Fallen - Lauren Kate [50]
Coach Diante and the Albatross were on lawn duty and had set up two plastic lawn chairs and a sagging umbrella at the edge of the commons. Aside from when they ashed their cigarettes on the lawn, they could have been asleep behind their dark sunglasses. They looked utterly bored, as imprisoned by their jobs as the charges they were monitoring.
There were a lot of people out on the commons, but as she followed closely behind Penn, she was glad to see there wasn’t anyone near the main lobby at all. No one had said anything to Luce about trespassing in restricted areas, or even which areas were restricted, but she was sure Randy would find an appropriate punishment.
“What about the reds?” Luce asked, remembering the omnipresent cameras.
“I just stuck some dead batteries in a few of them on my way over to your room,” Penn said, in the same nonchalant tone of voice someone else might use to say “I just filled the car up with gas.”
Penn took a sweeping glance around before she led Luce to the main building’s back entrance and down three steep steps to an olive-colored door not visible from ground level.
“Is this basement from the Civil War era, too?” Luce asked. It looked like an entrance to the kind of place where you could stash some POWs.
Penn gave the damp air a long, dramatic sniff. “Does the malodorous rot answer your question? This here is some antebellum mildew.” She grinned at Luce. “Most students would keel over for the chance to inhale such storied air.”
Luce tried not to breathe through her nose as Penn produced a hardware store’s worth of keys held together on a giant lanyard. “My life would be so much easier if they got around to making a skeleton key for this place,” she said, sifting through the assortment and finally pulling forward a thin silver key.
When the key turned in the lock, Luce felt an unexpected shiver of excitement. Penn was right—this was way better than mapping out her family tree.
They walked a short distance through a warm, damp corridor whose ceiling was only a few inches higher than their heads. The stale air smelled like something had died there, and Luce was almost glad the room was too dark to clearly see the floor. Just when she was beginning to feel claustrophobic, Penn produced another key that opened a small but much more modern door. They ducked through, then were able to stand up on the other side.
Inside, the records office reeked of mildew, but the air felt much cooler and drier. It was pitch-black except for the pale red glow of the EXIT sign over their heads.
Luce could make out Penn’s sturdy silhouette, her hands groping in the air. “Where’s that string?” she muttered. “There.”
With a gentle tug, Penn turned on a naked lightbulb hanging from the ceiling on a linked metal chain. The room was still dim, but now Luce could see that the cement walls were also painted olive green and lined with heavy metal shelves and filing cabinets. Dozens of cardboard filing boxes had been stuffed onto the shelves, and the aisles between the cabinets seemed to stretch out forever. Everything was coated with a thick felt of dust.
The sunshine outside suddenly felt very far away. Even though Luce knew they were only a flight of stairs under the ground, it might as well have been a mile. She rubbed her bare arms. If she were a shadow, this basement was exactly where she’d be. There were no signs of them yet, but Luce knew that was never a good enough reason to feel safe.
Penn, unfazed by the gloom of the basement, dragged a step stool from the corner. “Wow,” she said, pulling it behind her as she walked. “Something’s different. The records used to be right here… I guess they’ve been doing a little spring cleaning since the last time I meddled in here.”
“How long ago was that?” Luce asked.
“About a week…” Penn’s voice trailed off as she disappeared into the darkness behind a tall file cabinet.
Luce couldn’t imagine what Sword & Cross would possibly need with