"The System says if Lorna experiences genuine terror while she's conscious, or something that shatters her mentally, it should work..."
Before she even finished, Miriam collapsed.
"Miri!" All three screamed in unison, scooping her up and sprinting out of the room.
And after that, I supposed, came the moment they found me awake instead. The shock. The irritation. The barely concealed revulsion on their faces.
The footage froze.
I slumped back in the chair and let the despair swallow me whole.
My phone buzzed. I picked it up, and my body jerked upright.
Lorna, save me!
"Marilyn Marsh..." I choked through the agony and bolted for the door, reason gone. "You have to be okay!"
I should have known. Of course. The moment I woke up this time, they'd use my best friend's life to break me.
To bring Miriam back.
My thoughts were a tangled wreck. Grief, fury, and something close to hatred.
I barely made it out the door and into the car before the driver slammed the brakes, then wrenched the steering wheel hard.
The car flipped.
A black van plowed straight into us.
Men poured out and dragged me from the wreckage.
"Beat her!"
My body was already studded with glass shards from the shattered windows, each one buried in my skin.
"Ahhh!"
They snapped my leg while I was barely conscious. The white-hot burst of pain ripped my eyes open and tore a scream from my throat.
When they were done, the van sped off without a backward glance.
I lay on the ground, watching the blood from my own thrashing pool beneath me, spreading and spreading.
The grief stacked higher. Layer upon layer upon layer.
I blacked out.
I didn't know how long I was gone. Voices filtered in, distant and overlapping.
"That should do it, right? When she wakes up this time, it should be Miri."
My eyes stayed shut. My consciousness drifted in and out like a bad signal, but my ears caught every word.
Finn paced back and forth, his anxiety filling the room.
"It has to be Miri! So why isn't she waking up?!"
Malcolm's voice was rough.
"To trigger Lorna's most primal, genuine fear of death, the van wasn't told to hold back."
"Don't worry, though. It's not life-threatening. Otherwise, how would Miri take over the body?"
My lashes trembled. Inside, I was screaming, clawing, sobbing.
Why are you doing this to me? Why?
They hadn't mentioned me once. Not a single time, from start to finish.
No one cared how I felt.
Whether I might actually die.