“What do you mean?” I ask. “What exactly do you think we’re doing here?”

These are only two of the many questions I have for him.

“Get some rest,” he commands, not answering either of them. “We’re leaving early tomorrow morning.”

He says that, then he strides out the door he didn’t close before pushing me into a wall.

But this time, he shuts it behind him. With a slam.

I wait. Holding my breath, I make myself wait until his footsteps recede into the distance.

And as soon as they do, I lunge for the door. To my horror, when I turn the knob, it stops almost immediately. It's locked!

What kind of establishment has doors that lock from the outside?

I yell and slam my hand into the door. “Hey! Hey! Somebody let me out!”

As if in answer to my pleas, a single shot rings out from below.

Then the music starts up again. This time even louder. The bass of a Colin Fairgood track shakes the floor. It’s one of the hip-hop crossover songs he did with Roxxy Roxx—one I actually liked. Before this moment.

But Waylon’s just killed another man.

And locked me inside this room.

An ugly primal panic overwhelms me as I remember Melinda, the foster mother who locked me in the closet to teach me a lesson about lying after Ant got taken away—when I tried to explain to her what really happened so that she could tell the social worker to retrieve the innocent boy who’d done nothing wrong from Juvie.

Dry swallowing, I run to the window.

There's only a single dim light illuminating the ground outside, but it's far enough down that I can tell a drop would be painful. And even if that wasn’t the case, when I try to pull up the window to see if there’s any kind of ledge I can step out onto, it doesn’t budge in the slightest. It's locked too. This is a room designed to imprison.

No! No! No!

I run back to the door, and I don’t just yell this time. I scream—I scream for Waylon, for anybody to let me out. Scream and cry.

It feels like my mind is cracking. Like, of all the things that happened after I said no to that pastor today, this is the consequence that will destroy me.

But no one comes, and eventually, I pass out, too tired and emotional to go on like that.

I awake to a soft knock the next morning and open my eyes to find myself lying right next to the door. It’s not dark anymore, but it’s not bright either. Dim rays of early morning sunlight shine through the room’s dusty window.