The rain pounds against the sidewalk, steady and even. It’s soaking through my hair, beating my skin in tiny pinpricks of cold. Rain drips into my eyes, blurring my vision somewhat. The thin cuff around my wrist feels tighter than usual, probably to avoid slipping off. Except for the drumming of raindrops, the world around me is silent. 

Run away, says the voice in my head.

No, I answer. 

We could be free, she argues.

Is it strange that I’m talking to myself as though I’m another person?

No.

No. 

It’s not me. It’s the altered version. The crazy, dangerous one. The version of me that was put into an insane asylum.

The man who changed my mind into this twisted half-consciousness doesn’t know that I’m in control. I am me. I am strong and powerful and so much more than any monster he could ever make. 

But . . . he won’t know until it’s too late for him. So I’m going to stay here. I’ll play his game. I’ll wait for his minion to find me and take me back. 

“Jaiya?”

I turn around, wet hair hitting and sticking to the side of my face. 

“You’re late, Blackburn,” I mutter, pushing my hair back. He snorts.

“Hardly,” he says. “It’s thirty seconds. Come on, my car’s over there.”

He starts towards the trashed parking lot, the untied laces of his faded combat boots slapping against the concrete as they soak up the rain.

Blackburn opens the door of his small black sedan, gesturing for me to get in on the other side.

“Are you even old enough to be driving?” I ask, putting my feet up on the dash. He slaps my legs down and says, “Yes, Jaiya. You know I am. Even if I weren’t, though, does it look like I’m a stickler for legalities?”

I fold my arms.

“Well, if I hadn’t believed you before, the fact that you just said stickler and legalities proved that you are thoroughly old.”

Blackburn rolls his hazel eyes and rubs the scar across his freckled nose.

“You’d think the promise of torture would humble you a bit,” he grimaces. I grin.

“And yet . . .” I continue for him. He sighs. “Come on, Blackburn, don’t leave me hanging,” I prompt. He makes a sharp turn and I yelp as my seatbelt is pulled taut, wtrapping me against the seat.

“You did that on purpose, Blackburn,” I accuse. 

“It wouldn’t kill you to call me Casey, would it?” He asks. 

“Your name is Casey?” 

Wow. I had no idea he even had a first name. He was always, “Yo, Blackburn!” or “Interrogator Blackburn.”

In some ways, it makes him seem a little more . . . human, I guess. Which means he’s even less like me than I thought. Great.

“Yeah, but don’t let Roman hear you say that,” Blackburn warns. “He’d have a fit if he knew that I let you use my first name.”

I raise an eyebrow.

“Well, then, I’ll make sure to use it every time I see you.”

He mutters a couple choice words and tells me to shut up. I do. Because I have to. There are some things I can argue with him about. And others that will get me killed if I try. I’m not exaggerating.

The first time I talked back to Roman, he put me in a totally white room. Everything was white. Walls, floor, ceiling, the dishes. Even what little food was brought in by the white-clad wardens looked like it had been bleached. I was alone. Couldn’t talk ’cause they’d hear me and come in to hurt me. Isolation. One month. If I hadn’t already been what they call ‘crazy,’ I certainly would have gone insane after that silent, colorless prison.

Honestly, the mental hospital was a lot better than this. I had a friend there. The staff weren’t torturing me by doing the very things that my parents did. The things that drove me insane. Even though, as an eight year old, I didn’t have the best life, it had gotten a lot better while I was in the hospital. And now I’m stuck with Roman.

The only thing that makes it better is Blackburn. Our relationship is tenuous at best, and we aren’t really friends, but he doesn’t hurt me like the others. He told me once he thought it was disgusting, the way Roman and the other wardens use me as their living experiment.

“How was your—” Blackburn—Casey—starts, jerking me out of my thoughts.

“Half hour of free time?” I finish for him. “It was half an hour, Blackburn. Real eventful. I stood in the rain like a miserable stray and waited for you to come pick me up. What about you? Got to see your girlfriend?”

He licks his lips, which I’ve noticed is something he does when he’s irritated.

“She thinks I’m dead and—why am I telling you this again? I’m the interrogator here, remember? I’m not even really supposed to talk to you.”

The corner of my mouth quirks into a half smile.

“I’m not the one who has to be reminded, sir,” I say, mocking him with the respectful title. Casey stays silent. Probably a wise choice. 

You should be more afraid of him.

Not scared, I correct.Wary. And I am. But I’m not just going to let fear be my master. You get hit for that, remember?

A brief memory of my mother’s hand coming down to strike my face flashes through my mind, but I push it away quickly, fighting the nausea that always comes with thinking about her.

“All right, steel yourself, Miss Moore,” Casey mutters. “We’re back.”

I look up at the wrecked building in front of me. It just looks like an abandoned factory, and would probably have been torn down if Roman hadn’t found a way to forge documents that said he owned the land. 

Casey gets out of the car and opens my door before I can do it myself. 

“You know the drill,” he says stiffly, holding out a handcuff that matches the one already on my wrist.

