They Sawed Me Open, So I Stocked the End of the World novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: Awake Is the Protocol

The steel door at Ironhold had a narrow window, and Jessa walked up to it on her own two feet.

It was an hour after the river.

The general had come back across the causeway with forty soldiers and the Director in handcuffs in the lead truck, and he had not let anyone speak to her.

Now the lower levels stood open, the lights blazing, and the corridor smelled of bleach and damp stone.

Soldiers lined the walls.

Nobody was talking.

Rhys stood on her right, and Corin on her left, close enough that his arm touched hers.

Joel and Jethro had stayed at the gate to guard the technician and his daughter, and Emmett was upstairs filming every room.

"You don't have to go in," Corin said, very quietly.

"Yes, I do."

"Then I'll be here."

"I know."

She pushed the door.

It swung inward with a small sigh.

The room was white and bright, with a drain in the floor and a long padded table in the middle with leather straps at the ends.

A metal tray stood beside it, and on the tray lay the saw.

She had pictured it a thousand times.

She had not pictured how small it was.

The blade was no longer than her forearm, and the handle was a plain gray grip.

There was a logo on the side of it, the same logo as on the email, and a date stamped under the logo.

The date was last Tuesday.

"They had it ready," Rhys said, in a voice she barely recognized.

"They sharpened it for me."

Jessa walked to the tray.

Her heart was beating so hard that her ears rang, but her hands were quite steady.

She laid her right palm on the blade and thought of the cold.

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