Since she barely had any room in the cage to move, her body had begun to ache, which turned to excruciating pain, which eventually gave way to numbness. Now she couldn't feel anything. This meant that if she did get loose, she'd just collapse onto the floor, unable to move. Not that it mattered. It had been several hours since she'd believed there was a way to escape the cage.

A sound behind her. A doorknob turning? She tried to turn her head to look behind her but her muscles weren't cooperating.

She heard a door open, then close. Followed by a fingernails-against-a-chalkboard screech. The sound got closer and closer until she finally saw Greg, either clean shaven or no longer wearing a fake beard, dragging the wooden chair across the concrete floor. The bandage on his neck was gone, revealing no cut. He had a brown paper bag in his free hand. He placed the chair a few feet in front of her cage, then sat down in it. He looked up at her. He stood up, adjusted the position of the chair, and sat down again.

"Please—" Olivia said.

"No," said Greg. "No begging. No pleading." He gestured to the other cages. "It didn't work for the other girls, and it's not going to work for you. Don't ask me what I want. Don't ask me why I'm doing this. Don't offer me anything. If I wanted to rape you, I would've done it before I locked you up there."

"I have to pee."

"I'm not going to let you out to pee. You know that. I can see from the floor that you weren't able to hold it before I got here. Don't worry about me having to clean up. Do what you need to do."

"Please. People will be looking for me."

Greg shrugged. "So? I didn't snatch some crack whore from behind a Dumpster. Of course people will be looking for you. I enjoy that part. I get to watch their sad faces on television. Who will be the most heartbroken that you're gone? Your mother? Father? Boyfriend? Children?"

"I left clues."

"No, you didn't. I'm not sure you even knew what planet you were on. Like I said, these other girls tried every trick in the book, and having you just regurgitate what they did is kind of pissing me off." He scooted the chair a bit to the left. "Not that it matters. Your fate is the same no matter what you do. Nothing you can do will change it. Imagine that you've leapt off the top of a hundred-story skyscraper and you're plummeting toward the pavement. The only possible ending in that scenario is you splattered on the ground. The only possible ending here is with you starving to death in that cage. Like the rest of them."

He stood up and walked over to the cage next to Olivia's. He gave it a gentle shove. The woman opened her eyes.