Chapter 4: The Hollow Wall

I got home before Britt could finish tearing through my room.

I found her kneeling inside my open closet with my winter coats piled behind her.

"Maeve!" She jumped up and hugged me hard. "You're back early!"

"Work called me in at dawn," I said. "What are you doing?"

"Looking for my phone charger, hehe."

She was holding a flashlight.

I looked at the coats, the shoes and the boxes she had dragged out onto the carpet.

"You're covered in grass," she said.

I glanced down at my sleeves.

"I took a shortcut through the park."

"At six in the morning."

"It was a bad day to wear white."

She laughed, and so did I, and neither of us believed the other.

Then she tilted her head toward the back of the closet.

"Funny thing," she said. "Your closet is shallower than your bedroom. I measured it with my feet."

"The builder made a mistake," I said.

"Then why does the back wall sound hollow?"

She rapped her knuckles on the panel.

It gave off a dull, empty knock.

I kept my face still.

Behind that panel was a steel door, a concrete room and every piece of my future.

"It's the service hatch for the water main," I said. "Don't touch it. If you break the valve, we flood the whole floor."

"Let me see it open."

"I'd have to call the building engineer."

"Then call him."

"Tomorrow," I said. "He doesn't work weekends."

She watched me for a long moment.

Then she smiled and let her hand fall.

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