REN PLUTO
This was it.
The second Ren slipped out of Suite 734, the air changed.
It wasn't just the cold, damp, concrete-and-blood smell of the hallway. It was the exposure.
Inside the room, they were trapped. Out here, they were hunted.
Ren's skin crawled. His senses on fire. Every shadow was a threat. Every drip of water from the ceiling was a footstep.
"This is stupid," he muttered. Low growl swallowed by the dark.
"Shut up." Nyx hissed back. A shadow in front of him, already moving. "You've got the list. I've got the route. Move."
She didn't run. She flowed. Moved from shadow to shadow. Back to the wall. Boots silent on the gritty floor.
Ren was a brawler. Street fighter. Raw explosive force.
She was liquid shadow.
Ren hated that he was impressed. He fell in behind her. His own movements clumsy. Loud in comparison.
Down the hall, east, the noise peaked.
"You always do this, Ravi!"
Jules's voice. High, thin, cracking shriek. The sound of a terrified rabbit trying to roar. Pathetic.
"I didn't mean to!" Ravi's voice. Fake golden retriever panic. "It just fell!"
"You're a liar! You're always trying to be the boss!"
A thud. Body hitting wall.
"This is a goddamn shit-show." Ren's hand balled into a fist. He was relying on that? A fake fight between a crybaby and a camp counselor?
"It's cover." Nyx didn't look back. "Loud. Emotional. Exactly the kind of crap they expect from us. Now move."
Sayer waited at the stairwell. A dark shape in deeper blackness. So still Ren didn't see her until she raised a hand.
She just... pointed up.
One. Two. Three times.
Ren translated. Drone. Moving away. Three minutes.
He looked at Nyx. Already gone. Taking the stairs two at a time.
Ren followed. Heart hammering ribs. Breathing through his mouth, trying to be quiet. All he heard was the thud-thud-thud of his own boots. The shriek of Ravi and Jules fighting. And the cold awful silence of the rest of the island.
This was insane.
They hit the top of the stairs. Burst back into the main lobby.
Different now. Sun down. Only light was cold blue flicker of emergency panels. The whole place felt asleep.
But it wasn't.
Ren's eyes went to the cameras. The ones he'd clocked on the way in.
Nyx already moving. Not through the middle. Staying in the twelve-inch dead zone right against the wall. The path the camera couldn't cover without distorting.
She knew the blind spots. On Day One.
Ren wasn't impressed anymore. He was scared.
Who the fuck IS she?
He followed. Back scraping cold damp stone. Eyes locked on the red judgmental unblinking light of the camera.
Don't turn. Don't turn.
Down the hall, the diversion weakened. The fight running out of steam.
Cover fading. Fast.
"We're running out of time," Ren hissed.
"We're here." Nyx stopped.
The janitor's closet. Heavy steel door. Painted Regulation Gray.
Not a simple lock.
Keycard reader. Black panel. Single glowing red light. Locked.
"Shit." Ren breathed. "Maglock. I can't—"
He looked at the hinges. External. "Give me—I can pop the pins. Pry it—"
"No." Nyx's voice flat. She pushed him aside. "Loud is dumb. Breaking it is another Tier One Violation. You want to do this again tomorrow?"
She reached into her blazer sleeve. Ren expected a lockpick. A knife.
She pulled out a keycard.
Blank white. Standard-issue.
"What the—" Ren started. "You stole one?"
"Don't be an idiot." Nyx wasn't just holding the card. She held a small flat black device in her other hand. A skimmer.
She pressed the card against the device. Clicked. Swiped. Clicked again.
"You don't steal the key." Her eyes glowed in the dark. "You steal the data. Skimmed it from a janitor on the ferry. He was dumb enough to have it on his belt."
She pressed the reprogrammed card to the panel.
Red light flickered.
Green.
A heavy oiled thunk echoed. Maglock released.
Ren stared.
Nyx pulled the door open. It hissed on pneumatic hinge.
"You gonna stand there," she whispered, "or get the goddamn paint?"
Ren stumbled in after her. She closed the door. Left it open just a crack.
The closet was pitch-black. Stank.
Bleach. So much bleach it burned Ren's nose. Under it... that same sour rotten-meat smell.
