Everyone else was let out of their rooms once the clock struck 3:30. 

Kody still didn’t let me out of the handcuffs until we got all the way back to the cafeteria. The whole walk, it was all questions, questions, questions. 

“What happened to her?”

“Why is she handcuffed?”

“She got in trouble again?”

“Where are the other two folks who were with us?”

I didn’t explain. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to show how pathetic I was to not run forward and save my own friends. 

And by the time I reached the cafeteria, freed myself of the cuffs, and sat down, Melissa and Cassian still hadn’t come back. 

Where in this hellish place were they taken?

I sat alone, forcing scraps of a stale sandwich into my mouth. A low hum of chatter circled the room, but with so many people missing — Michael, the little boy, Cassian, Melissa — this room still felt quieter than ever.

There was some heavy weight sitting in my chest, some lump in my throat that I couldn't swallow down or wash out with mere food and water. I just kept replaying what had happened with Cassian and Melissa over and over in my head. On one hand, I should have done more. I should have stepped forward and saved them, dragged them away from the guards. On the other hand, what if I fucked everything up more? What if I got my friends into deeper trouble?

What if I failed, just like I'd been doing my entire life?

"Are you focusing on Adalynne?" came a soft voice that yanked me out of my mind. 

"Huh?" I said, snapping my head to the left only to me met with Elaine standing right behind me.

She held a tray of dry food in her hands, eyes just as still and calm as ever. "Don't pay mind to Adalynne. She may just be too uptight to be rational, or plain immature." She glanced up slightly. "Do you… mind if I sit here?"

I shook my head. "No, not at all; you can sit. But, um, I wasn't looking at her." 

"Ah… sorry," she whispered. "I guess I jumped to conclusions."

"It's alright." 

As she sat down, my nerves eased slightly, the tension in my muscles releasing. Elaine always had a calm air to her. Sure, she wasn't as bold or outspoken as her girlfriend Melissa, but her pond-like tranquil rubbed off on anyone who got close to her. And, honestly, I needed that right about now.

"Today's been a bad day," I muttered, picking at the tiny side bowl of rice, although the grains were practically hardened stones, not even edible.

It did have a couple bits of glazed meat inside, though…

Caster would've liked it, just saying.

If only he hadn't dropped off the grid entirely. If only he was here.

Elaine nodded. "Agreed. I don't think my day's been that bad compared to others" — she glanced away for a split second — "but I still don't like being here."

She paused for a moment, gazing around the room, eyes darting frantically from left to right.

"I have a lot of questions to ask you, but right now, I just need to know — where's Melissa and Cassian? I figured something happened, but I still have no idea what, and it's worrying me."

Oh… She didn't see what happened to them, did she? 

I clenched my fork. "Um… Well… there was some chaos going on outside. I don't think you saw it."

"No, I didn't. I heard something and wanted to step out the room, but without my monitor band, the door wouldn't open, and my trainer wouldn't let me go outside. What did you see?"

Oh, great. How would Elaine react to this news? How did I tell it without worrying her to death? She was closer to Melissa and Cassian compared to anyone else. 

Swallowing, I said what I didn't want to say.

"Um, Cassian was getting attacked by an employee, and Melissa stepped in to stop it," I explained before my throat ran dry. "Long story short, they might have gotten into… uh… a spat with the guards" — yeah, just a spat, it wasn't like anyone's arms broke or someone pulled out a gun; totally accurate — "and they were taken away. I… I don't know if they're coming back."

Dead silence. Dead silence followed after.

One beat passed. Two beats. Three.

"Oh," Elaine finally mumbled."I… I really hoped that wouldn't be the case."

I snuck a glance at her face, which crumpled in seconds. The poor girl couldn't bear to hear that news.

Wincing, I swiftly kicked myself in the shin. I sure knew how to make someone feel better, huh?

Maybe I could take the chance to make up for my mistake. "I don't think PowerGen would try anything on the first day. I think they'll be fine." 

I didn't even believe what I was saying. They'll be fine? Seriously? 

"I hope so," Elaine said. "Being separated from loved ones is… probably one of the most worrying things out there."

I glanced down, unsure of how to respond. 

Speaking of loved ones, what were Hazel and mom doing right now?

In the midst of all the chaos, they didn't have a chance to cross my mind, but now, when everything settled into maddening calmness, I had all the time in the world to think about them. Mom was either extremely worried or completely unaware that I was gone. Maybe those PowerGen escorts were lying about telling her what happened. They could've been keeping her and Hazel in the dark, until they found out the truth on their own. 

Just the thought of that twisted my stomach into knots and flipped it violently. I downed my glass of water to drown the nausea and shoved more stale "food" into my mouth to distract myself.

Elaine and I didn't bother talking any further. We ate in silence, and whatever contagiously calm presence she had earlier was completely gone now. 

Lunch wrapped up quickly, and then it was back to the AE for our last activity of the day.

