Page 121 of Irreversible

“Ever—”

“Everly Cross.” I give him a shake that almost takes my balance with it. “That model that disappeared two years ago.” I need to get moving before I collapse.

“Two years… The fuck?” His eyes go wide. “Shit. Is Sara…?”

I shake my head, cursing the pressure behind my eyes. All I can see is her sitting in front of that hourglass, knowing those were her final moments. It’ll haunt me for the rest of my life. “Find Everly. Make sure she gets out safe. I want you topersonallymake sure, do you hear me?”

“Fine.” His hands wrap around my wrists. “Let’s find her together, and then I’m getting you to a hospital. We’ll catch the guy. I promise. He went into the woods in the middle of nowhere; I’ll get teams to canvas the area.”

“No.” Twisting out of his grip, I back away. I’ve taken too long already. “It doesn’t matter what happens to me. I don’tcare.Not if he goes free. He killed Sara, Tanner. She was here, and he killed her.” My chest heaves. “I have to go.”

I leave him standing there, trusting he’ll do as I asked. Breaking into a jog that jars my bones and threatens to buckle my knees, I push for the tree line.

Nothing will deter me from my mission. I have a promise to keep.

“Porter!” Tanner calls out, one last time. “Isaac!”

But I’m already gone.

29

Hours roll by.

It feels like hours. Each one stretches painfully, like the elastic balloon of grief inside my chest. I stare at Jasper through the bars. He’s slumped sideways, his shoulder pressed to the right side of his cage as his chest slowly heaves in and out.

“What do you think they’ll do to us?” he asks as I aimlessly draw patterns on the dusty floor with my big toe. “Torture? Dismemberment?” He tilts his face toward me and frowns. “That man in the silver suit…he strikes me as the creative type. A satanic ritual, acid baths, Medieval torture methods. Something twisted like that.” Cringing, Jasper adds, “Scaphism. Do they still do scaphism?”

My nose scrunches. “I don’t think so.”

“Maybe they’ll sell us to the highest bidder, and we’ll become circus entertainers.”

I’ve spent the last hour filling him in on the details of my captivity.

The injections, the blackouts.

Roger.

Books, mementos, evil nurses, and the doctor with beady eyes and rat ears.

Screams. Terror. The other victims.

I dodge the subject of Isaac to the best of my ability, only giving him minor details. I don’t know why, but Isaac feels too personal, like a cherished secret. All I tell him is that he was the last prisoner on the other side of my wall.

I don’t tell him I never got to see his face.

And I don’t tell him his face is the one thing I wanted to seemostover the past couple of months. More than I craved fresh air in my lungs and sunlight on my skin.

But I realize it’s for the best that I never got to memorize the color of his eyes, or the texture of his hair, or the angles of his jaw. If I had a face to put to the name, I’d be eaten alive. Gutted from the inside out.

And then there would be nothing left of me.

Jasper needs me right now. He needs me to be strong, capable, and vigilant. I’ve had practice with this kind of pain. Two harrowing years of it.

His words register as I lean back against the cage. The unknowns of my future play out in morbid color, but I can’t imagine a fate worse than this.

Worse than my own self-inflicted guilt.

“I don’t know,” I murmur. “I never thought about becoming circus entertainers.”

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