Dark Museum

Sophia

They'd found the door: the main one that would take them home. But even after taking turns hacking for hours with the ax, the thick metal didn't budge.

Sophia would have stayed for a turn with the ax if Demetri hadn't been staring at her from his slumped position against the wall. No one expected him to help because of his admittedly superficial injury, but he didn't make it easy for anyone else to work either.

For a while, Demetri's attention was on Ajay, fanboying the star's behind-the-scenes stories. The actor played along, cleaned Demetri up in the men's room; but once Demetri understood Ajay was more interested in freedom than connecting with a diehard fan, his mood soured.

He told the story leading up to his capture, which for a while kept everyone's attention because he mentioned both Blair and Ajay.

"I was watching you film a movie," Demetri said. "On my lunch break, I passed a huge group of people, so I stopped to see what was going on. That's where I met Blair."

"She was in the movie?" Sophia asked.

Demetri glared at her. "No."

He didn't say anything else for a few tense minutes while Josh hacked the door with the ax.

"I got punched in a diner," Demetri said.

Josh kept striking.

Kieron and Ajay glanced at him from their seats by the wall. They drank from a single bottle of water in turn.

Demetri mostly kept his eyes on his shoulder, adjusting the torn suit jacket he used as a bandage, otherwise, he looked at Sophia. As much as she wanted him to stop staring, she couldn't stop checking where his eyes were.

"Blair went to lunch with me because I couldn't stay watching the scene all day," Demetri continued. "The actors took a break and I hadn't seen Ajay in a few minutes. Couldn't stay. I needed my lunch, so she went with me."

Sophia slowly got to her feet.

"Where are you going?" Demetri snapped.

"Ladies room."

He glared at her, then went back to his shoulder. "There was a homeless man there and he punched me and I woke up here."

Sophia hurried around the ticket counter to the broken glass door and down the staircase. Once out of sight, she sprinted through the galleries, the sporadic darkness no longer much of an impairment, downstairs again until she reached her bedroom. She sat on the bed with the door locked.

Hiding is ridiculous, she thought. The guys might not even come to get her if they opened the exit; they'd focus on their own wellbeing and get the hell out of there.

"Well, I could leave too," she muttered. They wouldn't barricade the opening once they were out. Unless the door stuck by itself and she couldn't unstick it.

She grabbed a cracker packet from her stash, shoved a few candies in her pockets, and flopped on the bed.

He'd played with himself on the phone. He hadn't said anything obscene, hadn't threatened her. He was talking nonsense upstairs with everyone but hadn't demonstrated violence. Kieron did worse than that in the last half a day.

"If you come at me, I'll cut your heads off."

Sophia shut her eyes and tried to focus on her breathing to make something sensible come out of her head, or stop her galloping thoughts altogether.

Even if they made it safely out of the museum, they would have lengthy conversations with the police afterward. Their lives up until the point of capture would be scrutinized, including how Sophia had snuck out of work to get to that concert and the chunk of missing time after.