I was groggy during the callback, and had no remembrance of what the lady was saying. Everything was just passing by in a blur at this point, and I didn't care. I went back to room 01, and the woman from earlier called me in to meet with her behind the glass wall.

Her words went through one ear and out the other. "Your ability strength rating is a two — very low on our one to ten scale — but we'll be improving it slowly during our training sessions." 

That was all I retained, and I could barely care about it.

I was free to leave after her lecture. Nothing crazy happened after. I was stuck sitting in the center of the AE and wondering why on earth they would start making us stronger. Didn't they want us to be weak, to be easier to control? I mean, trained or not, a superhuman without an ability band would already be able to wreak havoc on this place.

So what was PowerGen up to?

After…. about a million years, when my back was aching from being hunched over in a chair and my head was heavy with exhaustion, everyone had been gathered back and around again. Somehow thirty minutes had felt like a century, and yet hours felt like a second. 

Safe to say that my sense of time was definitely screwed in here. 

But who cared? All we had left was dinner, and then we'd head back to our rooms. I shoveled down my food as fast as I could in the cafeteria — maybe it was better to just get it over with — and this time, they didn't make us wait. I stepped over to the back door of the room, where Kody stood to show me the way to my dorm. 

It wasn't a long stroll, and eventually we came to a long hallway that seemed to stretch infinitely, although I could spot a wall at the very far end. 

Oh dear, did I have to walk all the way down?

"Room one, over there.” Kody pointed to the door right next to me. 

I let out a sigh of relief.

"Yeah, you don't gotta go too far down. Makes you lucky, huh?" He chuckled. "Anyway, g'night. Don't get in trouble."

Huh. Weird. Where was the nice act when I was having a mental breakdown earlier today? What was with the sudden switch-up?

Maybe I didn't need to question it. PowerGen was strange enough, and its employees were probably even stranger. I couldn't figure all of it out. I opened the door and entered my room.

Room 01 was rather shabby-looking, with a carpeted floor, not even a bed — just a small mattress with a messy blanket — and an empty, rickety desk. The bag I'd brought, stuffed with materials, was placed in the corner near a dressing table.

Dull. That was the best way to describe this place. Dull and lifeless.

But oh well, a room was a room. I was just about to take my sweater off when I caught something in my peripheral vision.

A camera.

It hung from the ceiling, just above the ramshackled dresser, a thick steel piece of white covering the back half, but the front of exposed and aimed right at me.

"Wow," I mumbled, glaring daggers at it. "Not disgusting or creepy or invasive at all."

My eyes pierced right into the device's shiny black surface. I was going to be watched while I slept? Well then, the least I could do was make it known to my stalkers — PervertGen — how much I utterly hated them.

I stuck up my middle finger at the camera, spit curses, and then tried to let the rage drop. 

"No big deal, no big deal… I'll just have to get tape from… somewhere…." 

Yeah, it wasn't helping. 

Sighing, I turned away and trudged over to the bathroom. There couldn't be any cams in here, right? 

My bare feet pelted on the tiled floor. Eyes up and scanning, I found no cameras in sight. Good. I closed the door behind me.

The bathroom looked more like one you'd see in a hotel, except that there was the same platform for the monitor bands near the tub. I ignored it for now, taking off my clothes and throwing them in the hamper near the door.

I spent about ten minutes showering. And since I was technically without a restrictor in here, I decided to test something. I locked my gaze on the water running down from the showerhead, scrunching my brows.

Just a few more seconds, and a droplet started to move out of place —

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

The sound made me slip and fall right on my rear — ow — as red light flashed before my eyes. Panicking in pain, I struggled to my feet as the light slowly died out. Shaking with frigid fear and rushing adrenaline, my pulse so fast I could barely breathe, I sunk to the floor until the panic faded.

… Okay. So it looked like I couldn't do… that. As I should have expected.

When I finished showering and stepped out the tub, sliding the glass door shut behind me, I grabbed a towel from the bar on the wall and started to dry up.

The second my hand was dry, a small beep resounded from the platform next to me.

Even though my arm wasn't even hovering over the device, a bright red glow still flashed over it, and the monitor band materialized onto my arm.

With wide eyes, I lifted up my wrist and sighed.

"Fuck you, PowerGen."

And since the glass door only slid one way, I had to enter on the side where the band platform was, so trying to avoid it was impossible.

Yay. 

Wonderful. 

Absolutely fucking wonderful.

Frustrated, I dried up and put on fresh clothes. 

Then came bedtime. I lay half-covered in blankets on the mattress, my arms flung out to hold a small sketchpad on the floor. I was too restless to sleep, but I was too tired to draw. So, as I dragged my pen across the page, my thoughts spilled out in words — a comfortable medium between being too tired and not tired enough.

I wrote down one sentence and four questions before my eyelids grew heavy:

It's day one of being in PowerGen. 

What are Hazel and Mom thinking right now?

Where in the world is Cassian and Melissa?

Where the hell is Caster?

The last question came out sloppy, but legible to at least me:

Can I really handle being stuck here for the rest of my life?