Page 64 of House of Cards

No phone. No windows. A couple more doors, all except one closed.

“Bathroom?” I ask, already heading for the door.

“Oh, yeah. The flusher’s weird, you got to hold it down?—“

I slam the door in Anita’s face before she can follow me inside the white room. It would have looked like something out of a horror movie, one of those where everything in the too-white bathroom gets splashed with blood, but someone put a vase of now-wilting peonies near the tub, and the towels are pastel pink.

Still no windows, just the quiet hum from a nearby ventilation unit.

“I’m gonna make some popcorn,” Anita calls through the door. “You want some?”

My stomach perks up again, but I poke it into submission. “It’s probably drugged, dummy,” I whisper. “Bet everything in here is soaked with tranquilizers. Or heroin. You want heroin-coated popcorn, you idiot?”

I’m not mad at my stomach. It’s not its fault that I’m stuck in this hellhole.

“There’s protein shakes,” Anita calls out, voice slightly muffled by the door. “The rainbow cookie one’s the best, but Ihad the last one this morning. I’ll go ask Eddie to bring us some more.”

“Shut it, Anita!” someone yells, making me fumble with the toothbrush I was holding. I was wondering whether I could carve it into a shiv.

The scare does something to my straining bladder muscles. I almost pee myself before I can make it to the toilet. My idiot brain doesn’t seem to care about getting me out of here. It’s ruminating on whether Anita will track down some of that highly prized rainbow cookie flavored protein shake.

While I’m wrestling with my mind, trying to get it to focus on escape, not nutrition, it rebels and floods me with a visceral memory of Smith applying lotion to my skin. Bundling me in a warm blanket. Cradling me to his chest.

I bark out a laugh, shaking my head as I stand and flush—on the third attempt.

That’s a fantasy if ever there was one. Smith, treating mekindly?

There’s not a single parallel universe containing that version of him.

I go to wash my hands, smirking when I realize there’s no mirror above the vanity. A nice big shard of mirror would make an excellent self-defense—or self-attack—weapon. Plus, I’m guessing the women who live here don’t need a reminder of the damage being done to them.

Cold water splashed on my face wrings a little more life into me.

Anita slips back into the living area as I come out of the bathroom. She widens her eyes at me, nodding enthusiastically as she hikes a thumb over her shoulder.

“Eddie’ll fetch some for us,” she says, grinning.

Grinning.

Because of protein shakes.

She catches my elbow as I come hurtling past, trying to stop me from reaching the door.

“What’re you doing?” she whispers furiously.

“Leaving!”

“Shut up!” the same woman yells from behind one of the closed doors.

“Zoey, no!” Anita tries to pull me back, but I got some of my strength back, and it’s ridiculously easy to pull out of her grip.

I yank on the door handle, but it must be locked.

“Anita?” comes a voice from outside, followed by what sounds like a sigh, then a beep. The handle moves down.

As soon as the door opens, I dart forward—and almost run face-first into the wall of human flesh in my way.

Eddie.