“How do you live with it?”
“Well, for one, I don’t have a choice. I suppose I also deserve it.”
I shake my head, my heart aching. “You don’t. We’re all trying to survive.”
“I hope you never have to go in there.”
Me, too.
“Did you hear music last night? I was pretty out of it, but I’m sure it wasn’t a dream.” I can still hear it now if I think about it. It kind of started of low and slow then got faster until it stopped abruptly. I didn’t recognize it, but I could pick out the melody on a piano or a guitar. It sounded like it belonged in a horror movie.
“Yeah. They play it every night. I have no idea what it is.”
Creepy, that’s what it is.
“Right.” No point in dwelling on that. “What’s the plan today?” I ask.
“Breakfast at the diner, then we’ll hop on a plane to—”
“Very funny,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Are you always the first one up?”
“Usually. I don’t know if the others sleep in, or if they just stay in bed so they can pretend.”
“Right. If you’re tucked up in bed with your eyes closed, you could be at home. The second you come out here…you’re here.” I can’t blame them if that’s what they do. I’ve never really found pretending very useful. I still know the truth.
“Something like that,” he replies. “I can’t speak for everyone, but not all of us pretend we’re home when we close our eyes.”
“Where do you go?” I can’t think of anywhere else in this world I would rather be than home right now.
He clears his throat. “I’m supposed to be in Forest Oaks.”
“That’s pretty far away. What’s there?” I don’t know exactly, but I’d guess it’s about three hundred miles north of us.
“My dad was from Forest Oaks, but he moved here after meeting my mom on vacation one year. They split five years ago.”
“Did he move back there?”
Theo drops his gaze to the floor and shrugs. “He didn’t actually tell us where he was going, but I assume so.”
“I’m sorry, Theo. Are you going to try and find him?”
“Nah. It’s a big place, and he was from south of Forest Oaks, so I’ll avoid that part like the plague, but it’s the only other place I know.”
“Do you live with your mom?”
“Yeah. When she’s sober enough to remember she has two kids.”
I don’t really know what to say about that. His home life seems harder than any person’s should be. “You have a sibling?”
“Older brother; he left last year.”
“Where did he go?”
“East Coast. He checks in occasionally, but he has a pretty good thing going on with some chick he met and a job as a delivery driver. I want that. Not to be a delivery driver—I haven’t had a chance to get my license yet—but I mean, a chance, a future.”
He scratches his jaw and leans forward, resting one arm on his knee. “I’ve applied to every mechanic I could find in North Forest Oaks, asking if they’re hiring.”
No one is looking for Theo because they think he left.
I give him a smile. “I’m sure you’ll get a job somewhere, Theo. When we get out of here, you’ll have the life you want.”
“What life do you want?” he asks.
My life isn’t bad now, although it’s a little boring. But I don’t want to tell Theo that I have two super-loving parents who work really hard to give me the best life they can; not after he shared his abandonment by his dad and neglect by his mom.
“I want to be in the city, and I know this doesn’t sound probable, but I want to be a detective, finding murderers.”
I’ve already found three.
Theo’s half smile grows. “If that’s what you want to do, Piper, you should go for it. There’s no reason why you can’t.”
“Thanks, Theo.”
“Theo to the waiting room,” a voice I don’t recognize booms through the speaker above us.
He looks at me, his dark brown eyes dulling with defeat.
“It’ll be okay,” I tell him.
“Yeah,” he replies. “It has to be.”
14
I stay in the same spot on the sofa for a solid twenty minutes, frozen in place, heart aching because I’m powerless to do anything to help.
Where is Theo now? I’m sitting here while he’s going through something awful, and there is nothing I can do about it. And why is no one else up?
Reaching out, I numbly grab my coffee mug and take a sip of the now-lukewarm liquid. What if Theo is in room two, either boiling or freezing? My cracked lips and thudding head can attest to how awful that room is and how the effects of being in it don’t end when you leave.
I sip the coffee again, my lip stinging at the slight rise in temperature the rim of the mug brings. No one else has made a peep yet, and I don’t have the energy to go in the bedroom and see if anyone is awake.
I’m exhausted. I woke up more tired than when I went to bed. My body is heavy as if my muscles have turned to stone. I want so bad to close my eyes and drift off to sleep, but I don’t know when Theo will be back, and I want to be there when he is. He was there for me.
My skin prickles as I think about the possibility of Theo in that room. It started hot for me. Could he be boiling now? Peeling his clothes off in an attempt to stay as cool as possible in that inferno?
The bedroom door creaks open, and Hazel peers around the corner.
Her eyes gloss over as if she’s trying not to cry. It’s not often that I see Hazel this emotionally weak, but over the last day I’ve seen her fall apart. I don’t like it; she’s usually my rock.
“Piper,” she whispers, shuffling out the door with her head low. “Theo’s had to go. Are you okay?”
“Come and sit, Haze. I’m not mad at you.”
