Chapter 21
Billa
Most nights at Radley blur into the same rhythm—clothes and bedding to wash, files to log, supervisors to appease. But tonight my chest feels tight, like the walls know what I’ve been piecing together.
The white spool, the one-eyed bear, and the Radley grant.
All threads tugging me here.
I swipe my badge and move past the nurses’ station, heart pounding harder than it should as I push my cart of linens.
I shouldn’t be doing this alone and without clearance, but I can’t stop thinking about what the survivors said.
Observation 2. Sub-level B. If experiments happened, they didn’t happen in the open.
They had to have happened below. The staff elevators only go down one level.
But I’ve been here long enough to notice how the building doesn’t add up.
The blueprints in the safety binder stop at Ground and Sub-level A, but the way the air flows in the stairwells, the thickness of the walls hints at more.
I leave the cart and slip into the west stairwell, holding my breath as the heavy door thuds shut behind me. Fluorescent bulbs hum overhead, casting a harsh light on the concrete steps. I descend past the floor marked “B1.” The stairs don’t end.
Halfway down, a locked door, painted gray, the kind that doesn’t invite attention. A metal sign hangs crooked: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
My palms sweat. I crouch, running my fingers along the seam where the door meets the frame. Rust flakes against my skin. Someone used this often enough that the paint is worn at hip level where a badge would swipe. My throat tightens.
I press my ear to the door. Nothing. Just the hum of air, steady, low—ventilation from somewhere deeper.
The same vents the survivors described.
A wave of dizziness hits me. For a second, I see myself small again, standing in a hallway like this, staring at vents that carried other children’s cries. The image vanishes as quickly as it comes, leaving me clutching the cold concrete wall.
I force myself upright. “Not now,” I whisper. “Stay here. Stay me.”
But the certainty has already taken root.
The underground is real. And if I’m going to find the truth, I’ll have to get through that door.
It’s too bad I don’t have access to the control key that Ryker had when he worked here.
He may have been the smart one to find another job after everything, but I’m going to be the person who finds answers.
One way or another.
I force myself to turn away from the locked door, retracing my steps up the stairwell until I’m back in the basement where the laundry hums. The familiar smell of bleach and detergent wraps around me, almost comforting, almost enough to make me forget.
Almost.
I sort the loads by habit—sheets, gowns, towels—feeding the machines until their steady rumble fills the air. Then I check the timers, straighten the folded stacks… everything I’ve done a hundred times before.
But my mind won’t stop circling back. The worn paint on the doorframe, the stale breath of air that rose from the vents, and the survivors’ words. Observation 2. Sub-level B.
It’s all connected to this place.
I slam the washer lid, and the clang echoes through the tiled room. My heart lurches. What if someone heard? But no footsteps come.
The machines churn steadily, water sloshing, clothes twisting. Everyone assumes laundry runs itself once it’s started. Which means for the next forty minutes, no one will look for me.
I wipe my damp palms on my scrubs. The rational part of me whispers, You’ve done your job. Finish your shift. Leave the rest alone.
But the other part that drew the bear with one eye, that folded up my mother’s note then tucked it away, knows I can’t stop now.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I slip back into the stairwell. My footsteps echo louder this time, each one pushing me closer to that gray door.
When I reach it, I don’t hesitate. I press my badge to the scanner.
A red light blinks. Denied.
My pulse spikes.
I try again, slower this time, holding my breath as if that might change the outcome. Another red flash. Denied.
I glance up at the small camera dome above the door. Its glassy eye stares down, unreadable. Did it catch me? Is anyone watching now?
The hum of air behind the door seems louder, like the underground itself is breathing and waiting.
As my heart hammers, the red light burns into my nerves. Denied. Twice. My badge is worthless here.
I take a shaky step back, ready to retreat, when the stairwell door creaks open above me. Instinct flares, and I press flat against the wall.
Footsteps descend.
My stomach churns with acid, and I glance around for a place to hide.
There is none. I press myself against a wall and slide as far away as I can.
A man in maintenance coveralls, humming tunelessly, advances, a key ring jangling at his side. He doesn’t glance my way as he unlocks the gray door with a practiced swipe of a worn key card. The scanner blinks green, the lock clicks, then the heavy door groans open.
Cool, damp, and metallic air rushes past me. The smell of basements and bleach.
He wheels a cart through, stacked with cleaning supplies. The door swings shut behind him.
Before I can think, I slip forward and catch it. Just my fingertips, barely enough. My pulse pounds so hard I swear it echoes louder than the machines upstairs.
I wait, listening as his footsteps grow quieter until they disappear altogether.
The door is heavier than it looks. It resists, grinding against its frame, as if it knows I don’t belong here. I wedge myself through the gap before it can close.
Inside, the stairwell continues down. The distant hum of the laundry fades, swallowed by something deeper. A low vibration that feels alive in my bones.
I glance up once, back toward the faint light of this door I shouldn’t have opened. My throat is dry, but I whisper anyway, “You wanted this.”
Then I step into the dark. The hallway winds lower than I thought possible, concrete sweating damp against my fingertips. My boots scuff softly, too loud in the silence. Each step feels like it might betray me.
At the bottom, another door waits. No sign this time, just brushed steel and a keypad glowing faintly green. It’s already unlocked. The maintenance man must have come this way.
I press the handle. The door swings open with a sigh.
The hallway beyond is narrow, walls painted a sickly off-white that’s yellowed with age.
Fluorescent strips buzz overhead, some flickering.
The air is colder here, carrying a tang of disinfectant and something metallic, like old blood under tile.
I move slowly, ears straining. The hum I heard before is louder now, layered with distant, muffled voices.
Turning a corner, I glimpse rooms behind stained, reinforced glass. Most are dark, empty, filled with abandoned equipment—metal chairs bolted to the floor, cracked mirrors, peeling posters of smiling children. A theater mask lies forgotten in the dust.
My breath hitches. This is real, all of it.
A sound jerks me forward—footsteps. Not the maintenance man. These are lighter, slower, as if someone’s pacing.
I flatten against the wall then peer around the corner.
A woman stands in the glow of a single overhead light, her hair streaked with gray but her profile unmistakable. Her posture is tense, her hands trembling as she flips through a file.
My mouth goes dry.
It’s my mother. The woman I thought had nothing to do with Radley. The one whose handwriting said to ask about the Radley grant. She really meant this Radley.
Not something else.
She turns slightly, and for one disorienting second our eyes almost meet through the glass.
I stumble back into the shadows, my pulse thrumming in my ears so hard I can’t hear the hum anymore.
Everything I thought I knew collapses in an instant. The one person I trusted as a child knew about it all.
And she’s been here this whole time.