Chapter 97: Solitary confinement.

Hannah sat against the back of the closet-sized cell, facing the door. She'd begun to track time by measuring the arc of light stretching toward her under the door. Now the lack of light and the silence told her it was likely nighttime.

Her stomach growled and her mouth felt as though she'd crammed it full of cotton balls. The closet was so small she couldn't stretch out her legs or arms. No one had opened the door since her imprisonment that morning.

There'd been voices through the day. At first, it was mostly yelling. Cruz's. Other girls. She'd listened, visualizing the room to figure out where each girl was being locked up. The others had cried, screamed even, for a while. But now they were silent. Spent. Broken.

And they were not the first.

Hannah kept her hands wrapped around her legs. She'd felt the gouges in the wood without realizing what they were at first. It'd taken her a while to figure it out.

Nail marks.