“I don’t want to get in there!” she snaps, clenching her teeth. Hazel’s dark eyes fire bullets. She’s so petrified of going into a room. We’ve all gone multiple times, and she hasn’t done any yet. I think part of torturing her is making her wait, getting her so anxious about her name being called. They make her stress and worry every day that her turn is coming up.

“No one wants to get in there!” Theo says. His voice is hushed, but he’s clearly irritated. “Suck it up, Hazel.”

Someone needed to say it. Hazel needs to be a team player right now. We all do.

“Shut up, Theo,” she whispers. “This has nothing to do with me. You and Piper are the ones wanting to knock down walls.”

“So if we manage to do it, are you going to stay in here or are you going to leave with us?”

Priya and I sit back. Usually I would be the first person to jump in and defend Hazel—she’s my best friend and I have a lot of practice sticking up for her—but Theo is right. She can’t take a step back and do nothing to help.

“You can’t force me to do something I don’t want to do, Theo!”

“Shh!” I hiss. “Lower your voice again, please. The last thing we need is for them to hear what we’re saying.”

Hazel snaps her mouth shut and folds her arms. She’s acting like a spoiled child and annoying me to no end. We’re all going to have to do things we don’t want to for the greater good.

I need to be ordered to one of those rooms soon, so I can check if there’s any sign of a window.

Better still, I need to get back outside to double-check there actually is a window we can get access through. But going outside again seems unlikely. Unless they want to see if anyone else will run. We’re going to have to have a conversation about how we go forward, get everyone to agree that we can’t run, but we can check out the outside of the building and report back.

The speaker above us crackles. “Piper, turn the TV on,” Owen says, his voice rattling over static. “You’re not going to want to miss this.”

No.

“I can’t,” I say, looking up at the camera. That’s what they’re waiting for. If they wanted us to watch, they could turn it back on themselves. They want me to do it. Do they have no empathy at all? Is there nothing human about any of them?

“Piper, turn the TV on, or Lucie will be waiting for you in room zero.”

Priya gasps. “Just do it, Piper. No-watching pact is over! I would rather be watched than forced to kill or be killed.”

She’s right.