Page 23 of Lamb

I made it to seventy-seven crooked crosses before the sound of the door cracking open again had me spinning around and staring at… an empty hallway. Until I dropped my glare and spotted the chair. I recognized the whining of the wheels. He must have been the one groping me up in the icebox when I first woke up here.

The boy eyed me for a moment before reaching into his pocket and flicking his wrist in my direction. A red rubber ball hit the padded wall to my left with a softthud, quickly falling to the floor and rolling towards my socks—the grippy kind that everyone joked about.

I bent down and picked it up, not bothering to adjust my gown as it bunched at the front and revealed what little you couldn’t see beneath the threadbare fabric. Then I looked from the ball back to the boy taking up most of the doorframe with his arms crossed over his chest and a single blonde eyebrow raised.

“Cut it in half and tuck the pieces behind your ears,” he said as he tossed a packet of bubblegum my way.

I caught the pink packaging midair. “Why?”

He shrugged a single shoulder. “Or don’t. Whether or not your brain gets scrambled really ain’t my problem, princess.”

The nickname gave me pause. I didn’t like the thing it did to my pulse or how my body instantly reacted to thethought of my shadow man. Or maybe he was nevermineat all. Not if he was working with my father…

But I had more important things to worry about. Like the fact my door was wide open now. I rushed forward, only to have it slammed in my face before the lock clicked over the front.

I pounded on the metal with my fists, my knuckles bloodied by the time I gave up and yelled out, “What the fuck am I supposed to cut it with?”

“You got teeth, don’t you?” the boy yelled back a few seconds later. Which told me his room wasn’t far.That, or more than one of these fuckers was watching me.

34

MARISELA

Ilooked to the left, then quickly turned my head to the right. Stretching my neck and trying my best to peer over the hunched body in front of me to see if I could wriggle any of my fingers, as each of my wrists was tugged straight and strapped down to a padded armrest. So tight my hands were numb.

The room was cold and windowless—except for a glass partition that took up the entirety of one wall. I couldn’t see through it, but I had no doubt someone was there. Probablymultiplesomeones, the sort who weren’t allowed within five-hundred meters of a school zone. And then went home and touched their wives and kids with the same hands they used to diddle themselves in a playground bathroom.

I didn’t know if this was their version of entertainment or foreplay. What I did know was that it was fucked. And so was I if I didn’t figure a way out of here.

I searched the room for a knife, a pencil, anything Icould use to cut myself free, before a woman in blue scrubs pinched my jaw, prying my mouth open and shoving a cloth block past my teeth while her counterpart pressed down on my forehead to keep me from squirming. It tasted like moth balls and I had to breathe through my nose to keep from gagging up nothing. Because I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d had something to eat.

I stared up into the bright light dangling above me as one more strap was ratcheted in place, so that I had no choice but to close my eyes or sear the image of the circular bulb into my retinas.

Then all the machines began to whirl, buzzing and humming in the silence of the enclosed space. Larger than my little hospital room but much more closed-in with everyone crowding around me. A choreographed dance of prepping syringes, securing electrodes and monitoring my vital signs. I didn’t need any of it to know that my heart was beating out of my chest, though.

I could hear it as much as I could feel it. Pounding in my ears and thrumming in my temples.

I’d fought them the whole way here, clawing and biting until one of the orderlies—a bald guy with skin so thick he didn’t bleed—had decided it was easier to toss me over a shoulder, the blood rushing to my head and my bare ass on display as I’d watched the hallway disappear behind us. Upside-down.

Now, I was tired and sweaty and my throat was dry from screaming. My nails were cracked and sticky but Icouldn’t feel them. I couldn’t feel anything, thanks to the drugs they were pumping into my veins.

That was a lie. Because I did feel grateful for the little rubber pieces I’d hidden behind my ears with the help of that bubblegum. Especially when the first volt of electricity surged to life. My spine going rigid, my jaw clamping down, and everything else going dark.

35

MARISELA

The next “treatment” was worse than the last. By the third, I was too disassociated to feel much of anything besides the occasional sharp ringing in my ears. A weird humming sound that came with a recurring pins and needles sensation. Like someone was digging around in my brain but only sporadically hit a nerve.

The rubber balls helped absorb some of the shock, but they didn’t stop it altogether. Food tasted different. More bland and less tactile. Lumpy and unappealing, no matter what it was. I lost my sense of smell, which didn’t help with the food issue. And I couldn’t find that part of myself that liked to put up a fight.

She was still there. I could feel her in the back of my mind. Floating around somewhere. I just couldn’t reach her.

I shook my head as I glanced down at the gray tray in my lap. I didn’t even know if it was actually gray or not.Everything justfeltgray. Duller. No matter what color it was. Even the applesauce that had the consistency of a regurgitated fruit cup and the milk that looked more yellow-gray than white-gray.

I twirled a spoon around the bowl, my eyes staring out the window but seeing nothing, and thought aboutnothingwhen usually I couldn’t stop thinking about everything. I’d always been a thinker. Planning and plotting had been like breathing. Second nature.

Now breathing seemed planned, while thinking was like drowning.

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