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If I could, I’d bury my head in my hands. Selfishly, it’s less about what Katrin’s going to suffer than about what it will do to our plan if she isn’t back soon. This may be our last chance, and it’s only going to work once. As soon as the guards figure out how we escaped, they’ll make sure it can’t happen again. But if Katrin hasn’t returned yet, could I really leave her behind? It was her idea in the first place, and if I’m descended from her the way she claims, leaving without her may mean I cease to exist the moment we go.

* * *

Over the next two days I continue weaning Marie off the drug, but it’s far harder for her than it was for me. She twists all night, sweats, retches whenever the guards aren’t looking. Over dinner that second night the guard stands over us both, and we’ve got no choice but to finish what we were served. It takes me a day to pull out of it. Marie starts from scratch, and by the next morning is begging me for the gruel.

I begin the process of keeping her clean once more, and she’s still half-drugged when Sunday arrives. The guards are more anxious than normal, and over breakfast I hear them bickering about who will drive tonight. This is it, our chance. If we go, I can save Marie but might be signing Katrin’s death warrant, and therefore my own. If we wait, we could all die.

I spend the entire day worrying, and there are no words for how relieved I am when Katrin is shoved into our room, just after dinner. She’s so pale she’s nearly green, and there’s a fresh bruise along her jaw.

“Are you okay?” I whisper, as we lie down to sleep.

“No,” she says. Her voice is flat, empty.

“We have to leave tonight,” I tell her. “I’m not sure we’ll get another chance.”

She’s silent, and for a moment I worry she’ll refuse. “Give me the drugs,” she says finally.

I reach into the hole in my mattress and pass them to her. She rises, walking straight to the guard, who lounges at the desk with his mug of beer, ready for an evening nap. “I need the bathroom,” she says.

He laughs. “I guess your cot will smell like piss then.”

She leans toward him, over the desk. “You know he’s going to kill all of you before this is done.” Her hand passes over his mug.

The guard is one of the short-tempered ones. His hand flies out fast and I can hear it make impact all the way across the room. She falls to the ground. “You think just because you’re his whore you can talk to me like that?” the guard roars. She clutches the sides of the desk to stand and pulls herself up.

“No,” she says. “I suspected you’d react just as you did.”

She returns to her cot and we lie still, waiting until we’re certain the guard is passed out.

“It’s time,” I finally tell Marie as I pull her to her feet.

“I’m going to be sick,” she whispers, and she falls to the floor and retches. Katrin and I exchange a glance. Her nausea won’t be improved, lying pressed against rotting corpses for several hours. She’s going to give us away.

I hold her hair back. “Get it all out,” I whisper. “You can’t do this when the guards load us on the truck, okay? They’ll know you’re alive if you do.”

She nods. After a minute, when nothing more has come up, I pull her to her feet, and tell her the plan, which sounds far simpler than it actually is: hide three corpses, pretend to be dead, and time travel as soon as we’re outside. “Don’t wait for me,” I warn. “Just go. Do you understand?”

She nods and I squeeze her hand, allowing myself to truly hope for the first time that this might work. In a few hours I might be back with Henri. I want that moment so badly I can feel it in my bones.

Together, the three of us sneak into the hall. Marie leans on me the entire way, her skin clammy and her hands shaking. Katrin is lagging too, weak and ill from her days with Coron. I can’t allow myself to think about what those days entailed, and I can’t allow myself to feel sympathy. Sympathy won’t get us out of here.

We pass the hole they are digging, the place they will store the bodies soon. I don’t want to scare Marie but I feel like I have to. She needs to understand how serious this is and right now, she’s too sick and too drug-addled to get it. I point to the hole.

“You see that?” I whisper. “That’s where the bodies will go after tonight. Under that big slab. Do you understand what that means?”

She nods and I pray it’s enough. Because if we don’t get out tonight, I’m not sure we ever will.

I open the infirmary door. The bodies lie in a pile, eyes open, mouths gaping. I wasn’t prepared for the sight or the smell. Marie, though—who hasn’t been conscious over these last few weeks—is far less prepared than me.

She falls to the floor beside them, dry heaving now that her stomach is empty. Katrin is green as well, but plows forward, grabbing one of the women by the shoulders.

“Are you sick?” I ask.

She gives me a tense nod. “Get the feet,” she whispers.

Even with two of us, the task is far harder than I’d anticipated. It’s over a hundred pounds of dead weight, and I’m so weak from days without food that even propelling myself forward is a struggle at times. I force myself to keep moving, and when we finally drop the body beneath a table at the end of the room, I have an odd, floating sensation that makes me wonder if I’ll survive the journey home. We return to the corpses and grab another, both of us breathing heavily; we manage it, but just as we return for the third, we hear the heavy tread of boots in the hall. My gaze meets theirs. The guards are here early, and we don’t have time to hide the third body.

Which means one of us has to stay behind.