There was a faint moan, but I recognized the voice, even broken to pieces like this. I scrambled in its direction, saying Ray’s name, and smashed into his cold, limp body before I could stop myself. The groan lengthened, and I pattered my hands over his shoulders and chest, finding his face. Recoiled. It felt so much like Nelson’s ear. Cold and soft-slick. Like the inside of a pumpkin before you dig it out. I smelled blood on my fingers.

“I didn’t know you were here,” I croaked. “What happened to you? I can’t see anything.”

Ray said a word a few times before I realized it was pockets. My hands fumbled their way down his damp chest until I found the rim of denim on either side of his hips, and I blushed in the dark, plunging my hand against his thigh. Nothing but lint in the first pocket. In the other, sharp hard teeth. A key ring. I pulled it loose, jingling.

“Keys?” I said, but then my hand felt the tiny metal tube. I groped at it until it clicked and light spilled into the room, over Ray. His face was a mask of pain, one eye blackened and swollen shut, lips huge and bloodied. The left side of his head aimed toward his shoulder, and his shoulder bent at an unnatural angle, his arm extending, fingers blue.

His open eye met mine.

“You should see his ear,” I said.

“Maggie,” Ray said from far away. “Did he . . .” A long pause. “Hurt you?”

“No.” It sounded like I was lying, and I was. “Just tell me how we’re getting out of here.”

“Get . . . something hard,” he whispered.

The words were costing him, and he closed his eyes, his breath rattling.

“Break. See-ing,” he slurred.

“I don’t understand.”

He nodded as if to say, Just do it.

I crawled to the shelf and pulled something down. It was shrink-wrapped and so heavy that it clunked on the floor, bruising my fingers. The plastic refused to tear, and I bit it, savage with fear, until I got a piece to peel free. Underneath: old, smooth beige stone, carved with ancient, faded symbols.

“See-ing,” he said again, softer this time.

“Seeing what? What am I supposed to see?” I tried to keep the panic from my voice.

After another shudder, he opened his eyes. He looked at me, his pupils so dilated that the black centers were huge and the blue was almost gone, and then he looked beyond me, above me.

“Ceiling. Only way.” He barely uttered the words. “Out.”

“The ceiling?” I said, catching on. “But how?”

“Climb. Save light,” he said.

Then his lids fluttered shut.