And that’s when it happened.
Before my fingers touched the knob, Lily let out a high-pitched cry and lunged at me with a force that didn’t seem like hers. He pushed me back so sharply that my keys fell to the floor.
“No!” he shrieked. Don’t open it!
His voice bounced through the hall, and at that very moment I heard a metallic click from the other side of the door.
It did not come from the metal plate.
It came lower.
I froze.
Lily clung to my leg, shaking from head to toe. I could barely breathe. I looked down slowly at the bottom of the door, and then I saw it: an almost invisible thread, stretched at the lock and attached to something on the other side of the frame.
I felt a hole open in my stomach.
It wasn’t normal.
It was not improvised.
It was a trap.
I knelt down carefully, trying not to touch anything. The air suddenly tasted strange to me. Heavier. More chemical. As if underneath the smell of coffee and lemon cleaner there was something else… something sour, something that shouldn’t be there.
Gas.
I backed away suddenly.
Not much. Just one step. But it was enough for my brain to finally put the pieces together with terrible speed.
