The Lost

by Natasha Preston

  “Hey!” Hazel snaps. “Tell us what’s happened!”

  Theo blows out a long breath that whistles between his teeth. “This morning, the door was open. And not just the waiting room door. Piper and I ran to see what was going on. We thought maybe we’d find a way out.”

  “Did you?” Priya asks, leaning forward on the seat.

  Theo shakes his head. “No, but we did find all of the doors open. We ran outside, and there was no one there. We were going to come and find you guys, but when we turned around, Owen was inside. He closed the door and mouthed for us to run.”

  “We couldn’t, though. It was a trap. Caleb and Matt were nowhere to be seen, and we suspected they were waiting somewhere in the woods for us,” I add.

  Theo’s jaw hardens. “I wanted to try anyway. I thought if we managed to get away, we could get help for all of us. This nightmare could be over.”

  Lucie, Priya, and Hazel stare with their mouths parted, each of them with the same look of disbelief.

  “You left?” Hazel whispers, her eyes on me.

  “No, I didn’t. We went as far as we could. I wouldn’t have left you behind, Haze. Not any of you.”

  Lucie folds her arms. “How do you know you wouldn’t have made it? Maybe that was our chance and you two blew it! You didn’t even wake us up and let us decide for ourselves.” She stands quickly. “How could you take that choice away from us?”

  “Because it wasn’t a choice,” I say, rising to my feet. Her anger is understandable, but I won’t be intimidated. “If they allowed us to get away, they would be sent to prison. They probably got bored and wanted to try killing for themselves rather than forcing us to do it.” The thought sends a jolt down my spine.

  Could they evolve to that?

  “Still not your decision to make. I would rather die running than in that room!” Lucie shouts.

  I wince as her words rub like broken glass against my skin. “Lucie, I’m sorry, but when we get out of here, we need to make sure we get out alive. This wasn’t it. Before we run, we have to at least have a one percent chance. Them letting us go is them controlling it.”

  Much to my surprise, Hazel comes to my defense. Her eyebrows are still tucked together showing her disapproval, though. “Piper is right. I might not agree with how they went about it, no one has the right to make decisions like that for the whole group, but if we all ran, we all would be dead today.”

  “Yeah, Lucie,” Priya says. “Think about what our captors have at stake here—they’re well known and loved, their families constantly donate to charity, they work hard to make improvements to our town, all while doing whatever they want here, feeding whatever darkness is deep inside them. Do you think they would give that up willingly?”

  “That’s not the damn point, Priya! That was my only chance to decide how I die, and they took it from me. One of you is going to kill me, and I would have much rather it be one of them!” she screams, pointing to me and Theo as her face reddens.

  “Lucie, calm down,” Priya coos. “We can talk about this rationally.”

  “No, we can’t! Theo and Piper have no respect for us. They’re trying to take on the role of leaders, being the strong ones with all the ideas, making choices they have no right making! You’ve been here two minutes, Piper, and you think you can boss me around, make decisions for me, and do whatever the hell you like!”

  “I don’t think that! Will you chill out and look at this rationally? You know what Theo and I did was right. We’re trying to give us all the chance to leave here alive. Isn’t that what you want?”

  “What makes you more qualified to decide how that happens?” she snaps.

  “Logic. It’s clear for anyone who gives it more than a nanosecond of thought. If we run when they leave the doors open, we die.”

  A low growl rattles in her throat. With balled hands, she lunges. Priya catches her around the waist with her arm before Lucie gets close. But I tighten my muscles, ready to defend myself.

  “Get off me!” Lucie shouts, thrashing under Priya’s grip.

  The speaker crackles. Over the noise Lucie is making, we all hear that dreaded sound that makes my skin break out in goose bumps.

  “Lucie to the waiting room,” Caleb orders.

  Lucie’s face falls, her jaw getting longer. They witnessed the whole thing, of course, and now she’s going to be punished.

  “It’s okay,” I tell her. “You’ll be fine. You’ll be back here soon.”

  She turns, keeping her head down and shuffles slowly toward the waiting room door.

  Oh God, what are they going to do to her? Will they punish her more than the torture rooms do already? Their plan could still be to have me face Kevin in room zero.

  The door clicks shut behind Lucie. It’s now locked. She’s on her own.

  Above us, the speaker crackles, then, “Priya, turn on the TV.”

  “What?” Hazel asks. “Have they ever told anyone to do that before?”

  Theo shakes his head, his suspicious eyes on the TV already. “No point. It only plays DVDs.”

  Priya does as she’s told.

  The four of us gasp in unison as the hallway to hell flicks on the screen. Lucie is there, walking slowly, prolonging this part as much as she can. Going in there is inevitable.

  “Which one is she going in?” Hazel mutters to herself as much as anyone else.

  I don’t want to speak the words and jinx anything in case I’m right, but all I can think is that Kevin is also out there somewhere, in those rooms over and over maybe, and they need two people for room zero.

  Lucie is much smaller than Kevin, both in height and weight. She’s petite and skinny, where he’s built like a rugby player.

  I move closer to the screen, following Priya, Hazel, and Theo as they also go in for a better look. “Will they show inside the room, too, do you think?” I ask, my stomach turning at the thought.

