Seth ignored the niggling suspicion at the back of his mind that told him it didn’t matter if he was boring or not. They’d taken him, and there was no way they’d let him go after he’d seen what they were capable of. He would either escape, get rescued, or diehere, alone and scared and with a blanket that hardly deserved the name.
Seth drifted off to what sounded like whale song coming from the floor below. But that didn’t make any sense, so it must have been his fatigue and despair making him hallucinate.
At least it was a pleasant hallucination, kind of soothing in its absurdity.
Seth would take every bit of soothing he could get.
25
SETH
Seth had no idea how much time had passed when he woke again. There was no real way to gauge time of day in this place, as there were no windows anywhere, and the overhead lights were the same level of harsh brightness as when he’d fallen asleep.
Seth had the sense—which could be completely wrong, what the hell did he know?—that they were maybe underground.
His captors had dropped food through the slot while he’d been out, though, as well as water in a little plastic pouch. The tin cup he’d had before was gone now. It disturbed him that he hadn’t woken up, even with someone else in his room, close enough to retrieve it.
After barely a moment of hesitation, Seth rose from the cot and grabbed the meal. His nausea was much better, and his head ached a little but was no longer pounding. Food and water should help the rest.
The tray tasted like typical bad hospital food—someoversalted, vaguely meat-like main dish with bland sides of indeterminate vegetable origin. The water tasted like the plastic surrounding it, and presumably they’d forgone the cup so they could avoid opening the door more than they needed to.
When he was done, Seth reluctantly peed in the prison toilet, sending an arch look over his shoulder at the camera as he did so.
If they were going to act like perverts, he was going to treat them like perverts.
No one came to see him right away, which wasn’t exactly surprising. He doubted he was much use to them until Riley arrived.
IfRiley arrives, he reminded himself.Not when.
Seth paced to pass the time, periodically pressing his hands against different parts of the white walls, as if there might be a secret latch to freedom his captors had maybe just forgotten they’d included in their grand design.
At least it was better than doing nothing.
Seth tried very hard not to think about Riley. He tried not to imagine Riley scared and worried and running straight into danger with no thought to himself.
Riley would go to his moms first, right? They’d talk some sense into him. They’d claimed Seth was precious, but surely he wasn’t any more precious than their own son. Maybe they’d snap Riley’s neck again and flee the state before he woke.
It hurt Seth’s heart to think that, but it would be better than the alternative. Riley couldn’t ever be in this place. He’d had too much taken from him already, too much of his life stolen by hunger and fear. It just…
It couldn’t happen.
At some point, Seth heard the whale song again, which meant it hadn’t been a hallucination after all. And it definitely seemed to be coming from underneath his cell.
Seth crouched on the hard, cold floor and bent over, placinghis ear against the tile. The sound was higher-pitched than any whale song Seth had heard before, but there was the same looping, haunting quality to the calls.
Seth pounded his fists against the floor, then cupped his hands around his mouth to call, “Hey! Down there! Can you hear me?”
There was the briefest pause, and then the song started up again. Maybe Seth had only imagined the break.
He pounded his fists again. “Hello?”
But the song didn’t stop a second time. Seth wasn’t sure why he was hoping it would, other than that it would be nice to have another creature acknowledge his existence in this fucked-up place. He knew the cameras were capturing him trying to communicate, but he didn’t give a shit. They must have been expecting him to trysomething.
“What exactly are you hoping to accomplish?”
Or maybe not.
Seth sat back on his heels. The lawyer was back, either in the same suit or another identical one. Really, how the hell was Seth supposed to gauge the hours down here?
