Refuse (The Silo Archipelago Series Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

hand. She fished her own key out of her pocket and compared it to the key in her hand.  Similar.  Not identical, but similar.  Maybe it goes to a safe house? Arghh!  Where could it be?
    She closed her eyes and tried to clear her mind.  She took a deep breath and relaxed her shoulders and arms.  She began breathing diaphragmatically and attempted to will her heart rate to decrease.
     
    Who gave me the key?  Ivan.
     
    That’s when she realized that she needed to make this more personal.  Ivan had given her a note telling her where to find the key.  He expected her to know what the key went to, and he showed no doubt that she would figure it out because he didn’t mention it again in the note she’d just read.  He expected her to just know!  So it was personal.  Where could it be?
    Alexander.
    “Could it be the key to Alexander’s old apartment?”  She actually asked this question aloud to herself.  Alexander had been dead for two years.  Surely they’d assigned the living space to someone else by now.  How could she find out?  Alexander had lived on 60, three levels down, though he’d worked as a picker in the recycling unit for his whole life.  She’d have to go down there to try the key in order to find out.
    It took her only a few minutes to make it back to her apartment.  She slipped the brass key into her pocket and then pulled on a woolen sweatshirt.  She carefully rolled up the four page manuscript and put the roll up her left sleeve.  She didn’t want to be carrying any bags or packages because doing that might catch the attention of a porter.  She pulled on a cap and left her apartment, locking the door behind her.  As she did, she wondered if she’d ever see her home again.

 

     
    The walk down to 60 passed swiftly because Leah busied her mind by going through the events of the past several days in her head, and at some point she began to feel like she was starting to make sense of it all.  She didn’t have it completely worked out yet, but she was… just.. just… on the verge of some breakthrough.
    Whenever she would pass someone on the stairs, she’d look down and away, maybe peering over the railing towards the down-deep because she didn’t want anyone to recognize her or stop her to ask her questions.  From here, you could see all the way down to 99, which was the unofficial start of the down-deep.
    She didn’t know what time it was.  Time was always a mystery in the silo unless you were the kind of person who paid attention to such things.  Leah wasn’t that kind of person.  She figured it was late, but didn’t know how late.
    When she reached the landing on 60, she loitered for a moment, checking out the situation, seeing if she’d been followed, looking for inquiring eyes and to see if anyone was paying special attention to her.  No one was, so she sprinted down the hallway that led to Alexander’s old apartment.
    I don’t even know if someone is living here now!   The thought was screaming in her head as she stuck the key in the lock, and she closed her eyes before she made the willful decision to try and turn the key.  A gentle twist of the wrist and the key turned smoothly in the cylinder, and she heard the locking mechanism tick as the pins all cleared their obstructions, and the door responded to the pressure she applied to it by swinging open slowly to reveal a room not unlike Ivan’s living room.  This room was also sparsely furnished, but there was a large desk pushed against one wall, and a heating vent, which was partway up the same wall, was opened.  The louvered grill that had once covered the heating vent was lying on the desk.  A rope was hanging from the heater vent—one end of it down inside the ducting and the other was tied to the leg of the desk.  No human had escaped down the heating vent.  The desk was heavy, but not heavy enough to hold the weight of a person.  Something else then.
    Leah closed the door and made a quick