With a jolt, he looks up from the screen. “We’re wasting time,” he says. “The anesthesia affects the molecular structure of the compound. The only way to achieve breakthrough is to recreate the first treatment. But this time, at a higher level.”

I’m weak and exhausted and damn near broken—but I can’t just give in, give up. I get to my feet and lift my chin, ready for when Alex comes for me with what fight I have left.

He stops far enough away that I can’t touch him. He removes his glasses, placing them on the cart, then takes me in curiously. I’m wearing the same clothes I had on the day before. I plan to wear them again tomorrow. I’ve stopped caring to wash my hair, and it’s a snarled mess with grown out dark roots. But he’s looking at me like he sees none of it. Not the dark circles under my eyes. Not the pallor of my skin.

No, to Alex—right here in this moment of maddening discovery—I’m the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

I’m his answer.

And when he moves toward me, I lash out with all the fight that my body can muster.

In the end, it’s not enough. I’m subdued and dragged to that gurney where he injects me with his cocktail brain drug, and my heart careens against my chest as I see those paddles coming closer.

“Everything in nature has a defense mechanism,” he says, a crazed gleam in his eyes. “You’re strong, Blakely. Stubborn. The most resilient subject. Your mind refuses to crack. But even the strongest defense mechanism can be broken. Just have to find your weakness.”

I try to push myself below consciousness, to some distant place far away from him and this hell. But when the current comes, I feel every electrifying pulse. My body is a lightning rod for pain.

I hear music. Cords plucked in a frenzy, bows scraped across strings at an earsplitting decimal. An agonizing symphony of torture, and Alex the conductor.

A scream claws past the guard in my mouth, and it doesn’t stop until my throat flames raw. Alex dials the voltage up until my body can no longer withstand the torment, and mercifully, this psychotic level of hell goes black.

* * *

Tiny pinholes of light bathe an endless expanse above.

I’m weightless. Bodiless. There’s no pain, no memory. Only the knowledge of existence, and the cool sensation of touch. Dark puffs move across what I now realize is the night sky, and the serenity is smashed.

For a brief moment, I thought I was dead.

I curl my fingers toward my palms and hear a distinct splash.