The bloodstain.
Ren pulled out his phone. Signal dead. Flashlight worked.
Clicked it on.
Nyx already working. Her own light scanning shelves.
Jackpot.
"Glue." She grabbed industrial-sized wood glue. "Nails. Finishing. Here." Tossed him a box.
"C-clamp." Ren's light found it. Big rusty six-inch clamp. Grabbed it.
"Paint." Nyx at the back. "Got it. 'Vara Rose Regulation Gray.' Of course they have their own fucking color."
"Driver." Ren's voice tight. "T20. Need a T20 torque driver."
Tearing through shelves. Cleaning supplies. Mops. Buckets.
"Toolkit." Nyx's light pointed at a heavy-duty red metal box. Shoved under the bottom shelf.
Locked.
Thick heavy old-school padlock.
"No reader on this one," Nyx said.
Ren smiled. Not nice. All teeth.
"This one is mine."
He looked around. Grabbed a crowbar. Small pry bar. Perfect.
Jam it into the hasp—
"Wait." Nyx.
Ren froze. "What?"
"Listen."
Ren stopped breathing.
Only sound was his own blood roaring in his ears.
And...
Thud... thud... thud...
Footsteps.
In the main hall.
Not student footsteps. Not fast. Heavy. Slow. Deliberate.
Ren killed his light.
Nyx's light off.
The closet went from bright light to absolute crushing suffocating blackness.
Ren's heart tried to climb out his throat. Blind. Smelling bleach. Feeling cold metal pry bar in his hand.
The footsteps... coming closer.
Thud... thud...
Stopped.
Right outside their door.
Ren's entire body rigid. Statue. Holding breath. Nyx next to him in the dark—a coiled spring of pure lethal tension.
They're here. They saw us. Fight didn't work. Dead. Trapped in a box with no exit. Fatal funnel. Dying in a fucking closet—
A sniff.
Loud. Wet. Animalistic.
A grunt.
Ren felt Nyx move. Fraction. Raising a small hammer she'd grabbed.
The person... the thing... on the other side of the door... just stood there.
One second.
Two.
Eternity.
Then—a scrape. Like a keycard.
But not their door. The door across the hall.
Footsteps went in. The other door hissed shut.
Silence.
Ren didn't move. Didn't breathe. Pretty sure his heart had stopped.
Counted to sixty. Slowly.
Nothing.
"Clear." Nyx's whisper was just a puff of air. "Faculty. Or something. Went into the opposite room."
Ren let out his breath. Burned. Hands shaking so bad he almost dropped the pry bar.
"The lock," he hissed.
"No." Nyx's voice iron. "Too loud. They'll hear. Give me the light."
He clicked it back on. Hand trembling.
Nyx at the toolkit. Holding a single thin metal thing. Tension wrench.
"You can pick padlocks?" Ren's whisper was raw terrified disbelief.
"I told you." She didn't look at him. "Loud is dumb."
She jammed the pick into the keyhole. Twisted. Worked.
One second.
Two.
CLICK.
Padlock sprang open.
Ren stared at her.
She wasn't a ghost. Wasn't an asset.
She was a goddamn weapon.
She flipped the lid open.
Ren shoved his light inside. Beautiful. Sockets. Wrenches. And there. A full set of drivers.
He grabbed the T20.
In his hand.
Mina's list. He had it. All of it.
"We're done," he said.
"We're not." Nyx closed the toolkit. Snapped the lock back on. Made it look untouched.
"Get the shit," she said.
Ren moving. Shoved driver in pocket. Nails. Glue. Grabbed the paint can. Nyx had the C-clamp.
Loaded.
"Go." She cracked the door. Looked.
"Clear. Fight's over. We're exposed. Move fast."
They were out.
No blind spots this time. Just ran.
Sprinted across the main hall. Footsteps echoing like gunshots in empty cavernous space. Ren's lungs on fire.
The camera. The camera. The camera.
Didn't care. On the clock.
Hit the stairs. Didn't walk. Fell down them. Ren took the last six steps in one jump. Knees screaming as he hit concrete.
Sub Level 4 hallway.
Silent.
No fighting. No yelling.
