I stretch my fingers out straight, pressing my thumb into my palm, the joint straining and screaming as a dull ache sparks in it. I have to fight the instinct to stop as much as I have to fight against the leather strap.
The strap digs into the top of my hand, digging, digging, digging, and the pressure builds in my thumb, and I keep pulling.
Something in my hand gives a pop, and my hand flies free. I’d expected the pain to balloon, but instead it settles into a pounding ache, dull, not so big I can’t breathe around it. My thumb sticks out in a way that I know isn’t right, but it’s hardly my biggest problem.
I tug the IV free of my arm, ignoring the tiny prick when it comes free. A drop of blood pools in the crook of my elbow and slides down my arm, dripping onto the white sheet.
I make quick work of the other restraints. The leather straps are cinched down and easy enough to break free from.
I slide my legs over the side of the bed, bare feet brushing the cold cement. I make the mistake of trying to stand, and my knees buckle, smacking hard into the cement. But it’s another serving of pain on a full plate. Not large enough to stop for.
I push back up, clinging to the hospital bed as I regain my footing. I feel like I’ve had a few too many drinks; my brain takes a second too long to register what my eyes land on.
My legs aren’t quite in sync with my brain, and I lurch for the counters, using them to guide me to the door. Before I push off, my gaze snags on a few needles sitting next to the medical tools. Filled with the same murky liquid as in my IV bag.
I don’t care what’s inside them. Whatever it is, I hope it’s enough to take Holden down if I run into him. And if it isn’t, the needle is still sharp enough to do some damage.
I tug on the door handle, gripping one of the needles tightly in my left hand, and the door creaks open. No use locking doors when everyone inside is tied to a bed, I suppose.
I ease out into a hallway, leaning heavily against the wall. The walls and floor are the same cement as the room I came out of. Along the ceiling, a long strip of fluorescent light casts the hall in stale light. It is a scene from every horror movie Margot has convinced me to watch.
There are no windows along the hall, but there are four doors apart from the one I slipped out of. Behind me, a set of metal stairs leads up to a steel door. Even from here, I can see the keypad. I don’t bother checking to see if it’s locked. I know it is.
And even if it isn’t, I can’t leave yet.
The air down here—and it must be adown here,if the stairs are any indication—is stale and muggy. Vaguely, I can hear the whirring of some kind of air system. It’s painfully cold, and the bottoms of my feet sting with each step I take on the freezing concrete.
I check the next door on my right. This room is full of boxes and medical equipment. One is full of files, withDyebucetin trialsscrawled across it. Some of the boxes have names and expiration dates. The dates are all passed. Xylazine. Propofol. Isoflurane. Medication names, I think, though their purpose is unclear, and I kind of want it to stay that way.
I stumble to the next door. I have to stop twice to catch my breath and blink the blurriness away.
I stop at the door, leaning heavily into the wall, willing the fog in my head to subside. Then I turn the knob and shove the door open.
This room is similar to the one I woke in, if not a little nicer. The lighting isn’t as harsh. The hospital bed in the center of the room has soft-looking gray sheets instead of plastic white ones.
And there is someone in the bed.
Cecily Holden. The girl who should be dead.
The reason for all of this.
She, too, has an IV stuck in her, but it’s not in her arm. It’s in her neck. The IV line trails up, all the way back to its pole, and then farther, stretching up to the ceiling and disappearing through a hole. The IV is different from mine. Thicker. Sturdier. Solid-colored, so I can’t tell what’s filtering through it. There are leather straps hanging off the bed, like the ones I escaped from, but they’re nowhere near her limbs. This is not a prisoner.
Cecily’s eyes are closed, but as the door sighs shut behind me, her eyes snap open, flying to mine. Her brows pull together.
All the words I want to say get jumbled up behind my teeth.
I’m not sure what I expected or hoped to find behind this door. But when Holden confessed to doing all this to save his daughter, part of me believed she was a bystander. An unwilling participant, or at least one with no knowledge of what was done to keep her alive.
But this doesn’t look involuntary.
Cecily jerks up, palms pressing into the mattress. She blinks rapidly, and her mouth opens and shuts, gaping like a fish.
“Jo.” She says my name like this is a casual interaction, a passinggreeting or one of her many stops into the Stacks. “What are you doing in here?” she asks.
I say nothing. There’s only one reason I’d be down here, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that Cecily knows what it is.
“I’m really not in the mood for small talk,” I say. I grip the doorway and hope it isn’t obvious how hard I’m clinging to consciousness.
