She turns, keeping her head down and shuffles slowly toward the waiting room door.

Oh God, what are they going to do to her? Will they punish her more than the torture rooms do already? Their plan could still be to have me face Kevin in room zero.

The door clicks shut behind Lucie. It’s now locked. She’s on her own.

Above us, the speaker crackles, then, “Priya, turn on the TV.”

“What?” Hazel asks. “Have they ever told anyone to do that before?”

Theo shakes his head, his suspicious eyes on the TV already. “No point. It only plays DVDs.”

Priya does as she’s told.

The four of us gasp in unison as the hallway to hell flicks on the screen. Lucie is there, walking slowly, prolonging this part as much as she can. Going in there is inevitable.

“Which one is she going in?” Hazel mutters to herself as much as anyone else.

I don’t want to speak the words and jinx anything in case I’m right, but all I can think is that Kevin is also out there somewhere, in those rooms over and over maybe, and they need two people for room zero.

Lucie is much smaller than Kevin, both in height and weight. She’s petite and skinny, where he’s built like a rugby player.

I move closer to the screen, following Priya, Hazel, and Theo as they also go in for a better look. “Will they show inside the room, too, do you think?” I ask, my stomach turning at the thought.

“I don’t know. I hope not,” Priya replies.

“We all agree that we turn the thing off if they try to?” Theo says. “No matter what punishment would come, we agree that we can’t allow them to do that, right?”

“Agreed,” I say.

Hazel nods, and Priya says, “Absolutely.”

It’s one thing for them to watch it, but to force us to see a friend being hurt like that—that’s horrific. I would hate the thought of someone else watching me in there, seeing me at my most vulnerable.

Lucie braces her hand against the wall in the slightly grainy picture on the screen. She must be so scared right now, anticipating which room she’s being sent to. At the moment, she’s not in the right frame of mind. She’s angry and thinks she was robbed of a chance to escape. I don’t know what that means for her; if she’ll be more or less able to handle what’s about to be thrown at her.

Come on, Lucie.

“Where is she going?” Hazel whispers.

I feel Lucie’s fear. Earlier this morning, I experienced it.

God, this day needs to end.