The door to 734 was closed. Just a crack.
Ren's heart in his throat. Did they get caught? Ravi and Jules taken?
He shoved the door open.
Expected chaos. Tears. Zara yelling.
The room was quiet.
And different.
Jules and Ravi were there. Breathing hard. Leaning against their bunks. Pale. Safe.
Zelie on her bunk. Arms crossed. Watching.
Sayer back in her corner. Ghost.
But the center of the room...
The center of the room was a goddamn workshop.
Maven on her knees in front of the broken door. She'd spread out a trash bag on the floor. Drop cloth.
Her hair—wild frantic mess—was tied back in a knot. Using what looked like a bread tie.
Her face wasn't a mask of terror. It was pissed. Pure cold surgical focus.
She wasn't a mouse.
She was an engineer.
She looked up as they slammed in. Eyes not scared. Angry.
She saw the tools in Ren's hands. Glue. Paint.
Didn't thank him. Didn't cry.
"You're late." Voice low and sharp. "You took ten minutes. Ravi said he'd give you five."
Ren stared at her.
Maven got to her feet. Walked up to him and just... took the tools from his hands. Didn't ask.
Grabbed the paint can. Grabbed the driver.
"We have two hours before the Coudhayes fog cycle starts." All business. "And six hours until sunrise."
She turned her back on him. Knelt at the door.
"Give me your light. And don't. Fucking. Talk."
Ren handed it over.
Didn't argue.
He stood there, useless, watching the smallest person in the room take charge of their survival.
Maven worked fast. Methodical. No wasted movement.
She examined the splintered frame first. Ran her fingers over every crack. Made small noises—hmm, ah, tsk—like a doctor diagnosing a patient.
"The wood's wet," she muttered. "From the humidity. That's good and bad. Good because it'll absorb the glue faster. Bad because it'll swell overnight. We need to clamp it tight. Really tight."
She opened the glue. Squeezed it into every crack. Her hands steady now. No tremor.
"Driver."
Ren snapped to attention. Handed her the T20.
She examined the hinge pins. The latch mechanism. The twisted metal where the bolt used to be.
"The replacement bolt won't fit," she said. Not a question. A fact. "Different manufacturer. Different tolerance."
"Then what—"
"I said don't talk."
She worked in silence for three minutes. Ren watched. Nyx watched from the door. The others barely breathed.
Maven did something with the nails. Hammered them at angles—not into the frame, but through it, into the wall behind. Created a brace. Invisible from outside.
She used the clamp to pull the splintered wood together. Tight. Tighter than seemed possible.
Then she opened the paint.
"The color's wrong," she said. "It's too dark. But it's close enough. The camera won't see the difference at night. By morning, with the fog cycle..."
She painted. Fast strokes. Covering the fresh wood. The new nails. The clamp marks.
When she finished, she sat back.
Looked at her work.
"Get the light. Low angle."
Ren aimed the phone. She studied the door from every angle.
"It'll pass," she whispered. "If they don't touch it. If they just look."
She stood. Turned to face them.
Her hands were shaking again. The focus gone. The mouse was back.
But everyone in the room looked at her differently now.
Even Zelie. Especially Zelie.
"That was..." Ravi started. "Maven, that was incredible. You saved us. You actually—"
"No." Her voice small again. "I bought us time. That's all. Time to figure out what's really happening here."
She looked at Ren.
At his pocket. Where the extra vials sat.
"What did you find?" she asked. Quiet. "In the closet. What else did you bring back?"
Ren's hand went to his pocket. The three vials of Strain B. Clear. Refined. Different from the sludge.
He pulled one out. Held it up.
The room went silent.
Maven stared at it. Took it from him. Held it to the light.
"Coudhayes," she whispered. "But different. More concentrated. Processed."
She looked at Ren.
"This isn't just a school," she said. "It's a factory. They're making something here. And we're the raw material."
Ren looked at the door. At the repair that might save them. At the vial in Maven's hand.
Six hours until sunrise.
Two hours until the fog cycle.
And a whole island of secrets waiting beneath their feet.
He sat on his bunk. Stared at the ceiling.
The mouse had saved them.
Now they had to figure out what to do with the time she'd bought.