Jamie. She remembered Jamie. He had come to her house, he had told her . . .
Something about energy.
And she remembered something Richard had said, how people didn’t leave the building. She wondered why no one had told her, why no one had warned her.
Or maybe they had, and she just hadn’t been listening.
But then another thought hit her and she sat up with a jolt.
That voice, the one of the man who had come into the woman’s room upstairs—the man who had . . . hurt her. Brutalized her. Jamie’s voice, she was sure of that now. Only, he had never spoken to her like that before—so inhuman, so dark and careless. She shuddered at the memory and wrapped the blanket that had fallen to her waist up to her shoulders.
The blanket. The gray blanket. She looked at it, at the bed she now realized she was in, then up and around the room, seeing it for the first time through her tidal wave of thoughts. It was small, empty, gray.
She was back in the Eschatorologic.
A sob escaped her mouth. She hunched over on the bed, and the thin gray blanket slid to the floor. With her hands covering her face, she could feel now, even through the bed, the low thrum that constantly pulsed throughout the building, and so she knew it was true. She was back.
A jolt went through Everly, and she put a hand against the small of her back, pressing into the fabric of her shirt. Relief spread through her as she found the flat bump of the stolen journals, still nestled against her back. Quickly, she pulled them out, shoving them under the thin pillow on the bed.
Besides the bed, there was no other furniture in the room, but Everly did notice a small pile at the foot of her bed, and walking over she saw that it was a set of clothes—the same gray uniform that everyone else in the building wore, the same uniform she was still wearing. Except the borrowed outfit from Luca still felt too large and billowy on her, too much like she might disappear inside the clothes if she tried hard enough. So, as her breathing evened out, Everly studied the new uniform, before deciding to put it on. It fit her perfectly.
Everly looked around her room. Her cell. There was no telling what came next, what was about to happen to her.
But she was all out of choices.
She went up to the door, gripped the handle tightly in her hand, and twisted it.
Part of her was surprised to find it unlocked—she had thought that maybe everyone here would be locked in, trapped, and thought that certainly they would do the same to her.
Though, she supposed, what would be the point? If what Jamie said before was true, she couldn’t leave, anyway. The building had become a prison for her, whether there was a lock on her door or not.
The hallway beyond her door was painted a bright, dazzling green, and it was entirely empty. No one else was nearby that she could see, and so she started off walking in one direction, set on finding out, at the very least, where in the building she was. From the brightness of the color surrounding her, she would guess somewhere on the first basement level—the floor where Luca lived—but she needed to be sure.
Before Everly could make it very far, she saw a tall, lanky figure coming toward her from around a bend. It was Jamie, she recognized, and a part of her recoiled in—what? Shock? Fear? Anger? He was the one who had brought her here, the one who had trapped her in this building of nightmares.
But she had nowhere to run, so she stood her ground, watching as he approached. He was smiling, she noticed, and it made her stomach turn, the way he could pretend like that. The way he could act like everything was normal, like it was all okay. Like maybe he had done her a favor by lying to her, by dragging her here.
“Everly,” he said as he got closer, lifting a hand in greeting. “Good, you’re awake. I was just coming to get you.” His smile faltered slightly. “How did you get out?”
Everly didn’t know what he meant, so she shook her head slightly, but Jamie shrugged.
“Well, come on. There’s much to show you, much to do.” He waited expectantly. There was no part of Everly that wanted to go with him, that wanted to be anywhere near him. She wanted to run far and fast in the opposite direction, until the memory of his cold words and the bruises he had left on the woman upstairs had faded.
In that empty hallway, though, she had nowhere else to go. She understood that she did not truly know this man—she had no idea how far he’d go should she refuse him.
And there’d be no one to rescue her. She was all on her own.
She had no other choice. So as Jamie started walking down the hall, talking as he went, Everly was yanked along behind, as though an invisible leash were tied around her throat.
“Unfortunate business, what happened yesterday,” Jamie said amicably, “but I hope you understand. You see, the way old Richie describes it, enhanced persons have a limited lifespan out there in the real world. At age twenty-five, the brain stops developing, and at that point with the genetic anomaly, it basically shuts down. There’s too much energy, and nowhere for it to go anymore.”
“But I’m not twenty-five,” Everly protested, still gripping her head. The pain had subsided, but the echo of it still lingered. “Not for another few months.”
“That’s just the thing,” Jamie went on. “Spending time in the Eschatorologic exerts more energy than you think. It speeds up the process, basically. When you’re inside, it’s no big deal—not now, anyway—but it shortens the amount of time you have in the outside world. So, you spent some time in here, and it shortened your time out there. Spending the whole night in the building must have clinched the deal.” He chuckled darkly.
“I don’t understand,” Everly said. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying congratulations, you’re the newest resident to the Eschatorologic.” He said this with a certain amount of pep in his voice that made Everly nauseous.
“You mean . . . I can’t ever leave?”
“Nope. Sorry it had to be this way, but I hope you understand. Laws of nature and everything. Nothing we can do about it.”
Her head was spinning. None of this made any sense—she was trapped in the building because . . . because she’d gotten too old? Because her body couldn’t handle her energy anymore? What did any of that even mean?
“So, all of the people here—this happened to all of them?”
“More or less. You see, it’s inversely proportional. The more time you spend in the building, the less time you have outside, but not in a one-to-one kind of sense. For a lot of the residents who are brought in young, they spend a few weeks here and that’s that; they become permanent residents of the building, as they wouldn’t survive more than a day out there. We’re still working out the exact math on it, but it’s not pretty to try and play around with. It can get messy quick to have someone out there who’s out of time.” He gave her a pointed look and she shuddered, remembering what that morning had been like. Or . . . yesterday morning? Everly realized she had no idea how long she’d been unconscious.
“What about you?” Everly asked Jamie. “And Richard—I’ve seen both of you outside the building.”
Jamie nodded, smiling somewhat woefully. “Neither of us are enhanced. It makes no difference if we stay or leave. It’s the genetic makeup of your body that keeps you here. Don’t try to ask me more than that,” he said, holding up both hands and laughing a little. “You’ll need Richard to get into the nitty-gritty of it all with you.”
“Where is he?” Everly asked. “You said he wasn’t available yesterday.” Which had been strange, but this was worse: being told she couldn’t leave, and not even having the man who’d dragged her there in the first place present to tell her himself.
“Unavailable,” was the only answer Jamie provided. “Not to worry, we have you covered in the meantime. Which brings us here.”
They had moved from one green-painted hall to another and now stood in front of an equally green door.
