With that, he leaves, the guards following, and the door closes behind them.

Sitting still in the quiet room disconnects her from her body. She floats above, still feeling the physical pain, but focusing more on the emotional loss. Faces fill her vision, and she hears the voices of her mom, Daniel, Zach, Zoe, Josh, and Anna as if they were in the room with her. She even imagines how her dad’s voice might have sounded.

But as time goes by, those images become unbearable, and she has to move. Her body aches as she stands, legs shaking.

She walks to the door, knocking gently.

“Hey,” she mutters, wondering if the guards outside can hear her. “I have to pee.”

“Bucket,” a man replies.

So, they can hear her. Makes sense. Someone will have to be there to listen when she finally hands over the letter.

She frowns and looks back to the bucket. With no worry for her dignity, she stumbles over and sits on it to relieve her bladder. For a moment, she wonders why she can’t smell anything. Then she realizes.

There’s the silver lining to a broken nose.

“Hey,” she says, walking back to the door. “Will that get emptied?” When there’s no answer, she mumbles, “That’s not very sanitary,” and turns back to the room.

The light is built into the ceiling, too high for her to reach even if she stood on the bed frame. And even if she could reach it, the bulb is behind a metal frame that she has no hope of unscrewing. The same can be said for the air vent, which is in the corner of the ceiling.

The bed is the only accessible thing in the room.

She pulls on her earlobe in thought. She walks over to the bed and curls a hand around a metal spring. It’s rusty and squeaks when she tugs on it. Kneeling, Lynell grabs a leg of the bed and lifts with all her strength. The bed rises a few inches off the ground and Lynell lets go so it drops again.

Heavier than she expected. Or she’s weaker than she thought.

She tries to disconnect one of the wires from the rest of the bed. Success is within her grasp when the door opens and Eric stomps in, frowning at her.

She lets go, holds her hand up, and steps back. A dark orange stain covers the palm of her hand and exposed skin on her forearm from messing with the bed.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

Lynell doesn’t answer.

“You’re a pest and I can’t wait to rid the world of you.”

“That’s not very nice,” Lynell says with a hoarse voice.

“We could have avoided all of this,” he says, raising his hands, as if gesturing to the room at large. “All the bloodshed and loss. If you’d only accepted my original offer.”

“And give you the power to control everyone? To cause hundreds, maybe thousands, of deaths?”