What happened to Grace Sinclair? (Friday Barnes)

~17~

                      ~The records room~

There was a knock on her door around 1:00 AM.

Ian ran a hand over his face. "Who's that?"

He was lying on the couch, sleeping, and Friday was nestled against his chest with her laptop open.

She shut her laptop and sat up. "Morgan and Dahlia. We're going to sneak down into the records room."

Ian frowned. "Why?"

"To look for things on Jack Sinclair."

Ian got up and went to the door while Friday put her laptop on charge.

"Blondie! I didn't expect you to be awake at this hour! I guess you don't need as much beauty sleep as I thought." Morgan said, his voice going slightly higher in amusement.

Ian leaned against the door frame. "Hello, Rockefeller. I'm assuming this was your idea?"

Morgan smirked. "Yeah, you wanna come?"

Ian blinked. "Sure"

Friday looked at the people at the door as she came up behind Ian.

Dahlia had a jumper on over her pyjamas, the sleeves pulled down over her hands and the hood up even though it was very warm in the building.

Morgan was bare foot and had black pyjama shorts with yellow ducks on them.

Ian was in his striped pants, also bare foot.

Neither of the boys had shirts on for a reason unknown to her. It seems to be what they do.

Friday was in an old shirt that used to belong to Bernie and shorts that had brown dots on them.

They looked like they were about to have a sleepover. They were not.

Friday stepped out into the heat of the hallway and shut the door.

"Have you got it?" She asked, looking at Dahlia.

Dahlia pulled out a slim silver key and showed them.

Earlier the previous day, Dahlia had swiped the key from her supervisors desk.

Or, her sister had taken it. Daisy seemed to be much more enthusiastic about this plan than Dahlia.

Dahlia put the key in her shorts pocket.

"Why is it so hot out here?" Morgan whined as they crept out of the apartment block.

"Maybe they're trying to convince any potential stupid kids to forget their ridiculous plan and go back to sleep" Dahlia muttered as she walked slowly behind them.

Morgan gave her a mean smile, "you're just grumpy that you've been dragged into something exciting for once in your boring life"

Dahlia went quiet, shrugging deeper into her jumper.

Morgan reached for the door of the apartment block and pulled it open.

The icy winter air cut their skin like knives as they stepped out onto the concrete path that lead to the different parts of the campus.

Morgan looked at Ian, "we made a very bad decision dude."

Ian nodded, rubbing his arms.

"Boys are ridiculously stupid." Dahlia mumbled.

Friday rubbed her bare legs together, realising that she had left her cardigan in her room.

She turned to Dahlia, "where now?"

Dahlia pointed in a direction Friday was dreading to go.

The main building.

Even though it was ridiculously early in the morning, there would be at least 20 people in that building, bustling around working on cases.

They all stared at the main building for a moment, no one wanting to have to go through the effort of sneaking around.

"Well, we aren't achieving anything by standing around in the cold. Shall we?"  Morgan said, his breath causing white puffs of condensation.

They walked into the building.

They were allowed to be awake at this time if the night, that's not where the sneaking around was concerned. They'd have to sneak around to get down to the records room.

They followed Dahlia as she lead them all the way down the hallway.

"It's the very last door." She whispered to them as she stopped walking.

The last door was a different colour than the rest, a dull grey, as opposed to the light brown of the rest of them.

Two signs hung from the door. The first read "records room."

The second, said "selected staff entry only."

They were certainly not on the selected staff list.

They leaned against the wall, far enough away from the door to not look suspicious.

"We just have to wait for a time when nobody is looking or might see us out of their peripheral vision." Friday said quietly.

There were people scattered through out the hallway, coming in and out of rooms, papers and mugs of coffee in hand.

They waited for nearly 5 minutes before Morgan got bored.

"Stuff this. Nobody's gonna see me." He stepped away from the wall and was across the hallway in a few strides.

They all looked at him, their expressions urging him to come back.

"He doesn't have the-" Dahlia said, reaching into her pocket. She stopped.

Morgan pulled out the silver key and slid it into the lock, twisting it, and disappearing into the dark.

"That asshole!" Dahlia hissed. "He pickpocketed me.

Ian and Friday looked around at the adults in the hall. Nobody appeared to have seen Morgan slip into the dark.

And nobody was watching now, either.

Friday dashed across the hallway and pulled the door open, slipping inside.

The light from the hallway was snuffed out immediately, like breath putting out a flame.

It was so dark she couldn't even see her hand in front of her face.

She didn't know what she was standing on, only that it was cold under her feet, like metal, and creaked every time she moved, even slightly.

She took a few steps in the dark, holding her hand out to stop her before she bumped into any walls.

Something hit the floor from what sounded like below her, and the sound echoed through the room.

She knew Morgan was in here somewhere, but the room was so eerie that her mind began creating all sorts of evil things that live in the dark.

She took another step, and bumped into a rail that went up to her hips.

So she was up high.

She peered over the edge to see if there was any light.

Something behind her went thud and she stood up straight, her paranoia painting pictures of monsters with sharp teeth.

A hand landed on her shoulder and her panic spiked as she whipped around and punched the person in the face.

"Ow." She recognised this voice. This is someone she'd known for a long time.

"Oh, Ian." She reached out, unable to see him, trying to find how close he was.

"Are you ok?" She asked, her hands finding his bare shoulders.

There was another sound from below, like the clicking of a button, and something in the ceiling shuddered and buzzed to life.

Then the lights came on.