Dahra hung the sign on the door - "If you're dying, get a 'volunteer' to find me." It was written in neat print, in chalk. Underneath it was written Lana's addition of "Otherwise fuck off". Dahra smiled as she read over it - the sign was part of an old chalkboard, out of use by the school well before the coming of the FAYZ. There was some string on the back so it could be hung from a nail in her door.
It always ended up crooked when she left it, but very few people (Astrid) cared about that kind of thing anyway.
"Yeah, can you let me in to like, use your phone? My car broke down in the woods and I haven't got a signal?"
A laugh sounded from behind the door along with a scraping noise, indicating the removal of some kind of barricade.
Every room in the hotel that was being used bore some mark of the Brattle-Chance siblings except for this room. All the pillows from unused rooms were piled up in here, and there were lamps in the corners as well as a broken bulb in the ceiling. There was no other furniture.
Lana spent a lot of time in this room, and only Dahra knew about it, halfway down an abandoned corridor as it was.
Dahra let the door close behind her and Lana pushed a lump of ex-couch to block the door. Dahra turned her back to Lana and the door and as she began to unlace her boots, she asked, "Any reason for the blockade?"
Lana sat down on the pile and tugged Dahra to join her.
"I've still got a shoe on."
"Has that literally ever mattered?"
Lana crawled to the corner by the window and waved for Dahra to join her.
"The Darkness has been worse lately. The door doesn't actually do anything, but it makes me feel safer."
"Then it actually does something, doesn't it?"
Lana tossed a pillow at her face.
"You should go to sleep."
"So should you."
"I can sleep whenever - you've been up all day, working. I'll smother you with a pillow if you stay up."
Dahra smiled and opened her arms.
Lana rolled her eyes. "Idiot."
She did as asked anyway.