I stop.
“She’s innocent, isn’t she?”
It’s the question that has been haunting me since I saw her eyes in the museum.
“Yes,” I say. “She is.”
“That makes it harder,” he says quietly.
“I know.”
I walk into the elevator. The doors slide shut, sealing me in the steel box.
I lean my head back against the metal wall and close my eyes.
It makes it impossible.
But as the elevator rises, carrying me back up toward the storm and the girl in the gilded cage, I realize I’m not hungry anymore.
I’m angry.
And the Judge is going to learn what that costs.
9
IRIS
Time doesn’t move in a straight line here. It loops. It pools in the corners of the room like stagnant water.
Since I woke up in this bed, I’ve been counting.
I’ve been in this room for three days now. This sprawling, beautiful, terrifying box.
72 hours.
4320 minutes.
I know because I count the rhythm of the waves crashing against the cliffs below the reinforced glass.One, two, crash. One, two, crash.I count how many times the air conditioning vents click on and off.
I’ve clawed at the window seals until my nails bled. I’ve dragged the armchair over to the vent, standing on my tiptoes, trying to pry the grate loose with a spoon I stole from the food tray. It’s welded shut. Every inch of this room is engineered to keep a canary from flying.
Counting keeps the panic at bay. Counting is order. And in a world that has dissolved into chaos, order is the only thing I have left.
The room is a paradox. It’s full of gray storm light, yet it feels suffocatingly dark. It has a spa-like scent that makes my stomach turn. Every surface is polished. Every texture is soft.
It’s a velvet-lined box. Safe and utterly suffocating.
I’m pacing like a caged animal.
I walk the perimeter.
Twenty-two steps from the locked door to the window. Turn.
Fourteen steps to the bathroom. Turn.
From the bathroom to the bed. Ten steps.
My legs ache, a dull throb that reminds me I’m alive. The bruise on my neck has bloomed into a violent shade of violet and yellow—a fingerprint necklace left by the man who put me here.
