Stolen

"Shower," I said.

He pointed to a door behind the StairMaster. "In there."

I strode toward it. He followed, along with two guards he waved forward. I stopped, turned on my heel, and glared at them. Winsloe only watched me, lips twitching with the anticipation of a ninth-grader sneaking into the girls' locker-room. I met his gaze and something in me snapped. Grabbing my shirt, I ripped it off, then hurled it into the corner. My bra followed. Then my jeans, my socks, and finally my underwear. Pulling myself straight, I glared at him. This what you want to see? Fine. Get your fill. When he did-and all the guards did-I stormed into the shower room.

Now, at this point, you'd think even the most callow voyeur would rethink his actions, maybe experience a twinge of embarrassment. If Winsloe felt any such twinges, he probably mistook them for indigestion. Still gri

When we emerged from the shower room, a guard told Winsloe that Carmichael had been calling. She needed me. Winsloe walked me to the infirmary. After he left, I discovered there was no real crisis, just a mild spell of seizures. If Carmichael had used the excuse to rescue me from Winsloe, she gave no sign of it, her demeanor as curt as ever, commands interspersed with bouts of a

That evening there was a disturbance in the cells. A guard came to the infirmary with head wounds, and since I was there with Bauer, I was privy to all the excitement and discussion that ensued.

The guard had been retrieving the di

Apparently the level of paranormal activity in the cells had increased recently. Leah, whose cell was next to Sava

That night, curled on my cot, I tried to contact Ruth. Okay, maybe I was in denial about my lack of psychic abilities. I guess I figured if I tried hard enough, I could do anything. Supremacy of the will. The incident with the guard worried me. If the "psychic events" in the cell were increasing, I suspected it was related to Ruth's training of Sava

"Not that-no, the left-hand drawer. Your other left hand! "

I tossed in my sleep, dreaming of Carmichael barking orders.

"The crash cart. Goddamn it! I said the crash cart, not that one."

In my dream, a dozen identical carts surrounded me as I stumbled from one to the next.

"Give-No, just move. Move! "

Another voice answered, male, mumbling an apology. My eyelids flickered. Fluorescent light stabbed my eyes. I clenched them shut, grimaced, and tried again, squinting this time. Carmichael was indeed in the infirmary, but for once I wasn't the object of her frustration. Two guards scrambled around the room, grabbing this and that as she snatched an instrument tray from the counter. My two in-room guards watched, stupefied, as if they'd been half-asleep.

"Can I do anything?" one said.

"Yes," Carmichael said. "Move!"

She thrust him out of the way with the crash cart and pushed it out the door. I tumbled from bed and followed, my drowsiness making me either brave or stupid. Either way, it was the right move. Carmichael didn't notice me tagging along. When she was this preoccupied, I'd have to stab her with a scalpel to get her attention. The guards didn't say anything either, maybe assuming that I was now Carmichael's assistant in all matters and, if she didn't want me, she'd have stopped me herself.

By the time the guards and I arrived at the elevator, the doors were closing behind Carmichael. We waited and got on when it returned. I hoped we'd head up to the surface. No such luck. We went down. To the cells.

"What's happened?" I asked.

Three guards ignored me. The fourth paid me the courtesy of a shrug and a muttered "Du

"Do something! Hurry!"

The door to Ruth and Sava