Her chest expands with a deep breath. “You should be. You have every right to be. It was my name that was called, and you took my place.” She makes her way across the room in a nanosecond, moving much quicker than she ever has before.
I put my mug down. “You didn’t ask me to do that.”
She sits beside me, curling her legs under her. “I know I didn’t, but I could have done more to stop it. When I heard what they do to us, and then when my name was called…I freaked out. I wasn’t thinking, and I’m so sorry.”
“Stop. It’s really okay. I’m glad it wasn’t you in there. And, as you can see, I’m fine.” My fingers find the friendship bracelet around my wrist.
You’re not fine.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not especially.”
Her hand covers mine, stopping me from fiddling with the bracelet. “Will you talk to me about it anyway?” she asks softly.
Sighing, I drop my hand. “What do you want me to say? It was awful. I don’t remember a lot because once my body got too hot or too cold I passed out, but I can still feel the pain from the heat and then the cold.”
I don’t want to talk to her about how I ache and how my head feels like it’s being drilled from the inside out. It’ll only feed her guilt. It was my choice to volunteer in her place, and I don’t regret my decision. Hazel is the closest thing I have to a sister, and she isn’t dealing with being here as well as I seem to be.
Who knew I could be so calm and positive when faced with torture and possible death?
Don’t go there.
Her eyes widen. “God, Piper, I’m so sorry. We have to get out of here. There has to be a way.”
“I know we do.” I just don’t know how. There are so many doors, a building like this would have more than one exit. If it was used as a place of work, there would have to be emergency exits. I don’t remember seeing any from the outside, but then I wasn’t looking,
and we only saw the front of the building.
She shakes her head. “How did you get through it?”
“I knew it wouldn’t last forever.” It helped that I went somewhere else, my body unable to handle the extreme temperatures and half shutting down. Before that it was hell, but I got through it in one piece. “I had to stay calm and get through it.”
“You’re amazing, Piper.”
“No, I’m just trying to survive.”
She shakes her head. “You’re trying to help me survive, too. I don’t know what’s wrong. I’ve always thought I would be stronger in extreme situations like this. Not that I pictured this exactly, but you know what I mean? Every horror movie we watch, we talk about what the characters should have done and how dumb they are for not doing it. I don’t know why, but I’m the one not doing it.”
“You’re being too hard on yourself, Haze. The reality of this is light-years from what you could ever imagine. You think you understand fear, but…”
“Yeah,” she replies.
“Theo’s gone?” Kevin asks, leaning against the bedroom door frame.
“He was called. You didn’t hear?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “I was woken by the crackling of the intercom, but it must have been as it shut off.”
“I don’t know which room he’s in,” I say.
“They don’t tell you until you get to the waiting room.”
“I hope he’s not long,” Hazel says. “I’ll make breakfast for everyone.”
“You want a hand?” Kevin offers. “You don’t know where everything is yet.”
Can’t say I want to be here long enough to remember where things in the kitchen are kept. I want out now.
Hazel accepts Kevin’s offer, and together they make microwaved scrambled eggs and toast.
Priya is next to wake up. She heads straight for me. “How are you feeling today?”
I shrug. “Okay, I guess.” How should I feel? I’m more upset about not knowing if anything happened to me when I was passed out. I can handle pain, I think, but my body is my own.
“I remember being confused after my first time in one of those rooms. It gets easier, the after part. You kind of get used to it. I’ve found a way to protect myself.”
“How?”
“I separate it. What happens out of this room is out there. In here, I’m with friends and I’m safe. It’s as if I become someone else when I walk through that door.”
That sounds like a breakdown waiting to happen, but none of us can worry about the future now when the present isn’t a guarantee. Priya needs a way to justify what she did to Sophie in room zero. Whatever gets us through…
“What do you do to get through being in those rooms? I kept thinking about my family before I passed out.”
She smiles, her eyes sad with understanding. “I think about my siblings. I’m the eldest of four, but we’re all close in age. We spoke so many times about leaving and heading to the city. I want to be a lawyer, Kamal a model, Sahana a doctor, and Zaina an accountant. When I’m in those rooms, I imagine they’re all there, working their dream jobs. I know they can’t be—they’re too young—but I need to believe they’re happy.”
“I’m sure they’ll get there, and when you’re out, you can join them.”
“Do you think we’ll get out?”
From the low tone in her voice, she doesn’t.
“I do,” I reply. What’s the point of going on if I don’t? This isn’t a life in here, so if there’s no hope…
She wrings her hands. “I wish I could be that confident. I try to be. I don’t often let doubt enter my mind, but when I think about my siblings, I’m afraid I’ll never get to join them.”
“Well, start to imagine that, because we’re getting out somehow. People break out of prisons.”
“You want to dig a tunnel?” she jokes, smiling shyly.
That’s the first hint of her true personality. I think she’s reinvented herself in here, too, so she can survive.
“If you have anything that will dig through concrete, I’m game.”
The building must have a concrete foundation. We can’t tunnel through concrete.
