She shakes her head, tugging against the restraints as the guy comes to her with a knife. He pulls the flat side of the blade up her body without breaking the skin, leaving a track of cold fear behind. Until he gets to her left arm. Then he turns it, so the sharp end pierces her wrist and drags down the back of her hand. She screams. For how long, she doesn’t know. She can feel the sound scraping against her throat. The oxygen escapes her lungs, her vision falters. She doesn’t think it’s her voice anymore.

She passes out.

Water fills her nose and wakes her up. She chokes and jerks to sit up and expel it and take a deep breath, but the restraints are still in place. She gasps, sucking in water which only causes her to cough and splutter and tug at the restraints again.

Her eyes fly open and she gags, staring up into the blinding light above the bed frame she’s bound to. Panic overwhelms her, and the edges of her vision blur before she’s finally able to suck in a decent breath. It feels like hours before she calms and sinks back into the metal frame. She closes her eyes and pulls in haggard breaths, her lungs burning.

“Ready to give us the letter?”

She turns her head and pulls her eyes open to stare at Eric. He’s sitting in the chair, one leg crossed over the other. His hands are folded gracefully in his lap and he eyes her with disinterest.

A guard comes into her vision, clad in black. She looks up to see his face, calm and expressionless. He looks at her and his lips quirk into a smile before he drops a metal bucket. It clatters against the ground and rolls away. Lynell flinches at the sound, which just causes her naked body to rub against the tight restraints again.

“We let you sleep late. It’s almost noon, you know,” Eric says. He leans forward, and a single strand of hair falls away from its gelled companions. He pushes it back and tilts his head. He looks at her as if she’s an experiment, nothing more than a specimen in a dirty lab. “I trust you slept well.”

Lynell looks away from Eric and stares at the ceiling. She doesn’t want him to see the nightmare in her eyes. The way her body slipped in and out of consciousness, trying to forget where she is.

“Zach is on an errand for me or I’m sure he’d want to say hi,” Eric continues. Lynell hears the chair scrape against the metal floor, and she fights another flinch.

Then she feels something on her arm, and she turns away from Eric to see the guard drying all the water off her skin. He starts on her arms then moves to her face, stomach, and chest. Lynell’s not sure if they’re doing this to clean her, torture her, intimidate her, or all three.