“We go outside or above and we signal him from there?” Vista asked. “How?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “They might be keeping him in a windowless room.”

“Steal a walkie-talkie,” Ashley said. “Say it to every guard, if he’s in a room with them he’ll hear it.”

“Raising suspicion.”

“If there’s reasonable doubt then we’re fine,” Ashley said.

“Is it though?” Vista asked. “Is it really fine?”

“I’d rather save him and then go from there. If there’s trouble it’ll be trouble with an exit.”

“And after that? Do we escape that trouble for more trouble with an exit? Ad infinitum?”

“Sometimes that’s all you get,” Ashley answered.

“Option three,” I said, interrupting the back and forth. “We push for the room where they stowed our stuff. We get a few of our things, including our phones, and we take it back to Kenzie. She calls Armstrong or Natalie.”

“Can we find the room?” Ashley asked.

“Pretty sure,” I said. I looked down the hallway.

Cryptid was still navigating his way to us. Coalbelcher took another hallway, walking with a steady pace. Coalbelcher was a good two hundred and fifty pounds minimum, which probably impacted his ability to run around.

“We do your plan,” Ashley said. “Mine as a backup.”

I looked at Vista.

“Your team, your tech, you seem to know, it’s your call,” Vista said. “But you’re asking us which option, and it seems like one’s better. Why?”

“Because this requires us to get to the room, get access, get back, let Lookout do her thing—”

Voices echoed down the hallway, chatter. Ashley, Vista and I stepped around the corner to be out of sight.

Vista started to create another pinched-off space. It turned out to be unnecessary. The people were staff in the high-rise section of the prison, and they weren’t entering the prison section. I saw their shadows mixing in with the shadows from light filtering through the portcullis gate, before they moved on to wherever it was they were going.

“You didn’t see those coming?” Ashley asked.

“Lookout’s camera only tells me what the cameras see.”

“Great.”

“Cryptid is getting close. Let’s figure out where we’re going. Can you pantomime for Darlene and Candy? They have no audio.”

Ashley gave me an unimpressed look, but she nodded. I stepped back so she was in my full field of view.

She mimed taking a photo, then mimed Kenzie’s height, before motioning like she was holding a phone to her ear.

The text appeared in the corner of my eye.

-Her phone?-

I nodded.

-Have to ask her.-

“They’re figuring it out,” I said. I didn’t love that we were at an intersection of three hallways, or that Cryptid was getting closer.

“Say we alert him,” Vista said. “What does that change? Can he escape on his own?”