“I know I’ve taken on the role of cook; I’ve made or helped to make most meals since I got here, and, believe me, I’m more than happy with that. But if you ever need help with a plan or anything, you can ask me.”
I’ve been here less time than her, but she’s already assumed that I’m one of the leaders, like Theo. I’m not, though. There are different roles for different people in here, but no one can be in charge.
What feels like hours pass, and I’m beginning to get restless. As I’m about to start pacing, the door opens and Theo walks in.
I open my mouth to ask how he is, but he rushes past us, head down, eyes tight, legs moving at the speed of light. He slams the bedroom door shut.
“Don’t,” Priya says as I stand.
“But he’s not okay.”
“He needs time,” she tells me. “He always needs some time after. Please respect that. He’ll get out of bed and talk when he’s ready. Probably tomorrow.”
I lick my lips, taking one last glance at the bedroom door. “Okay,” I say. “I’ll give him time.”
15
As Priya said, Theo didn’t emerge for the rest of the night, and he was uncharacteristically late getting up in the morning.
When he did get up, he didn’t speak all morning and into the afternoon.
He is sitting on one of the sofas, surrounded by people, but I’m sure he doesn’t see any of us. I don’t know what to do to help. Does he want to talk?
Lucie put in a DVD to watch since we don’t have access to broadcast TV. The atmosphere in here is tense with Theo’s mood—not that anyone can blame him for not being himself. He must have been in a really bad room. I’ve not seen him come back before, but the side glances Lucie, Kevin, and Priya are giving him has me worrying, too.
What did he go through? I think he must have been in the water torture room because he came back damp. How do you cope with almost suffocating, hell, drowning, over and over for hours?
My heart slams dangerously hard in my chest.
I can’t go in there. I don’t know how to get through something like that.
I chew on my lip, turning over a hundred different conversation openings. None of them seem appropriate. Theo is going through something that I can’t possibly understand right now, but I want to help the way he helped me.
“Theo,” I whisper.
He hears me. Though his head stays still as a statue, his dark eyes flick to me.
“How are you doing?” I almost went with are you okay but that’s too stupid.
“I’ll be okay, Piper. I just need to process.”
“You’re here,” I say. “Everything they threw at you, everything they did…you survived and you’re here.”
His lips curl into the ghost of a smile, my words not quite enough to offer comfort. “I appreciate that,” he replies.
It’s only then that I hear the roughness in his voice, as if he’s been screaming. He’s been here the longest, he’s done more rooms than anyone, and it still affects him like this.
I swallow.
“Theo,” I whisper again, my eyes stinging with the threat of tears. I reach out and touch his hand. He doesn’t flinch, so I leave it there, offering him touch that isn’t full of hurt and bad intention.
“Does anyone want anything in particular to eat? We have microwave lasagna and pies,” Priya asks. “I’m making dinner.”
I shake my head and offer a smile. Priya has a role in here which helps her, I’m sure. She told me that she’s different people in here and in the torture rooms. Here she takes on almost a mother’s role. She cooks and makes sure we’re all fed. Hazel heads over to help her.
/> Kevin says, “Whatever you want to do, Priya.”
“Anything is good with me, thanks,” Lucie says, sitting back into the sofa and kicking her legs up on the coffee table. I’m not really sure what Lucie’s role is exactly. She’s both encouraging and antagonistic.
Theo doesn’t move his hand away from mine until Priya and Hazel finish making dinner. Then, he silently gets up and takes his seat around the table.
Above us the lights flicker as if they’re about to go out. We all look up.
“All the bulbs are going out at the same time?” Lucie asks.
The ceiling is lined with spotlights, ten in total, so all of them going out at the same time seems unlikely.
“Err, I don’t think it’s the bulbs,” I say. “I think it’s them.”
Theo snorts. “They control every aspect of this place, electricity and heating, too.”
“I take it this hasn’t happened before?” Hazel asks, frowning at the lights.
I’m going to get a headache if I keep watching the strobe effect going on right now. Thankfully it’s not bright enough to hurt, but I definitely can’t ignore it.
“Nope,” Theo says. He clears his throat and blinks hard. “Let’s just eat.”
I know that means he doesn’t want us to give them the satisfaction of reacting to the lighting. So I pick up slice of bread and take a bite.
The lights go out completely, and something somewhere clicks. Every light shutting down simultaneously? With only the small window and the sun disappearing for the day, the room is cloaked in darkness.
Sighing, I drop my food and hear it thud to the plate.
“Are you for real?” Theo shouts.
“Shh, Theo,” Lucie hisses.
Can’t blame him. He’s already tense from the room he was in yesterday and now this. The mind games are difficult to deal with. Second-guessing everything they say and do is tiring.
My pulse hums. I lay my hands on the table and look straight ahead in the dark. If they can see us right now, I want them to see me sitting still and waiting patiently. What they won’t be able to see is my heart racing and my palms sweating.
Something is going on. They’re up to something.
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