Night On Set ❁ COLIFER

Chapter 46 ❁ Just a small-town girl

Jen's POV

"Oh, come on. That can't be true." I turn on my heels and start walking through the hallway, not even waiting for him to follow me. "There has got to be another door that's unlocked."

Colin's footsteps are right behind me, but they slow down when I round the corner and pull another door open. We've reached the backstage part of the set; there's a ton of equipment, wires and wooden pallets back here, and the ceiling is barely visible because of the light installation. I slip through the narrow hallway, and then we step into Mary Margaret's apartment.

The ceilings are huge here, since the set is two stories high. We haven't turned on the lights yet, so everything is half hidden in the shadows as I find my way to the other side.

"Good luck with that," Colin calls after me when I want to go into another hallway to check the doors on the other side of the building.

I look over my shoulder. He has stopped walking. "I can always try," I say, even though I don't feel really hopeful about getting out of here.

"Sure," he says, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "I'll be here when you come back."

"Obviously." I grin, and then I leave him alone to look for a way out.

But he's right. There is no way out.

I cross hallway after hallway, trying all of the different doors, but even some of the doors of the storage rooms are locked. The hallways are chilly and it's slightly unsettling to wander around here through the dark, but I know this building well enough to easily find my way back to the set.

Fifteen minutes after leaving Colin on the set of the apartment, I'm traveling back through the hallway when a loud, banging noise leaves me frozen. It just keeps going: bang, bang, bang, bang... Like someone's pounding on a heavy metal object.

"Colin?" My voice sounds more confident than my steps are when I reach the end of the hallway. The first thing I notice is the fact that the lights are on, and the second thing is Colin.

He's in the tight space between the plywood wall of Mary Margaret's living room and the legitimate, concrete wall of the building, making a great effort to tilt forward the vending machine that's tucked away back there. The machine is barely used anymore, and I'm pretty sure everyone has forgotten about its existence by now— which also makes me wonder if anything in there is not expired.

Right when I get to him, he slams on the side of the vending machine again, but he glances up at me when he notices my presence.

"Good news, I found your script." He points over his shoulder in the direction of the kitchen, his focus back on the vending machine; he grunts under its weight.

I eye him from a distance. "What are you doing?"

"I left my wallet in the car, so I'm trying to— YES!" He puts all of the machine's weight on his shoulder and dives down to grab the bag of chips that fell down.

"I'm pretty sure that's considered stealing," I point out.

Tilting the machine back, he flashes me a wicked smile. "Not when you're trapped in here for the night. You want some?"

"Eh—" It's hard to keep a straight face when he looks like a toddler who just got rewarded with a lollypop, especially since it makes me feel like there's a bee colony buzzing around in my belly. "Are any of those still edible?"

"Of course they are. There's a shitload of sugar in every single one of these snacks."

"That doesn't make them eternally preservable."