Chapter 18

The restraints are colder than I expected. They bite into my wrists when I flex, plastic cuffs with a thin layer of foam that doesn’t fool my skin or my brain. Overhead, a ring of cameras blinks red, synchronized like a heartbeat. Electrodes dot my temples, my chest, the base of my skull. Someone has braided my hair away from my face, neat, clinical. “Just like the picture,” I whisper, throat raw. The chair is almost identical to the one I dragged out of Noah’s mind weeks ago. Same...