"Careful," Venna whispered.
She moved along the wall behind me, her hand locked in mine, patient, matching every step without ever tugging. The corridor was narrow and cool. Grey light from the front of the building reached us in thin, dirty washes, just enough to give the stone walls hard edges again.
I put my head around the corner properly.
The rooms were clear. The reception room stood with its front doors wide open—heavy glass and wood framed against the black outside—which told me everything I needed and nothing I wanted.
If the infection got in here, then nobody outside those doors is still standing.
That was their whole job. Abuela and the two men at the entrance. They existed so the people in the dark rooms could go under and stay under. If the doors were open, that arrangement had ended. The air pouring through them carried the night and something else underneath it—faint, sweet-rot wrong.
