But then his lips curled into that secretive smile no one could have possibly duplicated, the same smile I had once thought was meant to reassure me that I was doing the right thing. Now all I could see was a mocking smirk.

He parted his lips as if he was about to speak to me, but instead he said nonchalantly, “This one.”

He raised his hand to claim me, and rather than playing it cool the way I desperately wanted to, I flinched as if he were about to knock my teeth out.

Instead, he never touched me.

The girl beside me let out a choked sob. When I opened my eyes, Knox’s hand rested on her shoulder, not mine.

“You three, with me,” barked Williams. “The rest of you, get to work.”

Knox stepped back, his eyes locked on mine until he turned away. Silence seemed to permeate the cabin as the three girls walked down the aisle to join the guards. Two of them were crying, but the third glared at me as if to say this is your fault.

She wasn’t wrong, and I couldn’t watch anymore. This was just another sick, twisted game I could never win, and the more Knox tortured me, the more I wanted to rip his throat out and feed him to the wolves.

More heavy footsteps echoed against the porch steps as the men exited, leaving us three fewer than we had been before they’d come. Before I had a chance to move, Scotia slapped the wall beside her, startling half the bunkhouse.

“You heard him,” she called. “Dining hall now, and if any one of you is late for work, you’ll have to answer to me.”

The girls grabbed their coats and began to filter out. As I pulled mine on, someone took my elbow, and I looked up to see Noelle standing beside me, her wide eyes glassy with unshed tears.

“I thought for sure he was going to take you,” she whispered.

“Me, too.” Judging by the way everyone glanced at us, we weren’t the only ones who thought so. I stepped into my boots, too shaken and furious to bother being annoyed by the fact that they were still damp. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” she said. “This isn’t your fault.”

Yes, it was, but there was no use trying to convince Noelle, who only seemed to be able to see the good in people. “Is this how it always is? You wake up with twenty girls, and by lunch, you’re down to fifteen?”

“By dinner, we’ll be back to twenty,” said Scotia from behind her curtain. “Get out of here, both of you.”

Together Noelle and I ducked out the door and into the snowy street. The sun strained to shine through the clouds, leaving a weak light to fall on us as we trudged toward the dining hall. Others joined us, and Noelle slipped her arm into mine. At first I thought she was trying to comfort me, but when she hugged my arm to her chest, I realized it was the other way around. I was her security blanket.

The dining hall was only marginally warmer than the bunkhouse. I shivered as Noelle and I stood in line with the others, waiting our turn and soaking up what little heat crept toward us from the hot plates and ovens in the kitchen. As a woman served us pale pancakes and limp bacon, I tried not to think about the room beneath my boots, stockpiled with more weapons than I’d ever seen in my life. If one of those grenades went off, we’d all be dead. As if we weren’t already.

“It’s warm in the dollhouse,” said Noelle as she slurped weak, pulpy orange juice from a plastic cup.

“The dollhouse?” I said, too busy rubbing my hands together and trying to breathe heat back into my fingertips to eat.

“Where we work,” she said. “I guess it’s not really warm there, technically, but the suits we wear keep the warmth in.”

All of my questions died on my lips as I finally started on my breakfast. The pancakes tasted like paste, and the bacon was so salty that I nearly gagged, but it was food. I’d eaten worse.

We finished our meal in silence, and when another bell rang, Noelle leaped up and led me back outside. Groups of men and women in orange and red uniforms ducked into the buildings, stripping the streets of their color until only gray remained.

“In here,” said Noelle, and we stopped beside the large three-story building I’d noticed the day before. Despite the size, the only entrance I could see was a single door. There were no windows, and the only hint I had as to what might be inside was a long chimney where white wisps escaped.

Beyond the first door was a second with a metal lock attached, and when Noelle opened it, I peered inside, expecting the same kind of interior—gray and dark. Instead I was greeted with a bright white hallway and a woman sitting at a desk, sorting something on a screen. She looked strangely familiar, and I tried to place her, but my brain had gone numb with the rest of me.

“Noelle, dear,” she said warmly. “You’re late.”

“Sorry,” said Noelle, her cheeks flushing. “I had to show Lila around.”

The woman’s gaze settled on me, and her eyes widened. “Oh—Lila! Yes, yes, of course. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” She beamed, and suddenly I remembered where I’d seen her before. The meeting the night before—she’d been among the fringes of the group. I’d caught her staring at me twice.

“Can she work with me?” said Noelle hopefully. “Now that Maya...”

“Of course, of course,” said the woman, and she typed something into the screen. “Why don’t you show her the way, dear?”

With her arm still looped in mine, Noelle led me through a third door, one that looked much heavier than the others. It opened at her touch, however, and we stepped into a long hallway. It was just as bright as the room before, and there was a sterile feel about it that made me uneasy.