Chapter 14

• Quickening my pace a bit, I prayed Etienne hadn’t caught this moron’s call. I could already hear the booming music from the ground floor. The warm air filled with so many different smells, and now that I was finally on my own, exploring the building, I could pay more attention to the details.
• I sucked in a breath when the huge portrait of that military guy appeared between the floors. My throat felt like a desert, and every particle of my body was on high alert. I jogged down the stairs to avoid it as fast as possible but slowed down once more when I noticed the small photos on the stairs to the first floor. They looked so weird in their wooden frames without glass… They weren’t printouts. They were drawn. The first one, the most detailed one, I noticed was of the school, the two dormitory buildings on its sides, and a few others I had to suppose were the PE building and the teachers’ dorms. I remembered scrolling through the university’s site, eager to start studying here. But now that I knew the truth, I was glad my dream hadn’t come true. I would’ve either been bullied, sacrificed, or convinced to join this who-knew-what worshipping mental prison.
• Why did I jump from prison to prison? First—my parents’ home, then the facility, then this place. Needles tormented my flesh when I realized that no matter of my choice, I would’ve still ended up locked up. Wow, talk about creepiness.