She knew what was going to happen. Anne had explained it all to her—along with what she would have to endure.
“Time will begin to blur, but it’s both your friend and your enemy.”
“What do you mean?” she had asked.
“When they capture you, resist—but not too strongly or too long. You don’t want them to drain you. Do what they tell you to do, but don’t reveal everything. They won’t know exactly what you are capable of, never let them find out. It will feel like forever. I won’t lie to you, it may take years before you can escape, but the moment you can—the moment youknowthat you can safely get away without them catching you—take it. Don’t give up. Don’t grow lazy. Youhaveto be smarter than them, Kiki. Memorize these locations. There will be documentation and money hidden here. Don’t write it down. Don’t think about it until you need it. You’ll only get one chance, Kiki. One chance to be free.”
Kiki suddenly realized that Anne had said ‘when’ not ‘if’ she was captured. The woman who had treated her like a daughter had known this day would come… and had done what she could do to prepare her.
Tears burned in Kiki’s eyes, and she buried her face against her knees. She was alone now. There was no Mama, Anne, or Father Bishop to save and protect her.
Time. I just need to be smartand wait.
Days blurred together after the first one. Her meals were left through a small slot, footsteps in the hall, the faint hum of machinery behind the walls. No one spoke to her. No one came the first two days.
She counted the drips from the leaky pipe above her bed.
She tried not to scream.
But sometimes she did anyway.
Because the room was too small.
The air felt too heavy.
She was too young to understand why the world had decided she was something to fear.
A week after she arrived, she decided she’d had enough. She wouldn’t let them control her. She would fight back in her own way.
Using the metal fork from her meal, she scratched a line in the metal frame of her bed to count the days. She had also given her prison a name—The Facility.
It was a place where the light in the room was never soft. It was bright white—so harsh it made her eyes sting. Where her small room smelled of death.
She learned quickly that crying only made things worse. When she felt like it, she would close her eyes and think of random things. Things like what else she could do that she would never reveal to the cameras and people behind the glass.
Her lips curved into a tiny smile.Secrets. My secrets.
She opened her eyes when the door opened and Diana entered. Diana came more than Oscar. She always wore heels that clicked on the concrete and a perfume that smelled too sweet, like rotting flowers.
“Good morning, Kiki,” she greeted in a singsong voice. “Ready to be helpful today?”
It wasn’t a question. It was never about if she was ready. It was about would she’d surrender. Kiki wondered if a week was long enough to pretend resistance without making them suspicious.
Diana rolled the familiar metal cart into the room. Machines blinked on top of it—screens with bright green lines, long wires that coiled like snakes.
Kiki sat on the cot, her small hands balled in her lap. Her eyes narrowed when three men entered behind her. The man in the middle was handcuffed, just like the ones before him.
The two men pushed him down into a chair in the corner. She pulled her gaze away from the man’s terrified face and stared at Diana, wondering if she dared reach into the woman’s mind for answers about what they were trying to accomplish. They already knew she could kill. Why prove it over and over by bringing different people to her room every day?
Diana smiled. “Are you ready, sweetheart?”
Kiki pursed her lips.
She gave a curt nod as a cold sweat washed over her when Diana glanced at the mirror and smiled before turning back to her. Kiki breathed through her nose, trying to quell the desire to strike out.
Her eyes locked with Diana’s as the woman attached cold pads to her skin—her temples, her wrists, the back of her neck. Kiki flinched when the machine hummed to life. A sharp sting raced up her spine.
Through the glass wall, shapes shifted—people in lab coats, faceless behind the mirrored surface. They were always there. Watching. Waiting. Probing.
