“Agreed, but I’m not going to pretend I’m falling apart because that’s how I should be after going through that.” I want to tell him that I’m still alive, so of course I’m all right, but I don’t want Caleb and his friends to hear in case they take it as a challenge.

I’d like to think I’m mentally strong enough to take a lot, but I’m not that naive to believe that what they’re going to do to me will be easy to get past.

I wait for Theo to make our drinks. “Thank you,” I say, taking my mug when he’s finished.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks as we sit on the sofas.

“What’s there to say? It was hot and then cold. I didn’t like it, and I wanted to get out.”

“You’re being quite blasé about it.”

“What do you want me to do, Theo?”

“Be honest. At least with yourself if you can’t with anyone else.”

“I am being honest! Look, it sucked. Like, royally sucked, but it’s done now. I’m not willing to allow it more head space than it’s already taken up.” Now, I focus on the next thing. I’m doing this step-by-step, day by day. I’ll get past one thing and then move to the next.

“I remember my first time,” he says. “I was in room five.”

No. “Water right away?”

He nods.

While all the rooms sound awful, some seem like they’ll be worse than others. I would rather be exposed to light, sound, and extreme temperatures than be on the brink of drowning over and over for hours.

“Caleb was there?”

“No, it was Owen. He came into the room holding a gun and strapped me to a table. While he was making sure the restraints were tight enough so I couldn’t escape, he told me he’d won the coin toss.”

I gasp and my heart thuds. “They flip a coin to see who will come and do the torturing”

“They did that time. I don’t know if they always do.”

“Sick, sick, sick.”

Theo nods. “Anyway, I was lying on the table, completely unable to move, when Owen put a blindfold over my eyes. I wish he’d done that first because then I wouldn’t have had time to see the buckets of water and rags.”

Pressing my lips together, I curl into the arm of the sofa. I don’t want to hear this. I absolutely do not want to know what’s in store for me when they decide it’s my turn to go in there. But I have to be prepared. If I know what’s coming, then I can keep my mind busy. I can prepare myself for what they have planned and when it’ll likely end.