my desperate need for oblivion. I was so buried in self-loathing that it seemed only right to find solace in the arms of someone who meant nothing to me. I hated myself every day. Being with Lena was both relief and torture.
Even so, I felt numb, all the time.
After two weeks here, I’m beginning to wonder if this prison isn’t one I’ve known before. If this isn’t the same place I spent those two horrible years of my life. It’s hard to explain the intangible, irrational reasons why the view outside my window is beginning to feel familiar to me, but two years is a long time to grow familiar with the rhythms of a land, even one you don’t understand.
I wonder if Emmaline is here, somewhere.
It makes sense that she’d be here, close to home—close to her parents, whose medical and scientific advances are the only reason she’s even alive. Or something close to alive, anyway.
It makes sense that they’d bring Juliette—Ella, I remind myself—back here, to her home. The question is—
Why bring her here? What are they hoping to do with her?
But then, if her mother is anything like my father, I think I can imagine what they might have in mind.
I push myself off the floor and take a steadying breath. My body is running on mere adrenaline, so starved for sleep and sustenance that I have to—
Pain.
It’s swift and sudden and I gasp even as I recognize the familiar sting. I have no idea how long it’ll take for my ribs to fully heal. Until then, I clench my teeth as I stand, feeling blindly for purchase against the rough stone. My hands shake as I steady myself and I’m breathing too hard again, eyes darting around the familiar cell.
I turn on the sink and splash ice-cold water on my face.
The effect is immediate. Focusing.
Carefully, I strip down to nothing. I soak my undershirt under the running water and use it to scrub my face, my neck, the rest of my body. I wash my hair. Rinse my mouth. Clean my teeth. And then I do what little I can for the rest of my clothes, washing them by hand and wringing them dry. I slip back into my underwear even though the cotton is still slightly damp, and I fight back a shiver in the darkness. Hungry and cold is at least better than drugged and delirious.
This is the end of my second week in confinement, and my third day this week without food. It feels good to have a clear head, even as my body slowly starves. I’d already been leaner than usual, but now the lines of my body feel unusually sharp, even to myself, all necessary softness gone from my limbs. It’s only a matter of time before my muscles atrophy and I do irreparable damage to my organs, but right now I have no choice. I need access to my mind.
To think.
And something about my sentencing feels off.
The more I think about it, the less sense it makes that Max and Evie would want me to suffer for what I did to Emmaline. They were the ones who donated their daughters to The Reestablishment in the first place. My work overseeing Emmaline was assigned to me—in fact, it was likely a job they’d approved. It would make more sense that I were here for treason. Max and Evie, like any other commanders, would want me to suffer for turning my back on The Reestablishment.
But even this theory feels wrong. Incongruous.
The punishment for treason has always been public execution. Quick. Efficient. I should be murdered, with only a little fanfare, in front of my own soldiers. But this—locking people up like this—slowly starving them while stripping them of their sanity and dignity—this is uncivilized. It’s what The Reestablishment does to others, not to its own.
It’s what they did to Ella. They tortured her. Ran tests on her. She wasn’t locked up to inspire penitence. She was in isolation because she was part of an ongoing experiment.
And I am in the unique position to know that such a prisoner requires constant maintenance.
I figured I’d be kept here for a few days—maybe a week—but locking me up for what seems to be an indeterminate amount of time—
This must be difficult for them.
For two weeks they’ve managed to remain just slightly ahead of me, a feat they accomplished by poisoning my food. In training I’d never needed more than a week to break my way