“Really?” I ask. “Even if we get the Chamber every night? There’s still no way the prison will let us out?”

“We won’t get the Chamber every night,” Remy tells me. “It never happens like that. I heard a guard say once that everyone used to have to choose Chamber or pause. But over the centuries, the prison became overcrowded, so now we spin for who gets the Chamber each night. And I don’t know if it’s that or simply the way this fucked-up prison was built—but atonement is a joke. In seventeen years, I’ve never seen anyone rehabilitated by torture.”

That’s a chilling thought, and I can tell everyone is letting those words sink in.

Calder eventually breaks the silence. “Also, if we did end up getting the Chamber every night… No one can withstand what the Chamber does over and over and over again—especially if it’s that close together.”

“So we won’t get it six times,” I say, trying to sound upbeat. “We can do it two or three times, right?”

“Once is enough for a lifetime,” Calder tells me, and she already sounds…empty. Like she, too, is in a dark place, and she’s merely trying to figure out how to get through it.

“But I thought Remy said you two make this trip once a month?” I ask.

“We do,” Remy agrees and winks at Calder. “Of course, Calder is particularly fond of nail polish.”

I want to ask if she sniffs it, because who would voluntarily choose torture over no torture? But then my stomach starts to pitch as another reason comes to mind. Is what happens while on “pause” even worse than the Chamber?

My anxiety shifts into overdrive. Panic wells up inside me, and I bend over, start to take off my shoes, but then I realize the only thing I have to feel is cool, smooth metal, which will do nothing to calm me down.

I can’t pull a breath into my lungs, can’t think. I try to name things in the room to ground myself, but there’s nothing here—and the room itself is built to make me anxious as hell. I grab on to my bedcovers, scrunch them in my hands, and try to concentrate on the feel of the fibers. But they’re thin and again just reinforce where we are.

I start to count backward as my heart feels like it’s going to explode, but then Hudson is there. Letting me feel the strength in his hand, feel our fingers brush against each other’s, letting me ground myself…in him.

It’s rough going for a couple of minutes, but he seems to know instinctively what to do to make me feel better. He doesn’t crowd me, doesn’t try to talk, doesn’t do anything but be there with me. And eventually, I am able to breathe again.

“I’m sorry,” I tell him when I finally feel normal—or as normal as I can feel in this situation.

His laugh is dark and painful to listen to. “Don’t apologize to me. Not for this. Not for anything.” He shakes his head, his jaw working. “I can’t believe I did this to you.”

“You didn’t do this to me,” I whisper fiercely. “I chose to come. We have a plan—”

“You chose to come because the alternative was just as bad. That’s not a choice!”

“Don’t do this, Hudson. We’ve been in this together from the beginning—don’t change that now. And don’t take my agency in this away from me. I make decisions for my life, not you. Not anybody else.”

At first, he doesn’t answer. But then he grabs me and pulls me to him until our bodies are only inches apart. “I don’t want you to suffer any more because of me,” he whispers. “I can’t—” He breaks off, throat working.

“And I don’t want you suffering because of me,” I shoot back. “I don’t want anyone in this room suffering. But we’re in this together, right?” I look around to everyone else, who are all trying studiously not to listen…and failing.

“We’re in this together, right?” I repeat. “Whatever happens, we’re going to find the blacksmith and somehow, we’re going to get out of this prison. I swear it.”

I turn to Remy. “You see the future, so tell me, what do you see? You use the flower to get out, but what do the rest of us do?”

“I don’t know,” he admits.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Flint demands.

His green eyes are swirling eerily, but then he shakes his head and they’re back to normal. “It means, all I know is that I use the flower. So either you give it to me to use, or I kill you and take it, or you find another way out.”

“Well, that’s a hell of a lot of ors,” Hudson growls, looking like he once again wants to rip him limb from limb.

“I can’t see the future unless it’s decided,” Remy answers. “And right now, what happens to you is entirely up in the air.”

116

The Price Is Fright

“You’re just the bearer of all the good news, aren’t you?” Flint asks as he plops down on his bed.

“It’s not my job to make you feel better about your choices in life,” Remy tells him, and though the rolling syllables of his New Orleans accent are still readily apparent, there’s an edge to his tone that hasn’t been there since the very beginning.

“Yeah, well, I’m taking a nap. Wake me up when we need to do this Chamber thing.” Flint closes his eyes, and it only takes a couple of minutes before his breathing evens out.

“Must be nice,” Hudson mutters under his breath, and—not going to lie—I had the same thought. Sure, Flint was stressed out earlier about whatever he thinks the Chamber is going to throw at him, but apparently he’s conquered the fear. Which is great for him, but I wish I could conquer my fear of the Chamber half as easily. The idea of seeing Xavier die again and again and again… I fight the urge to dive under my bedcovers and never come out.

“All right, guess we’re going to play,” Remy says, then presses a large button near the bed pulleys.

“Three hours before the spin,” Calder says as she stretches out on top of her bed, too.

“How do you know?” Hudson asks.

She points to a series of small dots on the wall behind the tunnel chute. Three of them are lit a pale fluorescent blue.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” I ask her.

She shrugs. “You won’t get out if we don’t, so…”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t seem fair to you,” I say as it really sinks in what we’re about to put Remy and Calder through.

She makes a whatever sound deep in her throat. “Nothing about this place is fair, Grace. The sooner you figure that out, the sooner you find a way to accept your time here.” She shrugs. “Besides, I want out as much as the rest of you do. I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen. Killing Cyrus once we get out—well, that’s just icing on the cake.”

It’s the most thoughtful I’ve heard her since we met, which only makes me more concerned about what’s coming. If it can do this to Calder…

Hudson stands up and then motions for me to do the same so he can pull back the covers. Once he does, I climb into bed and scoot all the way to the edge to make room for him.

He hesitates for a second, but I am not having it. “If all hell ends up breaking loose, I want to have spent these last three hours with your arms around me,” I tell him softly.

He makes an agonized sound low in his throat but then scoots in behind me. He slides an arm under my head for me to use as a pillow, then wraps his other arm around my waist and pulls me into his body so that I can feel him completely enveloping me.

It feels so good. He feels so good. I melt into him, pressing myself even more tightly against him, so that all I can feel is him.

“No biting,” Flint says sleepily, which probably means he isn’t asleep after all. “Unless I get to watch, I mean. Then feel free to bite away, Hudson.”

“You are such a perv,” I tease.

“Only way to be,” he jokes back. “Besides, that’s the way you like me.”

Hudson growls a little, but it’s without heat and, judging by the little chuckle he gives, Flint knows it.

“We’re going to get out of here,” Hudson whispers against my ear, and the way he says it sounds like a vow. “And when we do, I’m going to do a hell of a lot more than disintegrate Cyrus’s bones.”

He doesn’t say anything after that and neither do I. Instead, I snuggle closer and finally give in to the exhaustion that’s been overwhelming me for days.

I don’t know how long we sleep, but I do know that I don’t wake up until I hit the ground. Hard.

Earthquake is my first thought, because you can take the girl out of California, but you can’t take California out of the girl.

But the shaking is actually worse than an earthquake—which I realize when Calder yells, “Beds up!” like her life depends on it.

“We overslept,” Remy shouts as he races for the chain behind the tube and yanks on it so hard that Flint almost doesn’t make it out of bed in time.

“What’s going on?” I ask, pushing to my knees. But the floor is still violently shaking, which makes it nearly impossible to climb to my feet.