The echo of the woman's heels lingers in the air for a few minutes — or maybe it's just my ears playing the sound back to me, tricking me into believing that she isn't truly gone. Perhaps she still lurks in the corridor. Perhaps she's coming back.

"Cerise!"

I nearly scream. I definitely jump, banging my head under the table. My hand immediately flies to the back of my head, rubbing the sore spot.

Emi peers under the desk. Her face is pale with terror. "I don't know what the heck that was about, but I don't want to stay here and find out."

"Agreed." I'm about to stand up when my hand lands on something papery amongst the desk's wood. I snag it before crawling out.

"Something weird is going on here," Emi says.

"No kidding. But what are we going to do about the safe?"

Emi blinks at me, then deadpans. "Why don't we just take it with us?"

I want to facepalm. "Right. Of course. Why didn't we think of that sooner?"

"Save the sarcasm for the car. We need to get out of here."

We start for the door, then I pause. "Wait, but what about the hole in the floor?"

Emi turns, and we both stare at the two bookcases, where a piece of carpet is flopped down in the hole.

"Can't worry about it now," Emi says. "If they find it, they find it."

I shove the paper into my jean's pocket, then twist the lock on the door. Slowly, I turn the handle so as not to make a noise and crack the door enough for us to slip through. We tip-toe back to the staircase, Emi cradling the safe while I open the doors for her.

The silence dissipates the lower we go, replaced by the shuffle of feet, the squeak of wheels, the drone of background chatter. Emi's eyebrows draw together. Once we stand behind the door at the stairwell's base, she gives me the side-eye.

I swallow. "It might not be as bad as it seems."

"Oh, really?"

I place my hand on the doorknob and ever-so-slowly press it down. The door inches forward enough for me to poke my head out. Light streams through the hallway, but doesn't reach the section by the stairwell. The sounds are much louder now, grunts and exclamations, screeching rubber on concrete.

"What do you think is going on?" I whisper.

"I don't care!" Emi hisses. "Whatever it is, I want no part of it."

"It's probably just warehouse stuff. Whoever runs the warehouse is probably taking inventory."

Emi's hand lands on my shoulder, turning me to face her. "Cerise, this place is supposed to be abandoned. The city is supposed to be in charge of this place."

"Well, maybe workers for the city are out there."

Neither of us believe it for a moment.

"How the heck are we going to get out of here?" Emi's hushed voice sounds on the brink of tears. I peer into the hall again, though it's futile. I can't see anything.

My feet shuffle forward one step, then another.

"Cerise, get back here!" Emi says.

"I'm just checking out the situation," I say.

"No way. We have to get out."

"Exactly. Maybe they're almost cleared from the hallways." I dare another step. The door closes slowly, and Emi catches it, holding it ajar.

"Cerise, this is a terrible idea!"

I'm nearly to where the corner rounds into the hall. Step by step, I creep toward, not daring to make a sound, barely daring to breathe. I can feel each pulse of blood in my throat, an aggressive staccato rhythm. At the edge of the wall, I peer into the lit hallway.

People in leather jackets, white tank-tops, and jeans push trolleys from an open door, through the lit corridor, and around the bend. A woman in a crop top exits a neighboring room carting a stack of papers, or maybe folders. Actually, if I didn't know better, I'd say they were sheet music. But why would there be sheet music in an old warehouse run by the city?

Silverenn's warehouse. This used to be her playground. Perhaps the sheet music is somehow related to her.

The woman from upstairs clip-clops from the storage room just as the buff guy from before rounds the corner.

"The shipment is all set," he growls.

"Actually, no. It's only set once the goods are on the truck."

He rolls his eyes. "Fine." Buff dude saunters into the storage room.

That's when my eyes finally process the various sized cases on the trolleys. Some are massive, maybe even six-feet tall, and wide in the base. Others are small, rectangular boxes.

Oh. My. Gosh. Those are instruments — they have to be! These people are storing instruments in this warehouse. And now they're... shipping them? Where? Has this been transformed into the storehouse for a musical corporation? But that doesn't seem right. Most of the time, instruments are kept in a luthier's shop until sold, not mass produced and kept in a warehouse. Unless this place is climate controlled, those instruments could become warped and lose value. Besides, instruments need to be played on regularly to maintain their sound quality.

As my mind puzzles out what's going on, a tiny voice hisses, "Cerise!"

I turn around. Emi's hand waves me back to her. Slowly, I take one step toward her...

Fluorescent light flickers above us. A pulse of panic jolts through me. I feel paralyzed for a moment before I hear a female voice say,

"Hey, who's over there?"

A very distinct sound pierces the air, a click that I've only ever heard on TV: the sound of a gun cocking.

I run.

My feet pound against the concrete as I dash past Emi. Up the stairs we race, leaping up two steps at a time.

They've seen us. They know we're here.

A door clangs open when we're on the second floor landing. I fling the top door open and race down the hall, back to the office. My hand jams the handle down. Thank goodness it turns down. Emi and I duck inside, and I press the lock closed. She and I dive under the desk as footsteps pound in the hall outside. They slow from a run to a measured pace.

