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One day you’re laughing and dancing and loving, and the next you’re spread out in the morgue, cold and alone, a body without a soul to be dissected for medical knowledge or turned to ash when nobody comes to claim you. One day you’re making plans to nap and grocery shop, the next you won’t need either.
One day you’re fighting the urge to tell a good man that you’re in love with him—and the next you’ll never have the chance.
Biting back my sudden urge to cry, I rest my head against the cool brick wall and close my eyes. Using the tips of my cold fingers, I massage the chaffed skin of my neck and ankles underneath the biting chains. The skin is raw and tender, making me flinch at even the slightest touch.
In all my thinking time, I did consider my chances of escaping. But even that lasted a mere hour before I gave up. This isn’t a movie. I can’t dislocate my ankles or undo the huge padlock that keeps the metal collar locked around my neck. The chains are bolted to the brick wall with steel construction bolts the size of my index finger and, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t work my hands to the bone trying to pick away at the bricks.
All that’s left to do is wait.
Wait for when it’s my turn to go.
I have considered what it would be like to just slowly waste away here, just slowly diminish in size until there’s nothing left by taut skin over my skeleton. Until another girl takes my place.
It’s not the worst way to go—in fact, the worst thing about starving to death must be the thinking time while you wait to die. Your thoughts constantly circling delirium. Your circling delirium pulling all the unanswered questions back to the forefront of your mind. I wonder what the girls are doing right now. I wonder if Aiden’s looking for me. I wonder, if I die, how long before he moves on? How long before they all forget about me entirely?
I remember Lyla once went on a ketogenic diet. To eradicate her body’s glycogen stores and enter ketosis, she fasted for seven days beforehand. When the girls and I told her she was being ridiculous, she printed off a bunch of new research on fasting and blood sugar. I don’tremember most of it, just one sentence: Depending on the level of hydration and fat reserves, a human can survive more than sixty days without food.
Sixty days.
Sixty.Days.
I’d rather take a goddamn bullet.
I think about Aiden the most.
I think about all the discarded moments I won’t get to have with him. The long nights of being wrapped up together, held in the safety of his arms. The days we could have spent learning everything there is to know about one another. I think about the time we’ve already had, so short and sweet, and, instead of making me grateful, it makes me incredibly sad. To think that if I had just had one small moment of courage and gone to him instead of to Suzy…
I could be with him right now.
Safe.
Warm.
Loved.
The grating slide of the bolt echoing through the cavernous space has me huddling closer to the wall and squeezing my eyes shut to prevent the burning torch beam from probing my sensitive eyes. In the darkness, I hear the heavy groan of the metal door as it swings open.
A collective silence descends.
There is no moaning, no crying, no rattling of chains now. It is so quiet that we may as well be dead, not one of us daring to breathe lest we attract attention.
As he does every time, the man perimeters the room, giving each woman five seconds to guzzle as much water as she can from a plastic water bottle before moving on to the next.
I listen, my ears trained like a chained dog’s as he circles closer and closer, his heavy steps surprisingly gentle on the concrete floor. Like a whisper to a friend.
My heart thuds loudly in my chest, so loud that when he comes to stand in front of me, I wonder if he can hear the heavy duh-dum duh-dum duh-dum of it. Even through my shut eyes, I can see the light of the torch as he shines it on my face and slaps the water bottle into my outstretched hands.
I drink like it’s the last time I will have the chance. The lukewarm water, pulled straight from a bathroom faucet, coats my dry throat, bringing me instant relief. And when he snatches the bottle from my hands, I can’t help the mewl of desperation that slips from between my lips.
Before his footsteps whisper away, he holds the torch beam on my face for a second longer.
And that’s when I know.
I’m next.
Chapter 32
Aiden
