Is someone trying to cut my mouth open just for kicks?

No. The woman who made these lentils wouldn’t have the nerve to hurt me on her own when she’d invariably be caught. Only one woman in this entire fuckshow would give me a weapon like this and trust me to use it wisely.

“I will, prima,” I say under my breath. “I promise.”

Gulping down the lentils, I snap the shirt open. Same one, but it’s now a warrior returning home scarred, but stronger. There’s something hard inside the top hem of the pocket. Maybe binding or reinforcement.

I pinch down to feel the shape of it.

It’s a wire, and a firm one.

Sarah left this for me.

The door doesn’t have a keyhole. I can’t pick it, but she’s speaking to me. She’s going to keep sending things for me. One will work.

I don’t pray, but I close my eyes and thank whatever can hear my thoughts. The goddess of planning, forethought, and strategy. The ghost of whoever was here last. My own deepest self. I thank all of them for Sarah, who, for reasons I cannot quite grasp, loves me.

To a man with nothing, a paperclip and a razor seems like more than enough, until I see the puckers in the pocket hem.

Could there be more?

Hiding what I’m doing from the camera above, I slice the stitches on the top of the pocket and open up the seam. There, I find a row of six runes stitched in the color of dried blood.

I don’t know what they mean.

There’s a knot between the fourth and fifth symbol—like a separator, but what does it separate?

Only Sarah can tell me what it means. I’m not in a position to demand to see her.

How much time passes between the time I fold the pocket back together and Massimo’s visit?

Not much. Enough time for the trap door to open for the empty bowl, but not enough for another delivery. Enough time to do pushups until my arms ache, but not enough to get stronger.

There’s action on the other side of the metal door. Clacking and whooshing. The beep of the biometric locks. I’ve figured out that there’s a hall between two doors, so if I attack whoever comes in, I’ll still have at least one more locked door to get through.

The steps aren’t feminine. It’s not the meal tray, and the irregular footsteps and scrapes are too few to be the team that tries to break me. There’s one foot, then a tap.

For a split second, I fear I didn’t finish off Peter Colonia. He’s here, on a cane and a club foot.

No. Sarah’s wearing black for him. He’s dead.

I crouch at the end of the bed in case I need to launch, but I have no concrete plan to disable my visitor. Not this time.

With another long beep, the light above the thumb pad goes from red to green, and Massimo swings open the door. His left leg is in a cast, and he leans on a wooden cane with a brass tip and handle molded into the shape of a cobra. Behind him, two men the size of tool sheds wait on the other side of the glass, attentive to any attempt at escape.