Page 24 of Irreversible

“A fucked-up son of a bitch who just made the dumbest mistake of his life?”

She makes a small sound. More like a sob than a laugh. “A prisoner, Nicholas.”

“I’m not a pris—” Glancing at the cuff, I swallow the pointless rebuttal and concede. “Just call me Nick.”

Then she says the words that flip my world upside down:

“Hi, Nick. I’m Everly.”

The name settles in my bones. I’ve only heard it one other time, and I can picture the woman it belongs to as clear as if she were standing in front of me—some wannabe model who went viral on social media. The husband was shot, while the woman vanished into thin air.

Thing is, that happenedtwo years ago,just before Sara was taken.

Fucking hell. I’d all but lost hope.

I suck a breath in through my nose, but my lungs don’t want to fill, and right now, the air is feeling pretty damn thin.

I just found Everly Cross.

5

Nick.

I had a boyfriend named Nick once. Sophomore year of high school. It was before my braces came off and I discovered the magic of leave-in conditioner, but Nick saw past my awkward phase and embraced the willowy insect guru with wild hair, spurring a year-long romance that included ice cream dates, study sessions, and a Homecoming dance.

He loved iguanas and rap music.

He also loved Maggie Klausner’s vagina.

I hate the name Nick.

I wait for him to reply to my name, but all I hear is deafening silence. I’m used to the silence, so, for a moment I forget that I’m not alone.

Staring at the ceiling, I zone out on the wispy sheets of cobwebs in the upper left corner of the room, dangling and still. A few months ago, a spider somehow got in and took up residence there, becoming my roommate until it was evident that its food supply was nonexistent.

It died within weeks.

Yet I’m still here.

I make a humming noise, then turn my cheek to the wall to hear whatever might seep through it. “Nick?”

He makes an unidentifiable sound, and the masculine timbre rumbles through as I sit in the corner with my knees drawn to my chest.

Part of me doesn’t want to say anything else; I don’t want to get to know a dead man.

But the bigger part of me can’t ignore the nagging tug of loneliness. As prickly as this guy seems, I prefer talking to him over this godforsaken barricade between us. At least he talks back.

Sort of.

So far, it’s been mostly rage-infused grunts, a slew of curse words, and growling.

“My name is Everly,” I repeat, uncertain if he heard me. “Are you?—”

“The people who have come through here… How long do they last?”

I blink, frazzled by the interrogation. No one has ever inquired about the other prisoners before. Normally, the onslaught of initial questions goes something like this:

“Where am I? What the fuck? Where the hell am I? What thefuck?”

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