She heard the sound of a key being shoved into a padlock, followed by the groaning of hinges. This door was louder than the door of her last cell and the sound of it opening always set her teeth on edge. Cain placed the food at the foot of her cot and quickly withdrew. Elizabeth sat up again and scrutinized the meal: a few inches of baguette, a lump of cheese of indeterminate origin, a bottle of Evian water, chocolate because she had been good.

She devoured the food and gulped the water. Then, when she was certain no one was watching through the spy hole, she shoved her fingers down her throat and vomited her fourth meal onto the floor of her cell. Cain burst in two minutes later and glared at her angrily. Her blanket was now wrapped around her shoulders and she appeared to be shivering uncontrollably. “The ketamine,” she whispered. “You’re killing me with the ketamine.”

Abel brought a bucket of water and a rag and made her clean her own vomit. Only when her cell was cleansed of impure female excretions did Cain reappear. He stood as far from her as possible, as though he feared catching whatever was ailing her, and with a terse movement of his hand invited her to explain her affliction.

“Idiopathic paroxysmal ventricular tachycardia.” She paused for a moment and drew a series of rapid heavy breaths. “It is a fancy way of saying that I suffer from sporadic arrhythmia in the lower chambers of my heart: the ventricles. This sporadic arrhythmia has been exacerbated by too many injections of ketamine. My heartbeat is now dangerously rapid and arrhythmic and my blood pressure is extremely low, which is causing the nausea and the chills. If you give me another shot of ketamine, you could very well kill me.”

He stood silently for a moment, gazing at her though the eye slits of his hood, then withdrew. Several minutes later—about twenty, she guessed, but she couldn’t be sure—he returned and handed her a typewritten note:

FOR REASONS WE CANNOT EXPLAIN TO YOU, IT IS NECESSARY FOR YOU TO BE MOVED THIS EVENING. IF YOU ARE CONSCIOUS DURING THIS MOVEMENT, YOU WILL BE EXTREMELY UNCOMFORTABLE. DO YOU WANT THE KETAMINE OR DO YOU WANT TO BE MOVED WHILE YOU ARE AWAKE?

“No more ketamine,” she said. “I’ll do it conscious.”

Cain looked at her as though she had made the wrong choice, then handed her a second note.

IF YOU SCREAM OR MAKE ANY NOISE WHATSOEVER, WE WILL KILL YOU AND LEAVE YOU BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD.

“I understand,” she said.

Cain collected the two notes and slipped out of her cell. Elizabeth stretched out on her cot and stared into the blinding white light. Her rebellion was only a few minutes old, but already she had managed to gather two small pieces of information. She was to be moved by road and at night.