They Killed Me in the Lab, So I Woke Up Early novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: Eleven Minutes

Maren did not move.

The words sat in the room between them, and she let them sit.

"Say it again," she said.

"I was the last voice you heard."

"The other part."

"I'm the one who ended it."

She got out of the bed.

She found her jeans on the floor and pulled them on with hands that did not feel like hers.

Her sweater lay across the room where he had dropped it. She dragged it over her head.

Jonah did not stop her. He sat against the wall with his hands on his knees and watched her dress.

"Two years," Maren said.

"Yes."

"You worked on that floor for two years. You saw those girls every morning."

"Yes."

"You never told anyone. Not the police, not a reporter, not a friend."

"No."

"Why?"

"That's past your three," Jonah said. "I'll answer anyway."

She waited.

"I was afraid of her. The pay was good. I told myself the girls had signed forms."

"And?"

"And every month I found a smaller reason to stay. That's all of it. There's nothing under it."

"There's the eleven minutes."

His head came up.

"I was on the table," Maren said. "I counted with you. I know how long it was."

She had not meant her voice to go so quiet.

"The monitor started to fail at the first minute. You could see it. Everybody in that room could see it."

"I could."

"Eleven minutes, Jonah. You counted for eleven minutes before you picked up the vial."

He took it without moving.

"For ten of them I thought that if I did my job well enough, she would stop," he said. "I thought if I kept you calm, she'd see it was working and call it off."

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