When Misa saw the rectangles of light reaching through the iron door, she rushed her final steps up the stairs. Without thinking twice, she burst through, clanging the thick padlock with the corner of the door and sending it skittering forwards.
She froze. Had it been past ten minutes already? Her heart thumped against her ribcage as she saw eight pairs of eyes turn to her. The officers had returned from dinner! Where was Royle? Had he failed in keeping them out for the duration that he promised?
She caught him straightening from a desk, where he had been studying a manuscript for a youthful officer. He narrowed his eyes at her, almost as if he hadn’t known she was in the dungeon.
“You!” an officer yelled, this one with a thick mustache and rotund belly. He pointed a pud
