*****
After announcing she’d have to wait for information, he fed her—a thin, tasteless broth, but enough to restore some energy—and dropped her back off in the “holding cell,” which seemed like a fancy way of saying hell-hole.
When she peppered him with questions about who he was and what this place was, he ignored her. Her frustration grew as he inclined his head, said, “Until next time,” and shut the door.
Because there would be a next time?
She stomped into her hell-hole, slammed her back against the wall, and growled.
Amy, her friend and one of the few things Sam actually remembered, approached cautiously. “Are you okay?”
She nodded, not sure what to think. He may not have answered her questions, but he’d fed her. Her eyes didn’t burn with sleeplessness anymore. Her nap had been deep and dreamless. “Fine.”
“You were gone a long time. We worried.” But something other than worry laced Amy’s tone.
Sam shrugged. “See? Everything intact.” Maybe if they had done something, she would have answers about this place and its purpose.
Amy eyed her slowly from head to toe. Suspicion made her ask, “Who gave you the blanket, Sam?”
Sam looked down at herself, the blanket more like restraints than warmth or victory if this was the kind of response she got. It wasn’t the thin tablecloth she’d pulled from the drawer. It was a real blanket. She glanced at the door to the other room.
“Someone came in and locked it,” Amy said, following Sam’s gaze, “while you were gone.”
Sam nodded, unsurprised. “Here.” She took the blanket from her shoulders and held it out to her friend. “You need this more than I do.”
Amy flushed. “What did you have to do to get this? They don’t just give away blankets for free.”
Sam recoiled from the venom in her question. “How do you remember what they do or don’t do?” Other than the guard who’d stopped her and the faceless guards who delivered water, she didn’t remember crossing paths with anyone else. Sam’s curiosity returned and sharpened.
“Well,” Amy sputtered, “going over there was stupid. They don’t like you, Sam. They watch us. You were bound to get in trouble.”
Sam had already figured that out. “You don’t imprison people you like.”
“You can’t risk yourself. It’s not like we each have our own blankets. If they wanted us to have them, we’d have them.”
“If we could remember. What was the last thing you remember? I don’t even know what came before this place.”
Amy fell silent. Probably trying to rack her brain from some kind of memory, the way Sam had been doing since she’d woken up in the arms of that guard. A tendril of heat crept up her face. She squashed it.
“I don’t remember anything either.”
Sam nodded, as if that ended the argument. “I didn’t have to do anything to get the blanket. A guard just gave it to me.”
“Which guard?”
She took a step back at the edge in Amy’s question. Without understanding why, she replied, “I’ve never seen him before.”
It didn’t answer Amy’s question, but it was true.
Amy drew herself up to her full height and swiped stringy hair out of her face. “I don’t want you sacrificing yourself. We can take care of ourselves.”
“I didn’t sacri—”
Amy snatched the blanket out of her hands, cutting off her words, and strode over to the other prisoner. She spoke in low tones, the words so quiet Sam could only make out the murmur of sound from where she stood. The old lady huddled underneath the blanket, and as Amy joined her, she glared at Sam.
Sam turned her back and walked to the door to the hallway. There was a tall, rectangular window in the door, no doubt so the guards could peek in without dealing with the prisoners.
Because three freezing and starved prisoners were dangerous to healthy, strong men.
Her mouth thinned. But if the window allowed the guards to peek in, she could peek out. She hadn’t been interested in this door before; it was the guards’ door, theirs to open and close. They controlled it. It held no benefit for her.
She wondered at that control. The man who’d talked with the blue-eyed guard said she was dangerous. But how? As frustrating as he was, the guard had been right: she’d been cold and hungry and weakened. Even now that she had food in her stomach and a decent few hours of sleep, she could feel the weakness in her arms, the way walking often felt like dragging herself through water. She presented no threat to anyone.
But the haze of gnawing hunger and exhaustion no longer stalked her brain and Sam wondered why she was here. And why she had no memory of what had come before.
She cataloged what she remembered. She’d woken up in this room with Amy and one other person. No. She’d known Amy before this room. Amy felt familiar in a way the old lady didn’t. But how she knew Amy or for how long was lost to the haze.
She remembered nothing that hinted at who she was or what she possessed that they wanted. If they even wanted something. Maybe the old lady would know. She turned back to the group, but Amy glared at her with enough hostility to make her give up. Or maybe Amy was less of a friend than Sam thought.
Sam had meant what she’d told the guard earlier—the old lady worried her. Her wrinkled skin covered a frame that was more bones than meat or muscle. She shivered constantly, even covered with the blanket.
What did they all have in common?
Turning back toward the door, Sam breathed on the window, fogging it up around her mouth. She drew an X through the condensation. When it disappeared, she cupped her hands around her face and looked out.
It was a… kitchen?
Her head fell back in surprise, her breath escaping and fogging up the window again. She waited for it to clear and looked back out.
No, not a kitchen.
It had a sink and what looked like dishes lying around, which was why she’d thought kitchen, but no. This was worse.
It was a lab.
A shiver rolled over her body. Labs meant conducting experiments or research. What kind of experiments did the Northern Alliance Betterment Society conduct here? Something that required human prisoners and guards.
The metal counter in the middle she’d mistaken for a raised table was big enough to fit an adult. If something had happened there while she and the others were here, she would have heard it.
