He waited for a beat as the crack under the door lit up from the officer’s high-intensity flashlight. The footsteps thudded closer to the room. Xander slid closer to Priya and grabbed her hand. They were going to be caught any minute now.

“You belong to us,” a chorus of ghostly voices echoed from the speaker. “You belong to us.”

The flashlight faded from the crack under the door, and the footsteps retreated from the room.

“Over here, Hawkes,” Officer Perkins called.

“You belong to—” The voices were cut off in mid-chant.

“It’s a portable speaker. Kids, this thing belong to either of you?” Perkins asked Li and Omar.

“Sorry. Never saw it before,” Omar said.

“Does this sound like the voices you heard?” Perkins asked.

“Maybe?” said Li.

Xander whispered to Priya, “I think it’s working. As long as Li and Omar play along, we might pull this off.”

Before she could respond, the door swung open and a figure appeared in the doorway. A bright light flashed in Xander’s eyes.

“Show me your hands!” Officer Hawkes ordered, his flashlight aimed at both of them.

Xander immediately obeyed, his phone still in hand. Priya slowly raised her hands too.

“Who are you?” Hawkes asked. “What are you doing here?”

“Sorry,” Priya said. “We’re with the other two.”

“Get up,” he growled.

The pair slowly climbed to their feet.

The steel-jawed Hawkes motioned at Xander. “You. With the phone. Explain yourself. Why were you hiding in here?”

“Sorry, we didn’t know you were the police.”

“Out,” he barked.

They stumbled out of the room. Hawkes herded the pair down the hallway. Li and Omar stared helplessly at their friends.

“This yours?” Perkins asked. She held up Xander’s portable speaker.

“Yes,” Xander mumbled.

Hawkes grunted. “Care to explain yourselves?”

Priya jumped in. “It’s complicated. We’re in a live role-playing game called Spirits and Specters. We pretend to be ghost hunters who explore abandoned places in search of—”

“No, wait, let me guess,” Perkins said. “In search of spirits and specters.”

“Yes,” Priya said. “To spice things up, we try to scare each other.”

Xander added, “I was using my speaker to play creepy voices so that Omar and Li would think the ghosts were here. I thought we might be able to scare them out of the hospital, but I didn’t think they’d call the police.” He shot a glance at Li, hoping she’d take his cue.

She caught on. “You jerk,” she said. “You could have let us off the hook before I ran off. I thought I was going to have a heart attack.”

“Sorry,” Xander said. “I just wanted to make a good jump scare.”

“Well, congratulations. You pulled it off,” Omar said.

Perkins handed the speaker to Xander. “You know you kids aren’t supposed to be trespassing on private property.”

“We didn’t know,” Xander said. “We just thought the place was abandoned.”

“It’s dangerous. Old building like this, you could get trapped, and no one would know you were here.”