That settled it, then. Trust no one in a house of lies.

I gripped the back of my chair, rolled it to test the weight. They had these same chairs at the studio where I record commercial tunes for toilet paper companies. The base unit is a good twenty-five pounds, solid. I grabbed the seat in one hand and the back of the chair in the other, hefted it like a battering ram.

“What are you doing?” Malia asked, scooting backwards toward the wall.

“The opposite,” I said – sugar, caffeine, and adrenaline traversing my veins – “of whatever you tell me to.” I charged the wall mirror, unleashing a war cry that sounded more like a wounded hawk, and crashed the base of the chair against the glass window, creating a fractured dent.

I heard Malia yelp behind me. “You can’t do that,” she said, but she didn’t sound authoritative. She sounded scared.

“The fuck I can’t.” The fear in her voice told me this was the right move. “Watch me.”

I slammed the base of the chair in the same spot, squinting against the shards of glass that stung my face and neck. I reared back and slammed it again, like chopping wood, grunting from the impact. Ignoring the pain in my back. Again, WHAM, and the top-right wheel broke through into the recess beyond. It was a two-way mirror after all. Which meant someone was sitting on the other side, likely staring in shock. I paused to peer through the hole but it was too dark to see anything. Two more slams and the base of the chair broke through. It hung suspended in the air as I let it go. I paused to steady my breath, my heart thudding so hard it hurt.

“Stop, look at me,” Malia said. Her reflection was fragmented in the shattered glass. A crack ran down the center of her face, splitting it in two. “Come with me, and I promise I’ll get you out of here. Do this, and they’ll kill you. Plain and simple. There’s no looking behind the curtain.”

The chair was stuck in the mirrored window like a cork. I could leave it there, follow whatever path they’d laid out for me and the horrors that awaited. Like a cow being led to slaughter. Or I could go off script and try to rewrite the ending.

Most likely it was the sugar high, but I felt invincible at that moment. “What, have you never seen The Wizard of Oz?” If this was being recorded, I wanted a tape. Proof of this mini-rebellion. “It’s fear of the unknown that keeps us in check.”