Masquerade ✔

Chapter 50

Clara found herself at the back of a line of workers heading back from the bunks to their workstation. She couldn't be sure where exactly they were headed, but at the very least, they were moving down.

The lower floors were the floors with the guards. Clara cursed herself for not taking notice of them during her first visit.

But they didn't look all that enthusiastic about their jobs. Clara wondered how much choice they had in their positions here. Clara just kept her head down and tried to look like she knew where she was going. No one stopped her.

Finally, she reached the stairs that led down to the forge. A guard stood at the top, and when Clara tried to walk past him, he threw out his arm to stop her.

"Where are you going?"

Clara glanced at the stairs. "To go do my job," she replied flatly.

He looked her up and down. "I don't recognize you."

Clara cursed internally. "That's because I'm new." At least that wasn't a lie.

"If you were new, the foreman would have come with you here. So what are you doing?"

"I'm new to this section of the factory, not new to the factory," Clara said, desperately hoping that the workers here changed job duties, at least on occasion. "Some new girl came and took my spot upstairs, so now I'm here."

He stared at her, eyes narrowed. Then he just shook his head. "I don't know why you would be trying to get into the forge if you weren't supposed to be there," he told her. "So go ahead. And next time, don't be late."

Clara nodded. "Yes, sir." She glanced at the door. "You don't need to unlock it for me?"

His eyes narrowed again. "Why would we lock the door? You should know better than to try to get out." His hand inched slightly toward his waistband, where an electrified baton hung.

Clara nodded again and decided against saying anything else. She hurried down the stairs, pulled the door open, and slipped inside.

The heat wave slammed against her. She didn't know how anyone could stand working down here. A few people near the entrance looked up as she came in, but no one said anything.

The workers looked worse off than they had been when Clara first visited. Everyone was painfully thin and had dead eyes. Their movements looked physically painful. Some of them barely even seemed alive.

Clara moved around the edge of the cavernous room. Every once in a while, she passed under a vent, the fans running to eject dirty air and pump filtered air back in. Workers tended to cluster in those spaces—it was the closest thing to fresh air that they could get.

As Clara got halfway around the room, she began to feel panic rising within her. What if she couldn't find Ezra? What if he was in the bunks right now? What if something worse had happened to him?

She shook her head, clearing her mind of those thoughts. One step at a time, and she hadn't even gotten around the entire room yet.

Clara's heart skipped a beat. With only a quarter of the room left to search, her eyes landed on Ezra. His hair was long and messy and he was skinnier than she had ever seen him, but it was definitely him. He stood at a workstation along the wall, next to an open fire pit. A vent above him sucked most of the smoke away from the area, but Clara's eyes still began to sting as she approached.