Chapter 15: Not Her

Bastian lifted the third floor plate with two fingers.

Under it, wrapped in an oilcloth, was a small grey book with a cracked spine.

He put it in my hands.

The first page was dated in a small, tidy script, and my stomach turned over, because it was not my handwriting.

It was close, and it was a nurse's hand, but the loops were different.

Night three, it said. C. held. Two beads left. He did not scream. Do not let W. hear the clippers.

I read down the page with my thumb under the lines.

Night six. C. whispered my name when he thought I could not hear. I think he knows. I think that is worse.

Night nine. Last one. The dish is full. Hide it where the tray always is, in case I do not get back.

At the bottom, in a hand that shook, someone had written one more line.

If R. wakes again, tell him I am sorry. He was right to hate it.

I closed the book.

Rafe was watching me from the edge of the tank, with his hands hanging between his knees.

"Read us the rest," he said.

"There's nothing else," I said. "Except a list of the Warden's trigger tones. And the name of the slate she keeps the kill code on."

"Then you know what she was doing," Kit said. "You know all of it now."

"No." I stood up. "I know what she wrote. I don't know her."

They went still.

"I need to tell you something," I said. "I should have said it the first night, in front of Stellan, and I was afraid."

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