I snatch the coveralls from the bed and throw my legs into them, turning my body away from the camera, sick at the thought that Doug’s probably been watching me this whole time.

Once I’m zipped inside the coarse jumpsuit, I move toward the camera’s flashing red light. I stand under it, my chin high as I stare into the lens. “You thought I would care about anything else? You assumed I was better than that?” I spit his own words back in Doug’s face. “That was your first mistake. I promise you I’m far, far worse.” I press a hand against the wall, ignoring a wave of fatigue as I summon my magic. Static crackles in my hair. My fingers tingle with it as I reach out with my mind, but we’re too deep below the earth for roots to grow here.

Determined and furious, I search the stone itself, seeking out the rhizomes of the mosses and algae hidden within its crevices. I’ve done it once before, at the border in Tecate. Only this time, I’m already so deep underground, I don’t have to reach far.

I grit my teeth as the wall shivers. Chips of shale clatter past my outstretched hands. With a final push of my thoughts, the surface of the wall breaks away and slides into a heap of rubble. The camera crashes down with it, dangling upside down by its wires. I turn it upright, leaning close to the lens, certain Doug’s watching me. “I’ll ruin you,” I promise as I rip it from the wall.

The red light winks out.

I sink to the floor, too exhausted to stay on my feet any longer. It was just a performance, a show to prove I’m not as weak as Doug wants me to be. And now that it’s over, it feels even more like a farce. I drag the thin blanket around my shoulders and huddle at the foot of the bed, my tears falling silent and fast as I remember the terror on Jack’s face. I swat them away.

Jack’s alive. He has to be. If he was dead, I would know it. I would feel it.

But hadn’t I thought the same thing about Gaia just moments ago?

The temperature in my cell drops. I lift my head as a dark gray smaze drifts through the bars in the door. It circles my cell and zips out again, leaving an icy draft in its wake. Doug probably sent it to spy on me.