Caleb and Owen tortured him with water together. It’s one thing to have two of us in that room, but something else entirely to have two committing the torture.

“It’s okay now. You’re here and you’re safe.”

“You believe we’re safe here?” he whispers in my ear.

“Right this second, I do.”

Evan steps back and brushes my hair from my face. “I really needed your positivity, Piper. Thank you for following me in here.”

“Of course. Do you need anything?”

“Just for you to be up on your bunk again.” He smiles shyly, like he’s just shown me his journal.

“That I can do,” I tell him.

We climb our respective ladders and lie down. I stare up at the ceiling and wait. A second later his arm flops over and onto my pillow.

With a big smile, I reach up and take his hand.

“Good night, Piper,” he says softly into the dark.

“Night, Evan.”

36

I spent most of the night tossing and turning. In the morning, we all get up together. It seems no one slept well.

The reason? The damn roasting bedroom.

They turned up the heat.

So that’s new.

Theo, Hazel, Priya, Lucie, and I are all on the sofas, drinking coffee like it’s going out of fashion. Evan is in the bathroom.

The temperature is back to normal now, but the damage has been done. We’re going to spend the day tired and hope they don’t do the same thing tonight.

I felt like I was going to burn to death in the dry heat last night, with nothing to cool me down.

Wait. Fire. That’s it! We could set fire to the place.

Great, and actually burn to death.

But…would they let us burn in here? The fire department would come. Even if they don’t call, someone would see a lot of smoke in the woods. They’d think it was a forest fire.

Caleb, Matt, and Owen couldn’t leave us because firefighters would find our burned bodies and start to ask a lot of questions.

They would be forced to act. They would have to let us out of here. The transportation of captives is the part where the kidnappers are most vulnerable; there are factors outside of their control.

We can escape.

“We need to set the place on fire,” I say.

Theo, Lucie, and Priya look at me with wide eyes.

“What did you just suggest?” Hazel asks.

“That’s too dangerous!” Theo growls. “We’ll die.”

I shake my head. “No, I don’t think we will.”

The four of them look at me like I’ve lost it completely. I haven’t. Not completely anyway.

Unless I have, and I just don’t know it. Either way, it’s a plan that could work. It’s better than playing dead since Theo and I aren’t getting called into any rooms.