‘The others?’
‘Your programme is different.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Your room, the food we give you, the way we’ve been with you — it’s not our normal way of working. I don’t think you realize how lucky you are.’ Andrew’s eyes shifted left and right, suspicion in them. ‘But I worry about you, you know that? I worry that you think the best way to get better is to fight us.’
He didn’t say anything.
‘Am I right?’
He shook his head.
‘Normally, that doesn’t concern me. On our regular programme, we have ways of dealing with problems. But with you here, among this luxury, it’s more difficult.’
Andrew looked at him.
‘Do you want to fight us?’
He shook his head again.
‘Good,’ Andrew said, standing. ‘Because you don’t want to fight us. But if I see that look in your face again, I’ll put you on the same programme as everyone else.’
Andrew moved across the room and placed a hand on the door.
‘And, believe me, you don’t want to be on that programme.’
He lifted his head. He was sitting in the corner of a different room, pitch black. He couldn’t remember how he’d got here. Didn’t know how long he’d been out. His arm was raised to head height and locked to something. Knotted maybe, or clamped. It pinched his skin when he moved, and pin and needles prickled in his muscles.
Where the hell am I?
He could see a thin shaft of moonlight bleeding in through a window further down the wall. And as his eyes started to adjust to the darkness, other shapes emerged: a door, on the far side, closed most of the way; and a white shape, like a sheet, diagonally across from him. There was a breeze coming in from somewhere, and the sheet was moving, billowing up as the wind passed through.
Something specked against his skin. He turned. The wall beside him was wet, almost glistening. There was a liquid on it, dribbling down. He brushed it with his hand. Water. It was running down the walls, all the way along the room.
Next to him, at his eyeline, was a square metal plate, bolts in all four corners, with an iron ring coming out of it. Water was on that too — and something else as well. Darker. It smelt of rust. Maybe copper.
Oh shit, it’s blood.
He tried to move his arm away from the wall — but something glinted and rattled. He felt handcuffs pinching his skin. One loop was attached to the ring, the other clamped around his left wrist. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t escape. Couldn’t even get to his feet without being pulled back down again.
He glanced towards the door.
The sheet had moved now. Edged a little closer to him, parallel to the wall. This time, he could make out something beneath the sheet: a shape.
‘Hello?’
The shape twitched.
‘Hello?’
It twitched again. The sheet slid a little, falling towards the floor. And from beneath the white cotton, a face looked out at him.
A girl. Maybe only eighteen.
‘Hello?’ he said again.
She was thin. Her mouth flat and narrow. Her skin pale. In the darkness of the room, she looked like a ghost.
‘Where are we?’
She looked towards the door — a slow, gradual, prolonged movement — and then back to him. But she said nothing.
‘Are you okay?’
No reply. Her head tilted forward a little, as if she was having trouble holding it up. He tried edging away from the wall, as far across the room as he could go.
‘Are you okay?’
And then he felt something soaking through his trousers. He looked down at the floor. A pool of vomit was under one of his legs. He backed up, away from it, and slipped. The handcuffs yanked at him as they locked in place, and pain shot through the top of his arm, like his shoulder had popped out of joint.
‘Keep quiet.’
He looked across at the girl.
She was staring at him now, her eyes light like her skin, her hair matted and dirty. The sheet had fallen away. Beneath, she was only wearing a bra, some panties and a pair of socks.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked.
She didn’t reply.
‘Can you hear me?’
She twitched, as if someone had jabbed her with the point of a knife, then turned to look out through to the landing again. She stared into the darkness beyond.
‘What’s your name?’
She finally turned back to face him ‘Keep quiet.’
‘What’s going on? Where are we?’
She shook her head.
‘What’s your name?’
She paused. Looked at him. ‘Rose.’
He edged away from the wall again, careful not to stand in the puke this time. The smell in the room was starting to get to him.
‘Listen to me, Rose. I’m going to get us out of here — but you’re going to have to help me. You’re going to have to tell me some things.’
She stared out through the doorway. Her spine was dotted down the middle of her back; and there was a bruise, big and black, on her left side, just next to her bra strap.
She said something, but he didn’t pick it up.
‘What did you say?’
She pulled the sheet around her again, and faced him. Her arm was also handcuffed to the wall. He noticed there were more rings running the length of the walls on both sides of the room. Equal distances apart.
Then he spotted something else.
A sharp piece of tile, maybe from a bathroom wall, or a roof, about four feet in front of him. It was shaped like a triangle. Jagged on one side. He moved as far away from the wall as he could get, the handcuffs locking in place again, and swept a leg across the floor.
‘What are you doing?’ Rose whispered.
He tried to get to the tile again. His boot made better contact this time, and the tile turned over, the noise amplified inside the stillness of the room.
‘Stop it,’ she said. ‘He will hear you.’
He looked at her. ‘Who?’
‘The man.’ She glanced out through the door. ‘The man in the mask. The devil.’
I wonder what you taste like, cockroach.
A shiver passed through him.
‘Who is he?’ he whispered.
She shrugged. ‘A friend of the tall man.’
The tall man. The tall man. He fished for the memory, but it wouldn’t come. He stared at her blankly.
‘Andrew,’ she said quietly.
Andrew.
Then the memory formed. The man dressed all in black. The tall man. The one who had been there when they’d taken his teeth.
He looked at Rose. ‘I can’t…’
‘Remember anything?’
He paused, a part of him scared to admit it. ‘Yes.’
‘Yeah, well, that’s what they do,’ she said. ‘That’s how they make you forget about what you’ve done. You want my advice?’ She glanced at the doorway again, then at him once more. ‘Hang on to what you can, because once it’s gone, it ain’t coming back.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, eventually, you’ll forget everything.’
‘Forget everything?’
‘Everything you’ve done.’
‘What do I need to forget?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘What do you need to forget?’
She watched him for a moment, as if trying to figure out the answer for herself, then turned her attention back to the doorway. The sheet had slipped again. Against her pale skin, the bruise on her back looked dark, like spilt ink. He imagined it was painful too. Right down to the bone.
‘Did the man in the mask give you that bruise?’
Rose looked down at herself and brought her free hand around to her back, running her fingers across the surface of her skin.