  “I don’t know. I hope not,” Priya replies.

  “We all agree that we turn the thing off if they try to?” Theo says. “No matter what punishment would come, we agree that we can’t allow them to do that, right?”

  “Agreed,” I say.

  Hazel nods, and Priya says, “Absolutely.”

  It’s one thing for them to watch it, but to force us to see a friend being hurt like that—that’s horrific. I would hate the thought of someone else watching me in there, seeing me at my most vulnerable.

  Lucie braces her hand against the wall in the slightly grainy picture on the screen. She must be so scared right now, anticipating which room she’s being sent to. At the moment, she’s not in the right frame of mind. She’s angry and thinks she was robbed of a chance to escape. I don’t know what that means for her; if she’ll be more or less able to handle what’s about to be thrown at her.

  Come on, Lucie.

  “Where is she going?” Hazel whispers.

  I feel Lucie’s fear. Earlier this morning, I experienced it.

  God, this day needs to end.

  She’s halfway down the corridor now. The room on the end at the left is room zero. Please don’t be open. From the high angle of the camera and the poor picture quality, it’s impossible to tell which door has been left open an inch.

  No one else has picked up on the room zero possibility yet…or, like me, they’re too scared to say it aloud.

  Lucie shuffles farther down. She’s almost at the end; she’s going into either room five or room zero.

  My heart stutters as she takes another step forward.

  The screen goes black.

  “What!” I snap.

  “No! Lucie!” Priya shouts. “Oh my God, why would they do that?”

  She turns to me like I have the capability to answer her question.

  “They’re evil,” Theo says. “That’s all there is to it. Which one of
them do you think will come back?”

  20

  I think Kevin will end up killing Lucie. But I’m not going to say it.

  “What do you mean, which one will come back?” Priya asks, frowning at Theo.

  “Come on, Priya. Kevin has been gone a while, and now they call someone else in,” he says. He sounds annoyed that she’s even asking, but Priya doesn’t think like those monsters. She doesn’t see the opportunities they have and what they could do with them.

  I envy her that. I constantly think about how they could make things worse for us.

  Priya shakes her head. “No.”

  “Oh my God!” Hazel gasps, finally catching on to what we’re talking about. “They’re both going to room zero!”

  That’s what it looks like. Maybe Kevin really has been waiting in there this whole time.

  Priya turns from us, dipping her chin. “You’re wrong.”

  Possibly, but we never get the best-case scenario here.

  What is happening with Kevin? Is he still alive? Where has he been? Did they open the front door for him, too, and he failed the test? There are too many possibilities and none of them are nice. He hasn’t managed to get away, or the cops would have raided this place by now.

  “I can’t lose either of them,” Priya confesses. “Lucie was the first girl in here in a while. We bonded even though we’re nothing alike. And Kevin…”

  “I know,” I say. “Priya, remember, we don’t know for sure yet. Okay? We’re just speculating.”

  “Because there’s a reason to!” she cries, spinning back around to face me. “You think that’s what’s happened. Why else would Kevin still be out there somewhere? They were waiting to see who they wanted to go into that hell with him!”

  My stomach sinks. Now she is thinking like them, and it’s all our fault.

  I hold my hands up as the vein in her neck protrudes. “Priya, calm down. Let’s not freak out when we don’t know. Okay? They could have him for another reason. Nothing they do makes sense. Let’s not try to think like them; we’re nothing like Caleb, Matt, and Owen.”

  Sucking in a breath, she takes my hands and grips tight as if she’s about to hit the floor.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  “One of them might die. They might be fighting right now and…”

  “No, Priya, don’t think like that. Let’s all keep our heads. I’m sure she’ll be back soon.”

  “Everything is falling apart,” Hazel comments.

  Snapping my head in her direction, I give her the look. The look that she often receives from me when she opens her mouth before thinking. It happens a lot; most of the time it’s inappropriately funny. However right now, it’s just plain unhelpful.

  But I can’t deny that she’s right. We haven’t been here long, but already things have changed, shifted. There’s a heightened nervous energy, all of us trying to outthink them, to look ahead and see what new hell they can inflict upon us before they do. Like if we’re prepared, we can somehow stop it, as if it would be better if we knew what was coming.

  You never ask the fortune-teller when you’re going to die.

  I can feel it, in the way the others look at each other, at the joy in their voices when our captors call us, the taunting tone that they revel in.

  Something is coming. Every moment in here is building up like a pressure cooker, and I don’t know when it’s going to explode. I only know that an explosion is inevitable.

  “Nothing is falling apart,” Theo says. “I’m making a snack. Everyone just sit down and chill the hell out.”

  Priya and I sit on the sofa, and Hazel perches on the arm of the sofa. She looks ready to run if needed.

  “Is it okay if I leave the TV on? I’ll turn it off if it shows something awful, like we all agreed. But in case…” I ask. They might show us more. Not that I want to see what Lucie and Kevin are going through, but I do want to know if they’re okay. I want to know if Kevin is still alive.

  The throbbing in my head begins to intensify. I wish I had some painkillers.

