One, two, three, four . . .

. . . ninety-three, ninety-four, ninety-five—

And on the ninety-sixth step, they stop. He spins her around and she feels his hand under her chin. He squeezes his fingertips gently into the muscles that connect her jaw. Her mouth promptly falls open. A moment later, she tastes sweetness pressed on her tongue. His fingers remain on her mouth. They glide along her jawline and down her neck until they hit her collarbone and the touch disappears entirely. She stands there, cautious to move without him directing her, until she hears the lock snap. She rips the fabric from her face and finds herself back in the concrete room all alone.

CHAPTER IX

She lies on the floor of her room, lollipop in mouth, listening to her chest through the drum of the stethoscope. The successive thumps sound weaker than usual, less pronounced, verging on undetectable. Panic settles into her—not enough to spike her heart rate, but enough to make it known that she fears the inevitable nothing in her chest. But she finds a trick. A way to fix it. If she presses the drum deep and sucks down a sharp inhale, her chest bursts with momentary vitality. Enough to satisfy her. So she does it again and again, feeling solace in the thumps, until she feels light-headed and so lets her chest settle before restarting.

Her hair is nearly dry now but still cold, plastered across the concrete floor instead of laying against her back to freeze her spine. She touches a wet strand, separating it, then traces her fingers down to her wrist, feeling how flat and smooth the skin is—besides the tendons, which stick out like ropes. But no bumps or throbbing veins. No happy freckles. Not like Daddy’s.

She frowns and fidgets in her dress, trying to find comfort despite feeling strangled. Her thighs are bare, leaving much of her lower half exposed, the skirt recoiling from its place every time she tugs it down. She crosses her legs and inhales deeply.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

The lollipop clicks between her teeth at the same rate as the thumps, until the thumps grow quiet once again and she drops the drum entirely. She removes the lollipop from her mouth and holds it up to the light, shutting one eye as if looking through a microscope. As she twirls the stem between her fingertips, she admires the chaotic bubble formations trapped inside the red shell. She stares in wonder, then sticks her tongue back out in a pout.

She already misses the taste of sweet.

She places the lollipop between her teeth and crunches down hard, shattering the candy—the full force of an explosion within her cheeks. Her mouth drools as she chews, the lollipop shards dissolving completely across her tongue. She exhales into contentment, not caring now that the thumping has probably returned against her ribcage. All she cares about is the ignition within her skull.

Biting down on the stem like a dog with a used-up chew toy, she gets up and walks over to her mattress. Her body drops like dead weight onto the lumpy cushion and falls against the wall, her face resting on the cold concrete. She uses her fingertips to scan the wall, brushing them across the gray grooves and crevices and subtle parallel cuts. A piece of concrete crumbles under her touch. She runs her fingernails over it and scratches downward, deepening the grooves.