My Boyfriend and Brother Left Me in the Escape Room novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: Power Cut

The storm hit on Wednesday night while I was in the shower.

The loft's bathroom has no window. I had been telling myself that all week, standing under the hot water with the door open and every lamp burning in the next room.

Then the lamps went out. The bathroom light went with them, and the whole building hummed down into silence.

The dark came down.

I stood in the shower with the water still running warm over my shoulders and could not make my hands find the tap.

My breath started to saw in and out. I slid down the tile until I was sitting in the tub in the black, arms over my head.

*One. Two. Three.*

I was eight years old. I could smell old coal and wet brick.

*Four. Five.*

Something knocked on the bathroom door, twice, gently.

"Veronica. It's Orin."

I could not answer.

"The whole block's out. I'm on the other side of this door. I'm not opening it. You open it, when you want to."

A pause.

"I'm sitting on the floor with my back against it. I have a headlamp, and it's pointed at the ceiling. I'll turn it on when you say."

*Nobody is ever locked in.* He had said it to me in the Hole, in that same level voice.

I shut off the water. My hand found a towel by feel.

I crawled across the wet tile to the door and pulled it open.

Light spilled in from the ceiling of the loft, a soft yellow ring.

He sat on the floorboards in sweatpants and a T-shirt, wet from the rain, with the headlamp tilted up and his knees drawn in.

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