Page 31 of Irreversible

“As cliche as it sounds, I mark them on the wall. I’m sure I’ve missed a few.”

“Mark them with what?” If I had a pen, I might be able to get creative and use the spring to get out of this cuff.

“Lipstick.”

“Why do you need lip—” I stop short. I’m getting sidetracked again. “Never mind. What happened after the Viking-troll took you?”

“I woke up here.”

“Well, that’s no help whatsoever.”

She releases an exhale, but it’s closer to a laugh than annoyance. “Just like you, I was drugged—everyone is when they get here. They don’t want to damage thegoodsif they can help it.Sounds like you got yourself banged up, though.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve never felt better.” In a moment of shit timing, I stretch my legs out in front of me, causing the cuff to rub against the open wound on my ankle, which doesn’t feel great. It’s the involuntary flinch, twisting my ribcage, that steals my breath. My teeth grind. “Goddammit.”

She spares me the “I told you so.” In fact, she’s quiet for several minutes while I breathe through my nose as calmly as possible, head resting against the wall. My eyelids are so heavy, I stop fighting to keep them open.

“No one remembers much about my disappearance. It was so long ago now…”

My chin dips, hitting my chest, and when I jolt awake, my head starts throbbing all over again. I force my eyes open. There are so many things I need to be doing right now. I need to assess whether I can detect blind spots for the camera, examine the sink and toilet for parts I might covertly dismantle and utilize. Come up with a concrete plan.

After spending my adult years as an insomniac, it’s some kind of irony that my body decides to shut down here.

“It’s like the world kept going,” she murmurs, her voice fading as I drift away. “But for me…time stopped the minute I entered this room.”

7

Blinding fluorescent lights stir me awake, as they always do. Today they mingle with the screams of a woman across the hallway.

“Don’t touch me!” the voice shrieks. “Don’t youfuckingtouch me!”

My heart stutters.

Remnants of a dream fall away as I jump to my feet and rush toward the oversized metal door, pressing my palms and forehead against it. Gray and cold. Sterile.

I curl my fingers, my nails grazing the surface.

“Please, please, let me go…stop! God, stop it!”

“The fuck?” Nick’s voice cuts into the commotion, followed by a pounding fist. “Who is that?”

I swallow. “I don’t know.”

“What?”

“I don’t know,” I repeat louder. “Stay quiet.”

He does.

My eyelids squeeze shut as I press closer, wishing I could reach her. Nausea sweeps through me and settles in the pit of my stomach while I listen to her beg and plead for her life. I’mnot sure who’s in there with her, as I’ve only witnessed a handful of people breeze in and out of this room.

The Timekeeper. Roger. Nurses. The red-haired guy—Nick said his name was Dolph.

There was a doctor once, who loomed over me as I lay sprawled out and drowsy-eyed on a frigid steel table, my feet in stirrups. Thin wisps of stark-white hair decorated the sides of his head in sparse patches, leaving him bald on top, and his ears jutted from his head like sails catching wind on a weathered ship. He was cold and rat-like, but in that moment,Ifelt like the rat. A science experiment. Nothing but a vulnerable creature at the mercy of his clinical gaze, stripped of dignity.

My ear remains glued to the door. The mysterious woman’s screams fade into heartbreaking whimpers as a deep, unfamiliar voice resonates through me. “She’s perfect.”

“Fantastic.” The Timekeeper. “I thought she would be, knowing your type.”

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