end of the hall. "If I wanted someone trapped."

The door behind them rattled. Not the one with David's voice. The stairwell door. The footsteps stopped. A radio crackled.

"This is a bad idea," Mark said.

"Running's always a bad idea." Emma hit the fire exit bar with her shoulder.