Dead Air by Michelle Schusterman (best books under 200 pages txt) 📕

and Xs were still flashing on the screen. Finally, with a strangled grunt, he threw open his door. “We walk. Hurry.”

I scrambled out of the taxi, and Oscar and I hurried after the driver as he set off down the path toward the van. I couldn’t keep myself from staring up at the prison, taking in every detail—the faded graffiti and large patches of dark mold spreading over the walls, the slits revealing the inky blackness of each cell, the tiny points protruding from the coils at the top of the electric fence, waiting to gouge and slash anyone who somehow managed to get that close to freedom . . .

It was horrifying, the kind of place that should have made me want to jump back in the taxi and get as far away as possible. But my fingers still itched to pull out my camera and take a few shots.

“Hello?” Cyril approached the van, casting anxious glances at the prison entrance every other second. There was a muffled response from inside, and my heart lifted. The feeling didn’t last long.

“What are you two doing here?” Roland emerged from the van, staring from me to Oscar in disbelief, and my throat went dry. I glanced around him, but the van was empty. Cyril stepped forward and thrust something at Roland—the note Margot had given him. Oscar and I exchanged anxious looks as Roland skimmed the letter. When he finished, he gave us a calculating look.

“So what’s the emergency?”

“Uh . . .” I glanced helplessly at Oscar. “I need to talk to my dad.”

Before Roland could respond, Cyril cleared his throat loudly. “You stay?” he asked me pointedly, already taking a step back.

“Just wait one minute.” Turning, I squinted at the prison entrance, but there was no sign of Dad or anyone else.

“They’re setting up in the mess hall.” Roland leaned against the van, eyeing me. “Something wrong?”

“I need to talk to my dad,” I repeated. My palms were starting to sweat. “I’m not—”

“Hey!” Oscar yelled. I spun around to see Cyril sprinting toward his cab. We stared as he threw himself inside and slammed the door. The tires spun on the gravel as the cab turned in a sharp circle, leaving a cloud of dust in its wake as it sped back toward the main road.

Shaken, I exchanged a panicked look with Oscar. Roland waited to speak until the sound of the taxi’s engine had faded.

“You two really shouldn’t have come here. It’s too dangerous.”

I shivered, but managed to keep my voice steady. “I want to talk to my dad.”

Roland nodded slowly. “All right, hang on. I just need to grab the extra flashlights.” Casting a quick glance around, he hopped back into the van. “Stay right there.”

My breath grew shallow. Reaching out, I touched Oscar’s arm and nodded at the door. He stared blankly for a few seconds, then his eyes widened in understanding.

Quietly, we edged closer to the van. Oscar pressed his hands to the sliding door, I grabbed the handle, and we yanked hard. Roland spun around just as the door slammed shut.

“Hey!”

I stumbled back as he tugged at the door, but the exterior locks worked just as well as they had on Mi Jin. Turning, Oscar and I left Roland yelling and pounding on the windows and ran flat out to the prison entrance.

CHAPTER TWENTY

THE THING 3: ESCAPE INTO THE ABYSS

Alarm: TAKE YOUR MEDS!

“Okay.” Oscar leaned against the metal double doors, breathing heavily. “That was dumb. That was really, really dumb. Aunt Lidia’s going to freak out.”

Smiling shakily, I rubbed a stitch in my side. “Yeah. We’re so dead.” Oscar half-laughed, half-groaned. Neither of us spoke for a full minute. I imagined I could still hear Roland, yelling and pounding on the windows of the van. Oscar was right—Dad was going to flip when he found out what we’d done.

Well, whatever. Saving him from a psychopath—possibly two—would be worth the punishment. Hopefully.

“Okay,” I said at last. “He said they’re in the mess hall. Let’s go.”

Oscar nodded. “Which way?”

For the first time, we took a good look around. Directly opposite the entrance, another pair of double doors was bolted shut with a rusted chain. The corridor extended to our left and right, both paths equally dark. Tiny patches of dim, gray light along the floor marked where the moonlight seeped in from the slit windows in the cells. Silence hung in the air like a heavy curtain.

Oscar and I edged closer to each other.

“Should we just yell? Maybe they’ll hear us,” Oscar suggested.

“What if Emily hears us first?”

He made a face. “Good point.”

“So which way looks less creepy?” I asked.

“Let’s see.” Oscar squinted down the hall. “To our left, we have Serial Killer Avenue, and to our right is Rue de la Zombie. Coin toss?”

“Nah, easy choice. We can outrun zombies.” We started down the hall on the right, arms bumping together as we walked. “Unless they’re those really fast zombies,” I added. “You know, the ones with superhuman strength that can run up walls and stuff. Of course, the good thing about them is they move so fast, we’d barely have time to feel scared before they were eating our brains.”

“Thanks, Miss Sunshine.”

“No problem.”

Each time we passed a cell, I felt a chill—not from fear, but from cold. Somehow, the air coming from the cells was cooler than in the hall. We reached the end of the corridor and headed left, combating the oppressive silence with nervous jokes about vampire bats hanging from the ceilings and corpses in solitary confinement. I was describing my favorite scene in Grandma’s fifth movie, Return to the Asylum, when Oscar stopped and grabbed my arm.

“Listen.”

I held my breath. A distant beep, beep, beep was just barely audible over my too-loud heartbeat.

Oscar glanced at me. “The crew?”

“Probably.”

We set off at a faster pace, and the beeping grew louder. When the corridor ended, we stepped into a small foyer. I scanned it quickly—a window crusted with grime, a dilapidated staircase, and a pair of doors