Page 40 of Irreversible

I wonder if his chest feels achy.

An hour ago, I’d say no. Never. But I sense a shift in him now.

Before I can press him further, I hear the keypad on my door chime to life. My pulse jumps. I scramble off the cot, knocking over my barely touched breakfast.

Anxiety ripples through me.

I don’t get many visitors, aside from Roger at mealtime. The last time I had a string of strangers enter my room was when my procedure was beginning.

Oh, God…it’s happening again.

A stocky woman stalks through the threshold, quickly closing the door behind her and sealing us in. Her hair is cropped short, her eyes like shards of ice, chilling me to the bone.

She pulls a needle out of her front pocket, and I inch away.

There is no expression on her face—no smirk, no glint of excitement. There is no softness, either. She’s blank. A shell of a human.

Watching her move toward me, I curl my fists at my sides, knowing I have nowhere to run. There’s no place to hide, no point in resisting.

A firm hand snakes around my upper arm, and she lifts my nightgown with the other. My underwear hardly clings to my hips, my waistline shrinking with every month that rolls by.

When I squeeze my eyes shut, I feel the needle slide into my belly like butter. I lurch backward, my instincts causing me to struggle in her bruising grip. I hate needles. Ever since I witnessed my dog being put to sleep when I was in junior high, the sight of them is frost to my veins.

“Hold still.” The woman’s words are muffled by the plastic cap between her teeth. Her voice is void of sympathy. She doesn’t care about me. “Stop squirming.”

My limbs quiver, but I obey.

For a moment I wonder if I can overpower her. She’s broad and burly, but smaller than Roger.

My eyes flick to the holster around her waist.

Dammit.

It’s pointless; I’d hardly get a decent punch in before she whipped out the pistol and shot me dead.

I glance at the wall beside me, wondering what Nick is doing as the needle glides back out. He’s silent, and I’m grateful for that. During the first few months of my captivity, there was a different man on the other side of the wall. Mitchell. I’d been terrified, screaming and kicking while a towering giant with peanut butter on his breath jabbed a needle into my abdomen.

Mitchell shouted. Cursed. Smacked his chain against the wall so hard, I thought he might break through it. He couldn’t, of course. Our kidnappers are too smart to build walls made of simple plaster and drywall.

All it got him was a beating from Roger, then an hourglass the next morning.

I’m not sure if Nick is smarter, wiser, or if he’s just utterly indifferent to my circumstances. Either way, I’m glad he’s quiet.

Hardened and stone-faced, the woman pulls back and caps the needle, not sparing me a single glance. She swivels around and storms out of the room, swiping her keycard and leaving me with a droplet of blood on my stomach and my gown caught in the hem of my underwear.

I exhale a rattled breath and straighten out my clothing. Tears prick behind my eyes at the realization that they’ll be stealing more of my eggs.

Nobody in this place has confirmed it. The Timekeeper speaks in riddles and rhymes, and Roger is practically mute. But the memory of my feet in metal stirrups is never far from my mind, paired with that rodent-like doctor who hovered over me as can lights from above illuminated my shivering body. He spread my legs. Removed my underwear. Yanked my gown up to my waist until I was fully exposed and humiliated. A steel tray beside me was littered with what looked like torture devices: speculums, probes, more needles.

And then…

Nothing.

I woke up in my cell, my belly cramped, and my inner thighs caked in dried blood.

Then the pediatric nurse, Mary, took up residence in the room beside me. I gave her the details surrounding my procedure.

Egg retrieval.

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