In the distance, I hear a metal handle jiggle. It stops, followed by a few footsteps. Another handle clangs in place.

Silence.

Click. Click. Click.

A violent shuddering of locked metal.

Silence.

Click. Click. Click.

Intense clanging of the handle.

The echo lingers in the hall. The footsteps approach, drawing closer, the raucous locks louder than before.

Footsteps stop outside the office. Whoever's there gives a mighty shake of the door handle. The lock holds fast.

"No one here," a man's voice calls out.

"Maybe they went down again," a higher-pitched voice responds. "Wherever they are, we'll flush them out."

I gulp, glancing at Emi. I wait for the footsteps to disappear before nudging her. "All hope isn't lost yet."

"Why did I let you talk me into this?" she hisses. "We're trapped."

I poke my head out from under the desk, shining a flashlight on the walls. After a few sweeps of my eyes across the room, I notice that the smallest ray of light trickles into the room from behind the bookcase.

"Help me move the bookcase," I say, crawling out.

Emi rolls her eyes but follows. Together, we heave the wooden structure over a few inches. A small window sits behind it with a broken lock. The sunlight streaming inside never looked better.

"We can't jump out of a two-story building," Emi hisses. "We'll die!"

"Not if we have a ladder or something." Frantically, I pull the desk drawers out one by one. In the bottom one, the one with the bullet tin, I find a coiled rope. I unravel it, tying it to the leg of the desk. At this point, I don't care if we leave this place a wreck. They already know someone was here.

We just need to survive.

I stick my phone in my bag, then whirl around to the window and push on it, but it doesn't lift.

"Help me, Emi!"

Emi appears at my side. Together, we heave the window upward. Fresh air floods the room. I almost forgot what normal oxygen tastes like compared to the musty, dusty scent inside. It propels me to work even faster.

"Come on, Emi, you first." I refuse to leave Emi behind in this building.

"A-alright." Emi grabs hold of the rope and slowly climbs out the window.

I peer over the side, watching her descent. Too late, I realize how short the rope is. It ends many feet above the ground, too far to just drop. Emi realizes once she's at the end and still dangling in the air.

"What do I do?" she wails.

"Shh," I hush. We can't have anyone hearing us. I stick my head out the window, surveying her options. "You see that trash can?" I say. It isn't hard to do since there are many shiny garbage holders.

Emi nods, then freezes. "Wait..."

"Yes, pivot toward it. It will break your fall."

Emi swings her legs out then drops into one of the silver cans, onto a pile of old cardboard boxes. I start to climb out the window, then pause. I have the distinct feeling that I'm missing something, but what is it?

The safe.

It comes to me in a flash. I crawl back inside. Dim sunlight provides enough light to see the safe sitting under the desk, where Emi must've left it. Not that I blame her. It slipped my mind too.

I snatch it up from the ground, then start down the rope. If climbing down a rope is hard, climbing down a rope with one hand is even harder. My legs squeeze the rope to keep from slipping while my hand and left arm lower me down inch by inch. The rope cuts into my right palm, but I hold fast, using it to take the brunt of my weight in lowering me to the ground. Shouts carry from around the front of the warehouse. I try to steady my breathing, but my heart is a hammer in my chest.

Right, left-slide. Right, left-slide.

Rope sears my bare arm. I don't dare drop the safe, though, not after everything we've been through. My muscles burn from exertion. My grip is slipping, about to give out. I fight to hold on just a little bit longer, just one more second, then one more second, another second after that. My face contorts in pain.

I can't hold on. I'm about to be trash soup, mushed in a can and ready to hit the stores.

At last, I reach the end of the rope. My arms tremble, about to give way. I release my grasp, propeling myself toward the nearest trash can. For a second, I fly through the air. Then I plummet into something squishy. Large, black bags bursting from the seams surround me. A foul stench overwhelms my nose, creeping down from being an odor to a noxious taste in my mouth. I glance down at the garbage rotting beneath me. Vomit burns its way up my throat.

"I guess this is payback for making me come."

My head snaps to Emi. "Not funny. Help me up."

She approaches, taking the safe from my hands. "You should've gone for the boxes."

I haul myself out of the trashcan and collapse on the ground. There's no time to rest though. Someone could look out the window any moment, could point a gun at us at any moment. So I haul myself to my feet and hurry after Emi, clutching my purse close to me.

We peer around the side of the warehouse. Men and women are heading toward a giant van parked beside our tiny car, pushing trolleys with instrument cases along with them.

My breath stalls in my throat. A man lumbers toward Emi's car, walking around the back, then the side, making a 360 around it before returning to the van. I glance at Emi's scrunched-up face. She angles her head sideways to shoot me a glare.

I probably deserve it.

After several minutes, the last of the boxes are loaded into the truck. While some people hop into the truck, the rest roll the trolleys back into the warehouse. The truck's engine hums to life, and slowly, it drives down the street, leaving only the rustling wind in its wake.

Emi turns to me. "What was that about?" she hisses.

"No idea." Though I can make a couple guesses. I sweep my gaze from the wild grass swaying gently in the empty field to the parking lot. "Let's just go before anyone comes back."