He shakes his head. “I was woken by the crackling of the intercom, but it must have been as it shut off.”

“I don’t know which room he’s in,” I say.

“They don’t tell you until you get to the waiting room.”

“I hope he’s not long,” Hazel says. “I’ll make breakfast for everyone.”

“You want a hand?” Kevin offers. “You don’t know where everything is yet.”

Can’t say I want to be here long enough to remember where things in the kitchen are kept. I want out now.

Hazel accepts Kevin’s offer, and together they make microwaved scrambled eggs and toast.

Priya is next to wake up. She heads straight for me. “How are you feeling today?”

I shrug. “Okay, I guess.” How should I feel? I’m more upset about not knowing if anything happened to me when I was passed out. I can handle pain, I think, but my body is my own.

“I remember being confused after my first time in one of those rooms. It gets easier, the after part. You kind of get used to it. I’ve found a way to protect myself.”

“How?”

“I separate it. What happens out of this room is out there. In here, I’m with friends and I’m safe. It’s as if I become someone else when I walk through that door.”

That sounds like a breakdown waiting to happen, but none of us can worry about the future now when the present isn’t a guarantee. Priya needs a way to justify what she did to Sophie in room zero. Whatever gets us through…

“What do you do to get through being in those rooms? I kept thinking about my family before I passed out.”

She smiles, her eyes sad with understanding. “I think about my siblings. I’m the eldest of four, but we’re all close in age. We spoke so many times about leaving and heading to the city. I want to be a lawyer, Kamal a model, Sahana a doctor, and Zaina an accountant. When I’m in those rooms, I imagine they’re all there, working their dream jobs. I know they can’t be—they’re too young—but I need to believe they’re happy.”

“I’m sure they’ll get there, and when you’re out, you can join them.”

“Do you think we’ll get out?”

From the low tone in her voice, she doesn’t.

“I do,” I reply. What’s the point of going on if I don’t? This isn’t a life in here, so if there’s no hope…

She wrings her hands. “I wish I could be that confident. I try to be. I don’t often let doubt enter my mind, but when I think about my siblings, I’m afraid I’ll never get to join them.”