“Is that what it was like for you?”

“I don’t know. Probably. I just reacted, I didn’t think, and the whole thing was over so quickly. That’s a small mercy. James didn’t suffer.”

“What is that room like?”

He lowers his mug. “It’s dark, painted a midnight blue, but the lighting is bright. The room is bare besides a table where the two knives sit.”

“Have they only sent you in there once?”

His eyes wince with painful memories. “No.”

“How many times, Evan?”

Averting his eyes, his Adam’s apple bobs as he gulps. “Four.”

“Four?”

“Three times before I was kept in the other rooms. Once after.”

“You weren’t in here long before you were taken out, though.”

“No.” He smirks. “I didn’t play by the rules, and I tried to break down doors and organize escapes. They thought sending me in there would make me give up, but I couldn’t, Piper. I have to find a way out of this hell. This is bigger than any of us. I want to bring them down.”

“Shh!” I hush, my eyes flying to the camera on the wall.

“What?” He follows my line of gaze. “No, I don’t think they can hear us.”

“How do you know that?”

He shrugs. “Tested it. I told them I was going to flood the bathroom. They only intervened when water started pouring over the tub. But when I shouted that I was going to smash it, they had no reaction.”

“They can’t hear us,” I mutter. The revelation fills my lungs. I didn’t think we had any privacy. My body is on show to them, and I can’t do anything about that, so it’s comforting to know that my voice is still my own.

“Nope, you can say whatever you want in here.”

“Good. I have a lot to say about them.”

He taps his finger on the side of the mug. “Narcissistic psychopaths.”

“Sounds like a pretty accurate description. There has to be something wrong with them to want to do this, right? I mean, there was a lot of planning, a lot of remodeling the building to do all of this. They must have had meetings about it, discussing what they were going to do and how to do it. Which one of them thought of the different rooms?”

“How do you even go through that process? Planning the torture and murder of other people?” He shakes his head. “I bet it was Caleb who started it. He’s always had the air of authority about him. I’ve only seen him with Matt and Owen once, but he was definitely the boss.”

“Yeah,” I reply. “He was the one who picked me and Hazel up. Owen was with him, but he was more a bystander.”