  “I think we should leave it on,” Priya replies, wringing her hands. “Piper?”

  I lean back against the sofa and face her. “Yeah?”

  “Do you think I will see Kevin again?”

  If he’s in that room with Lucie, I do. If Lucie is in room five, I fear that Kevin is already gone. They want to murder. They’ve had over a year of watching people, and now they’re starting to get hungry for the kill. They could easily have started with Kevin.

  “I really hope so,” I reply, not wanting to lie.

  Nothing is certain in here, and with each passing day, I can feel the negativity seeping into my pores.

  I hate it. I’m positive. I always have been. Even in our dead-end town, I see the bright side. But it’s difficult to see a bright side when you’re surrounded by darkness.

  “Do you think when Kevin or Lucie comes back in…if…we should try rushing the door?” she whispers. Her lips barely move, trying to conceal her words in case they can lip-read.

  Hazel leans closer.

  “I don’t know,” I reply in a whisper, so we’re not overheard. “We’ll only be through one door. There are four more locked doors before we’re out. I don’t know if we’ll have the collective strength to get through them all quickly enough before they catch up with us.”

  Priya’s shoulders slump as she moves closer. “There have to be windows.”

  “Wait, you’re right. There is a window along the wall that faces the woods. I saw it when Theo and I were out there. It was near the back, probably somewhere along the waiting room. They must have built a wall in front of the window.”

  “So if we knock that wall down, we can get out the window?” Hazel asks.

  Well, she just made that sound easy.

  “In theory,” Theo says quietly, crouching down in front of me and Priya. “But it depends on the wall. If it’s just a stud wall, plasterboarded, we could be through it in minutes.”

  I helped my dad move a wall that separated our kitchen and dining room a couple years ago; it was super-easy to do. But we had tools, and there were no psychos watching and waiting.

  “Maybe. Did you get a look at the window? I didn’t see bars or if it was boarded up, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t. I only remember the location and the green window frame around it, but not if there was any glass,” I say, keeping my voice quiet.

  For all we know, it could be bricked up.

  But if we’re going to consider something this dangerous, we need to do a little recon first. We need to find out if that wall has just been built out with a bit of wood and plasterboard. That means one of us needs to go to a torture room soon, so we can get into the waiting room.

  I don’t think there will be any volunteers, and I have a suspicion Hazel and Priya wouldn’t know what to do to figure out what the wall is made of.

  “I didn’t notice a window at all,” Theo confesses.

  Oh great, we’re going solely on my word, then. What if I didn’t see what I thought I did? No, I know what I saw.

  “There is definitely a window. Or there definitely was, at least.”

  Theo shakes his head. “They would have blocked it up, surely? They need to keep us in; they wouldn’t have a means of escape only barricaded with a bit of plasterboard.”

  I lean in a little closer, so we’re huddled together. We can’t afford for Caleb and his friends to hear this. “Yeah, but we were never supposed to see that side of the building. They’re getting cockier. This could be the mistake.”

  I’m getting my hopes up. Like, through the roof. Psychopaths usually make mistakes when they get complacent. They think they’re invincible, and then they overlook something huge.

  They let us see the exit.

  Priya gasps and grips my hand. Her eyes are wide a
nd fixed on the screen, which flicked back on. Lucie is in room five, strapped to a bed.

  Caleb stands over her, holding a towel. By his feet is a bucket of water.

  He looks up, straight into the camera, and grins.

  21

  As quickly as the image appeared on screen, it disappears again.

  I am so grateful the picture quality is bad in here. I couldn’t see Lucie’s face properly; her head was facing the opposite wall. Caleb didn’t hide from the camera at all.

  “She wasn’t facing us,” I say. “Do you think he told her we were watching?”

  Theo scoffs. “Yeah, I think that’s exactly what he did.”

  Jesus. He is pure evil.

  “It’s usually a day in there?” Hazel asks.

  “Yeah,” Priya replies. “Do you think they’ll keep showing it?”

  “We agreed to turn off the TV,” I say, standing. “We’re not watching Caleb torture Lucie.” I jab my finger on the button and turn the damn thing off. There’s no guarantee that they won’t switch it back on, but I have to try.

  Theo looks up at me as if he thinks I’ve made a mistake, but he doesn’t say a word because we all agreed.

  No matter what, we don’t watch each other.

  If the TV is turned back on, we could just leave the room. We don’t have to watch this.

  “Do you think there will be backlash?” Hazel asks.

  I shrug. “Maybe. We need to get into that waiting room anyway.”

  “I don’t want to get in there!” she snaps, clenching her teeth. Hazel’s dark eyes fire bullets. She’s so petrified of going into a room. We’ve all gone multiple times, and she hasn’t done any yet. I think part of torturing her is making her wait, getting her so anxious about her name being called. They make her stress and worry every day that her turn is coming up.

  “No one wants to get in there!” Theo says. His voice is hushed, but he’s clearly irritated. “Suck it up, Hazel.”

  Someone needed to say it. Hazel needs to be a team player right now. We all do.

  “Shut up, Theo,” she whispers. “This has nothing to do with me. You and Piper are the ones wanting to knock down walls.”