[CAMI]
I wake up with my neck screaming and my throat sandpaper-dry. My head lolls to the side, the world blurry and dim—until I blink hard, once, twice, and the shadows sharpen into something familiar.
No. No, not this room.
The chair digs into my spine as I shift, and that’s when I feel it. Metal. My ankles are bound, my wrists cuffed to the armrests. f**k. I’m trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey in the same f*****g room where Vance had once been kept. Where he’d looked me in the eye and told me I was a mistake.
But I’m not alone. Claire’s across from me, wrists tied, legs folded awkwardly. Her lip’s split. Her hair’s matted to her forehead. She’s awake and sitting next to her, equally beaten, is Jake. His knuckles are raw. There’s dried blood at the corner of his mouth.
His breat
