Someone had cleaned out my cell. Not like scrubbed down clean, but enough so that the stench wasn’t overwhelming. I doubted it was because of me. I’d heard scrawny guy gag the last time he’d come in to give me my food and my shot. He was the only one I recognized besides Serge, but I wasn’t sure anyone else had come in at all. I was aware enough of my situation to know that I couldn’t completely trust anything I saw or heard.

At times like these, it wasn’t hard to remember. Red and I were having a great conversation about pizza toppings, but even as I laughed, a part of me knew that I was alone, talking to colors and people who weren’t even there.

But it didn’t stop me. My only other option was to try to fight the drugs, but it was a fight I couldn’t win. Not without losing my mind. Serge had turned the lights off the last two times between meals, and I’d felt panic at the edges of my mind. Then Jalen had appeared, and we’d talked until I’d fallen asleep.

I couldn’t do this much longer. I wasn’t strong enough. I’d never been strong enough. It was a good thing I hadn’t made it into the FBI because I would’ve been a shit agent.

“No, you would’ve been great.”

I rolled my eyes and flicked Clay off.

“C’mon, Rona. Don’t you remember when I came to recruit you?”

I did.

“You look like shit, kid. When’s the last time you slept?”

I looked up from my abnormal psychology textbook to see a familiar face standing over me. “Clay? What are you doing here?”

He swung one long leg over the chair across from me and sat down without asking for permission. He crossed his arms and leaned on the table. “I told you that I’d be checking in on you from time to time.”

I shrugged. He’d made the promise at Uncle Anton’s funeral a couple months ago, but I hadn’t expected it to last long. I wasn’t anything to Clay. His friend’s niece. Some kid who was always underfoot and mouthing off to him.

“You didn’t think I’d do it.” He sounded more amused than annoyed. “No matter. I’ve been keeping an eye on you even when I’m not here.”

“That’s not at all creepy.”

He laughed, showing those straight, white teeth of his. “When you started at Columbia, Anton suggested to me the possibility that you might be a good candidate for the FBI.”

It was my turn to laugh, and I stretched my arms over my head as I did so. It’d been a while since I’d moved, and my muscles were stiff. “Are you trying to recruit me?”

“Anton said you intended to maybe go into criminal psychology and become a detective, but I think you’d make an excellent intelligence analyst with the FBI.”

An intelligence analyst with the FBI. That hadn’t been on my radar before, but now that he’d mentioned it, I could see it. Still, a part of me was wary.

“Why?” I leaned back in my chair. “What makes you think I’d be any good in the FBI?”

Clay’s eyes narrowed, and he gave me a searching look, waiting nearly a full minute before answering my question. “I don’t know a lot about what brought you and Anton together, but I know how passionate you are about justice. After what happened to your uncle, I think you’re even more driven to find ways to right wrongs.”

“Okay, but why the FBI? Why not at the local level?”

He smiled again. “Because you’re meant for greater things than New York City Homicide.”

“Greater things,” I muttered as I rolled over to face the wall. “Right. I’m meant for big things. Like being a PI in Colorado.”

“You saved Meka and other girls from being sold as sex slaves.” Jalen’s voice came from behind me. “And you helped stop a human trafficking ring that provided sweatshop labor. I’d say that isn’t bad for a PI.”

I shrugged. “Jenna did most of the work.”

“We both know that’s bullshit,” he countered. “Jenna would say the same. Didn’t she hire you to find her siblings rather than doing it herself?”

“Not the same.”

The door opened, but I didn’t roll over again, not even when the light came on. I squeezed my eyes shut, anticipating the pain from my light-deprived eyes. I could find the food after he left, and he could stick me from behind as well as he could stick me facing him. He’d done it before.

“You really like to talk.” It was Serge’s voice, not the scrawny man. “Most people on this, they just laugh and babble. You did some of that too, but you carry on entire conversations. Who are you seeing?”

“Nobody. No one. Nobody. No one.” I shook my head. He couldn’t know about Jalen or Clay. If he knew, he’d stop them from coming for me.

“It doesn’t matter,” Serge said. “In the morning, we’re going to get you cleaned up. A shower. Soap. Shampoo. Does that sound good?”

“Yes.” I waited to hear what I would have to do for it. The colors whispered all sorts of nasty things, but I glared at them. I needed to hear it from him first. Besides, if he’d wanted to fuck me, he would’ve done it already. I wasn’t so out of it that I wouldn’t have noticed that.

“I’m going to lower your dosage in the morning,” he continued. “Big dose tonight, little one tomorrow. But you have to be good, or my employers will be even angrier at you than they already are.”

His employers. He’d talked about them before. He said that I’d pissed them off. But I didn’t know who he was talking about. Every time I asked, I didn’t get answers. I didn’t bother asking this time. It wouldn’t do any good.

“You will clean up nicely,” he said. “There will be makeup for you to cover bruises. No one will bid on you if they believe you are not controllable. Some men like to break their women themselves, but all want them malleable at purchase.”

Some part at the back of my brain sent off warning bells as Serge spoke, but as soon as I heard one word, I forgot it for the next. I could barely put together the fact that I was going to get to take a shower tomorrow, let alone what it was for. It was important, but I’d have to wait until the morning to start figuring it out. Why I’d be able to figure it out in the morning, I didn’t know, but something told me that I just needed to wait.

“Hold on,” Jalen whispered in my ear. “Just hold on a little longer.”

I wanted to tell him that I would, but the colors were too loud, their shouts drowning him out.

Tomorrow.

Tomorrow.