Chapter 4.1

"Play fetch? What does that mean?" Tommy asked, fidgeting with the hem of the oversized shirt he wore.

"Before you got here, we read this guys diary which talked about changes that were done to the apartment building. We think those changes were in preparation to keep us here. We know about the doors, but he talked about something in the walls at the end of the corridor, we think they might be motion sensors. We need to know if it's any movement, or if it's just movement that crosses a parallel line between the sensors." I explained.

"All Rex needs to do, is catch this." She held up the bouncy ball that I used as practice with Shadow.

"But what if he can't catch it?"

"He can." I assured him, taking the ball from Theo, I summoned shadow and threw it at him to catch. Which he did.

"That's so weird." He muttered. In the next moment, I concentrated, and got Shadow to throw it in Rex's direction, Tommy flinched out the way and Rex leapt up to catch it in his mouth. He gave out a surprised laugh and knelt down to take the ball from his mouth. Rex's tail wagged excitedly, and I couldn't help but join in laughing at how much he was like a real dog.

"What? What happened? What's funny?" Theo frantically looked around the room even though she knew she wouldn't be able to see anything, which somehow made it funnier.

"Nothing. Don't worry." I assured her and she pouted like a child, which made Tommy giggle. "Ok, so it looks like this can work."

"When do we do it?"

"Now?" I took back the ball and gave it to Shadow before willing him to faze through the wall. In the next moment, Shadow disappeared to the other side but the ball dropped out of thin air, trapped on our side. "Ah… I didn't think of that one." I called him back and he fazed back through the wall.

"What do we do now?" Tommy asked.

"We'll have to wait until they stop coming for the door. It might raise suspicions if the sensor does go off but that's the only thing we can do."

In the next five days, we repeat the same procedure. The time it took for them to come got longer and longer until on the fifth day they didn't bother. We used that opportunity to try out our little catch trick. With Rex on the other side of number 51, Shadow threw the ball and Rex jumped up and caught it in his mouth. There were several tense minutes we sat peering through the small crack we left in the door until we decided it worked and Rex could come back with the ball.

"So as long as we step over it, the sensor shouldn't go off." Theo concluded once Rex and Shadow were safely back in the apartment.

We didn't know how long they would wait until they attempted to fix the problem, so we had to act the next day. We collected enough food and supplies to last us a few days, but it wouldn't take that long to travel in my house anyway.

But, in those five days, the bruising got even worse, and I started to feel noticeably ill. My head throbbed slightly even in my sleep, which was restless and uncomfortable, and I had frequent cold spells that made me shiver like it was impossible to get warm, no matter what I did.

We removed the bangles using a similar technique to the doctor five years ago but rather improvised using a screwdriver and a butter knife we found in the apartment. It hurt like a bitch this time around too, but at least they weren't there long enough to fuse with the skin underneath. We left them in the kitchen sink, like dirty dishes.

When getting ready to leave, Theo approached me while Tommy was getting the rest of the stuff from the bedroom. I sat on the sofa, trying to calm the throbbing in my head before we set off.

She placed the back of her hand on my forehead like a mother would do to a sick child. "You're feverish, are you sure you can do this?"

"We have to. It's not going to get better on its own, so if we're going to run, it's best we do it now before I can't, and I'll get caught and it'll all be over."

She looked conflicted, but there was nothing else to say. She knew we were right to leave now. It would be our only chance. My only chance.

"Tommy, are you ready?" I called, and he appeared wearing a worn backpack filled with supplies and some other useless things Tommy decided we needed to bring, like the squishy burger he found on the shelf. Neither Theo nor I had the heart to tell him to leave it.

"Ready!" He called, adjusting the straps. We pushed open the door slowly, then we all stood outside the apartment, frozen and listening carefully as if something might jump out at us at any second. Then, we tenderly crept forward. My heart was thumping in my chest, the sound of blood flowing echoed in my head and the tight nervous feeling in my gut refused to relent. We gentle stepped over the invisible tripwire and eased open the stairwell doors. At each stage, we would stop and listen for a few tense moments before continuing. Our progress was painfully slow, but we daren't go any faster. We shuffled down the steps, careful not to make any unnecessary noise. Shadow and Rex trail after us, I didn't summon him, but he appeared at some point, probably in reaction to my anxiety.

At the bottom, we eased open the door and I looked for the guard, according to the time it took for them to get to the door, he should be stationed on the ground floor. Even though I was expecting it, my heart skipped a beat. Leaning on the wall at the other end of the corridor was a guard. He wasn't looking our way, he was lazily inspecting the dirt under his fingernails, but any moment would catch his peripheral vision and we would be had. I carefully eased the door closed again.

"What do we do now?"

I drew in a frustrated breath, "I'll get Shadow to make us invisible again."

"Can you do that?" She asked.

Honestly, I wasn't sure. I don't know what happened on those two occasions it happened before. We huddled together, linking arms and I beaconed Shadow over. For a second, he just stood there, and I started to think it was a ridiculous idea, then his arms spread out like they were going to hug us, then- whoosh! We were surrounded by a dark fog, it was cool and relaxing, and when I looked down at my body or tried to focus on Theo, it was like looking through extremely dark sunglasses. I really hope this works… Slowly, I eased the door open, and we slipped into the corridor, which is harder than it sounds, linked together under Shadows fog. We had to move in synch, huddled tightly together, and try not to trip on anyone else, all while not being able to see properly through the fog.

I eyed the guard, but he hadn't seemed to notice the door opening and closing, but then we had to creep past him to get out. Our footsteps shuffled, Rex seemed to really dislike Shadow covering his master, he skitted after us, his tail in between his legs. He started to whimper, and then when Tommy didn't pay him any mind, he began barking like mad.

My blood ran cold, and I stopped suddenly to frantically shush him, eyes darting from the dog back to the guard.

"What I didn't say anything!" Theo whispered. Then I realised, of course, no-one other than Tommy and I would be able to hear him. I cursed my stupidity, now the guard must have heard something, because he stopped examining his hands and looked in our direction. We didn't move. Even Rex seemed to freeze. He slowly rose from where he was leaning and cautiously crept down the corridor. We had to quickly shuffle out the way and press ourselves against the wall. He glided past without a second look. On a positive note, it gave us a chance to get to the door on the other side. I gave a quick look back before tugging the door open.