"Out exists." Jinx looks at him. "I'm proof. I came from a place like this."
His rocking slows. His hands lower, just slightly. "You're lying. Liars get Protocol Nine."
"I'm not lying. Look at me." Jinx pulls up his sleeve, shows him the scars on his forearm. The injection sites that never fully healed. The brand they gave me when I completed basicconditioning. "See this? H3. That was my designation. I got out. You can too."
He stares at the brand. His rocking has stopped completely.
"H3," he whispers. "You're from the Protocol."
"Harrison Protocol. Yeah."
"They said Protocol subjects don't survive past deployment. They said the conditioning is too deep."
"They lied. They lie about everything." He holds out his hand, palm up. "What's your designation, or your name if you remember it?"
A long pause. His eyes dart between my face and Jinx.
"M7."
"Okay, M7. Do you want to come with me?"
He looks at his hand for a long time.
Then, slowly, he reaches out and takes it.
The next cell is worse.
A girl, maybe ten or eleven, is strapped to a chair in the center of the room. IV lines snake into both arms, clear fluid dripping steadily into her veins. Her head is shaved, electrodes attached to her skull, and her eyes are open but empty.
Whatever they've been doing to her, she's not here anymore. She's gone somewhere deep inside herself. Somewhere they can't reach.
Asher moves to disconnect the IVs while I work on the restraints. The girl doesn't react. Doesn't blink. Her body is limp when I lift her from the chair, a rag doll in a hospital gown.
"Hey." I tap her cheek gently. "Hey, can you hear me?"
Nothing.
"She's catatonic. Whatever they were pumping into her, it's shut down her higher functions."
"Can we bring her back?" Jinx asks.
"I don't know. This level of psychological trauma... We'd need a specialist. Time. Even then, some people never come back from this."
I look at the girl's face. Slack. Empty. A child-shaped shell with nothing left inside.
This is what Helena Cross does. This is what she calls "improvement."
"Carry her," I tell Marlee. "She's coming with us."
"Jinx, if she's too far gone—"
"She's coming with us." I meet her eyes. "We don't leave anyone. Even if she never wakes up. She deserves to sleep somewhere that isn't this." She takes her can carries her out, handing her to two of the older boys waiting in the hall.
The next few cells blur into a parade of horrors.
A boy who attacks Marlee on sight, screaming in a language none of us recognize, trained reflexes turning him into a weapon even at seven years old. She takes a hit to the face before Jace can restrain him, and even then he keeps fighting, teeth snapping at the air, eyes wild with programmed terror.
Twin girls who won't let go of each other's hands, fused by shared trauma into a single unit. They move in unison, breathe in unison, flinch in unison when we approach. Whatever they did to these two, they did it simultaneously.