I try not to look as he puts it on my free hand and the two cuffs snap together, using Roman’s weird new supermagnet thing. I don’t know what it actually is. I didn’t listen to him rave about it, instead using the time to pick at the soles of my shoes until they fell off and one of the wardens had to find me new ones.

“Come on, Roman’s waiting. He wants to run another test,” Casey tells me. I follow him, stepping carefully over puddles so my shoes won’t get any more wet than they already are. My head hurts at the thought of sitting through another session of Roman’s experiments, and my palms start to sweat as we get closer and closer to the metal doors at the front of the building. 

As I stumble in, I make a mental note to not throw up on Roman this time. He really doesn’t appreciate it.

“Ah, there you are, my lovely little monster,” Roman says flatly when Casey pushes me into his lab. “Come, let me see you.”

I take a reluctant step forward, trying not to shrink away from Roman and the scent of cigarette smoke that hangs heavy in the air around him.

“Were you tracking her?” Roman inquires after a quick inspection of me. Casey nods.

“Yes, sir. She just stayed by the old bus stop. Not to . . . catch a bus, of course.” He clears his throat nervously. “Um, but yes, I was using the tracker.”

Every time Roman’s sharp gaze rakes over me, I feel like little pieces of glass are being pushed into my skin. You don’t need to understand how I know what that feels like. I don’t like thinking about it.

“Well, then,” Roman says, reaching back to pick up a can filled with some kind of foul smelling stuff and emptying the contents down his throat before continuing. “I guess I should get started, no?”

He motions for the wardens stationed outside the door to enter the room.

“Theo, please secure her. We’re trying these today,”—he holds up a pair of black leather gloves that look harmless but I know are anything but— “and I can’t have her collapsing when I attempt to remove certain memories.”

Casey’s hand on my shoulder is the only thing that stops me from running. Well, that, and the fact that he, Roman, or Theo would kill me if I took so much as a step in the other direction. Casey’s fingers are digging into my skin, so I know that he thinks it’s a dangerous idea, too.

How . . . reassuring.

Theo pulls a chair out from under one of the white desks in the room and gestures for me to sit in it. He disconnects the cuffs around my wrists, then reattaches them when my hands are twisted behind the chair.

“Sir, is this really necessary?” Casey mumbles. “She’s just a kid.”

Roman sneers at him.

“Mr. Blackburn, we were running tests on you when you were fifteen, don’t you remember?”

Casey goes pale.

“Yes, sir, I do,” he responds, his voice pitched higher than usual. “But I wasn’t, um . . . you know.”

Insane. 

Yeah, we all know. 

Roman taps the table he’s leaning on with a pen. 

Tap.

“I don’t think that it will be a problem, then,” he says. Once, in the hospital, one of the nicer ladies, whose name I can’t remember read Alice in Wonderland to me. The sketch of the Cheshire Cat’s grin always freaked me out a bit, and Roman has made it worse by always giving me a huge smile every time he’s about to torture me.

Tap.

“Come now, my delightful beast,” Roman murmurs.

Tap. Tap.

“Sir—” Casey interjects, but he’s silenced by Roman’s warning look. 

Tap.

“Shh, Mr. Blackburn, I need silence.”

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The drumming of his pen is driving me insane. It makes my whole body hurt. I focus on Theo’s face. He looks vaguely concerned, but he’s mostly calm. 

Tap.

I didn’t scream. But my throat hurts like I did. Casey and Theo and Roman are all in different positions from a moment before.

“I . . .”

Roman’s watery blue eyes are alight with triumph.

“How does it feel?” He hisses. “What do you remember? What did I just do?”

I slump in my chair. My ears are ringing.

I know what he did.

I don’t care.

“I don’t know,” I mumble, wishing my head would stop throbbing.

He’ll do it all the time.

I DON’T CARE.

My thoughts are starting to blur together and I can’t see straight.

“Sir,” Casey says quietly. “Permission to uncuff her?”

Roman straightens the collar of his stained grey button-down shirt.

“Denied,” he mutters. “She’s fine.”

If he says I’m fine . . . I know I’m not. And he’s frowning now, his proud expression replaced by cold calculation.

“What is it?” Theo demands. “Sir, what happened?”

Roman gives me one last long look before tearing his gaze away.

“I’ll have to review my notes,” he says under his breath. “It’s supposed to fill in the gaps. It doesn’t make sense. Take her to her cell. Keep her awake.”

Theo pulls me out of the chair and drags me down the stairs to my current bedroom. It’s a little cell, with rusting bars and a mattress on the floor. I collapse onto the bed and pull the blanket over my pounding head.

“No sleeping, Moore,” Theo says. 

“I couldn’t anyway,” I mutter. The sound of footsteps pounding down the stairs makes me look up. 

“I’ll guard, Theo,” Casey says. “It’s fine, she won’t try anything.”

Theo frowns, but reluctantly stalks away.

Casey waits until Theo’s gone before unlocking my cell door.

“All right, Miss Moore, you’re going to have to be fast. After this, I can’t help you.”

I scramble to my feet.

“What do you mean?” 

Casey gives me a grim smile.

“I’m getting you out of here.”