Wouldn’t she?
But a fuzzy memory tickled the back of her head. The more she grasped at it, the more it fizzled. The old lady, though. She was part of it; it was the reason she was declining so fast. But what had happened, Sam didn’t know.
She could find out. Sam reached for the door handle, surprised when it gave way without resistance. She stopped.
Had the guard been careless or was he setting her up? He’d been nice to her before, but maybe that was the first step. Befriend the prisoner. Gain her trust. Truss her up on the table and dissect her. Maybe he fed her because she was too skinny for what they had in mind. Guards didn’t punish thieving prisoners by giving them food and a warm blanket.
She couldn’t trust him.
But she wanted to know what lay beyond the door. The others might be content to hide underneath the blanket and let fate take them, but she wasn’t. She was going to get out of here. There was a way; the guard had been careless with her, bringing her to the room with all the televisions. A map of the building was mounted on the wall behind the televisions. She’d seen it. Studied it. Memorized it.
The compound was shaped like a T, with the top of the T boasting five separate stories, and the bottom of the T a single story. She, Amy, and the old lady were at the bottom of the T. The rest of the compound—whatever went on there—was at the top. The control room was at the intersection on the first floor. And the bottom of the T—the area where they were—had no exits. They were trapped.
And cameras were everywhere.
How far could
she get before they stopped her?
She nudged the door open.
Behind her, Amy gasped. “Sam,” she hissed. “What are you doing? They’ll punish you.”
Sam frowned and turned around. “Do you think staying here will ensure our survival?”
“There are guards.”
“I know.” Sam wondered if they were all as soft as Coop, the guard who’d stopped her from stealing.
“They’ll catch you.”
“Maybe,” she said. Maybe she wanted to be caught. What would they do to her then? She’d been caught once already and she’d been rewarded with food, warmth, and sleep. What else could she get? Answers. Limitations to the guards’ goodwill.
More than what she had.
“Maybe if you just told them what you knew,” Amy insisted.
The words jarred a certainty loose. Amy had been trying to get her to talk about what she knew. What her family was doing. What the memories were like. But Sam had no words for Amy—not then or now.
“Let her go.” The old lady. Sam and Amy both fell silent. “The guards will catch you, no doubt,” the old lady said, her voice pale and weak. “But you’re right: we won’t live by staying. We can die by fighting or by hiding. Which are you comfortable with?”
Amy slumped against the wall and murmured something Sam couldn’t hear. Her crossed arms and refusal to make eye contact told Sam that Amy wouldn’t answer—that her answer was cooperation and capitulation. Sam wasn’t going to give in so easily. She nodded at the old lady and turned back to the open door.
She chose to fight.
The guard’s words repeated in her mind. Cameras are everywhere. We’re always watching.
She stepped through the door and shut it behind her. The cameras. She scanned the room until her eyes landed on the wall toward her left, almost to the ceiling. There. Staring at it, she stepped forward. Five more.
The camera moved with every step she took.
He hadn’t been lying. But what reason would he have to lie about that? The information alone should have been enough to dissuade her from attempting to escape again. But he’d piqued her interest and with some of the haze disappearing, she needed to know what was going on.
He underestimated her desire to learn more.
She saluted the camera and approached the area around the sink. The raised table held no storage, so she skipped over it. Taking a deep breath and steeling herself against what she might find, she opened the cabinet underneath the sink.
Soap. Paper towels.
They told her nothing.
The drawer next to the sink revealed boxes of thin, transparent gloves. She moved on. The drawer below that, locked. The drawer to the right, locked. And the one below it.
Her heart sank. But she spurred into action, tugging at every drawer she could reach, desperate to see her guess wrong. All locked. She looked back to the camera. It was still trained on her.
Sam imagined him laughing at her. Silly prisoner thinking she could take control.
Escape. Wreak havoc.
Her fists balled. She would find something.
She started for the door on the other side of the lab. The one that would lead her out of this place.
“I wouldn’t do that.”
She looked up to the ceiling, where his voice came from an overhead speaker she’d missed in her search for the camera. How she knew it was him, she couldn’t say. The system distorted the voice, making it tinny. Sam cocked her head and took another step forward.
“Don’t make me get up and lock you in the holding cell. I just sat down to eat.”
She made a face. How terrible it must be to have your meal interrupted. How rude that the prisoner wanted to escape her holding cell. Sam moved forward.
He made a frustrated noise. “Come on—”
Before he could finish, she took a step back and waited. When he said nothing, she stepped forward and imagined him gritting his teeth in annoyance. She smiled.
“If you force me down there, I’ll take your socks back.”
She frowned down at her socks. She’d forgotten about them, but they had kept her feet warm. She wiggled her toes. The threat of losing them persuaded her to back up, more than any other threat he could have tossed at her. She wanted those socks.
“I know you like your socks. They’re quite adorable on your petite feet. I’d hate to have to forcibly remove them.”
Her head snapped back up at the camera and she narrowed her eyes. He held the power and both of them knew it, but taking away her socks was the worst punishment he could mete out? What kind of game was he playing? She ground her teeth together.
She wanted those socks. And if giving in meant making him think she’d meekly follow his orders, all the better. Inclining her head at the camera, Sam returned to her holding cell to plot her next move.