Anna's POV
The corridor swallows the noise behind me until it's just a low thud through the concrete, the bass of the crowd like a heartbeat in the walls. The light out here is bad, one bare bulb every few yards, and the doors are all shut, and the air smells of damp and rust and, faintly, that chemical sharpness that turns my stomach now.
I try a door. Locked. I try the next. A storeroom, dark, stacked with folding chairs. Not a way out.
My good shoes are loud on the concrete and I make myself slow down, quiet down, because some animal part of me has decided that being heard in this hallway is a bad idea, and I've learned this week to listen to that part. My pulse is going in my throat. Somewhere back through the crowd Elsie is laughing at something, drink in hand, with no idea what bu
