"We've known each other for a year now, and yet you continue to surprise me," the man smiles at her. He has one hand holding his side as blood drips onto the floor, and the other holds the joystick as his fingers come off the button. Valentine, the last of them, laid on his face, his breaths rocking her whole body. "You must work out between my brief visits. You gave me a run for my money."

Nat's head pounds, and she can feel her blood pumping slowly, rocking her as she lay on the floor looking towards Valentine. The man's chuckle rattles around her.

"Oh, don't look like that. You keep upping the stakes, so of course I have to keep upping the punishment." He sits the joystick down on the machine and walks towards Valentine, kneeling down behind him. He pets his messy brown hair as he looks at Nat.

"What confuses me, though, is that only a few of you seem angry at her. For an entire year she's been trying to escape by herself, and I've taken away everyone's food, or water, or both, and yet... I would expect you to be more upset, more violent with her. Not most of you to be... so complacent. That doesn't fit everyone's personality."

He continues to pet Valentine as his sobs become louder and louder. His whole body shaking as if he gave him another electrical shock.

"And yet, I'm exhilarated. Nana... you give me butterflies." He looks at her and smiles wider. "I think I'll leave it here today. No need to take away anything after this punishment. I'll come back tomorrow to see how you fared. Enjoy, Nat."

The man walks out the door, pulling the machine behind him. Nat says nothing, and no one moves until they hear his laborious breaths of carrying the machine up the stairs are gone.

"I found a door," she whispers. "A door to the outside. I could smell the air on the other side. That last door in the hall leads out to the front of the house. The living room and the kitchen."

She holds her arm close to her chest, and she tries to stop the tears from falling as she leans up off the floor into a sitting position. A broken arm hurts like hell, but it isn't the first time he beat her badly enough to break a bone. She'd heal.

"Nat—"

"No, Ty," she tries to stand up, but her legs give out on her. She lands on her butt and she yelps as it rattles her arm.

"We only have a year left. I found a door, but it has a bunch of deadbolt locks on it. I just need to find the keys."

Ty looks at her, and she can see the tears forming. Almost overnight he grew until he towered over her, but even if he had filled out more, he was still a kid to her, two years younger than her.

"I'll get us out of here," she whispers to him.

Nat looks at Whitney, which is a habit, waiting for her to object and yell at her, but this time Whitney is looking silently down at Valentine, who is still sobbing on the floor.

This was more dangerous now, though. He's chosen to give shocks to the rest of the teenagers. She used to believe that he'd stick to his timeline for his experiment, but the amount of shocks he gave Valentine was almost enough to kill him. And being the youngest and the smallest of them, they really believed that he was about to die.

Doubts swim around Nat's head as she looks around the mute room. There are ten of them, and they are running out of time. This morning, they thought death was a year away, but now it seems even closer.

Stacey silently gets up from their bed and walks to the bathroom. Nat listens to the water turning on, running and then stopping. She feels them walk up behind her and watches as they hand Ty a rag until they walk away with another one towards Valentine.

She watches as Stacey slowly lifts Valentine off the floor, hanging on them like a rag-doll. They pick them up off the spot on the floor and move them out of the puddle of pee to another spot. Nat watches them each step of the way as Ty wipes the blood off of her face.

The man had over-exaggerated how much she had been trying to escape. In a year, she's only attempted three times. Each time taking the time to plan, finding weapons, working out as much as she could in the room. Each time she would wait until he opened the door and tried bringing that horrible machine in. She'd hit him hard enough, or several times enough, to knock him down so she could get past. This time, using one of the plastic utensils, she stabbed him in his side. They hadn't been able to break a bar off of the bed frame yet.

They were indeed in the basement of an enormous house. It was a maze trying to navigate a way out. And no matter how much she yelled, no one ever heard her. Each room she successfully found there was no way out. The windows were painted white and shut so she couldn't see outside or open them.

The living room is different. Just a sofa and two bare chairs sat in front of a fireplace, with an old Tv sitting not too far away on the floor. She turned to see an open kitchen, just as cold as the living room. And in front of her was a door. But from the top to the bottom were various deadbolt locks.

Her heart soared, and without thinking, she ran up and started banging on it. Yelling as loud as possible as she could. What felt like hours passed until the sides of her hands were stinging.

The rational part of her brain woke her up. That they were probably in a place where no one could hear them. So she stopped and took deep breaths, trying to calm her heart and stop the blood rushing in her ears so she could hear.

Standing still, she presses her ear into the door and listens. Everything was quiet. No street cars, no people talking or shouting. It was so quiet; she imagined she could even hear people whispering if they were there.

She waited‌ there, listening only to finally hear the tweet of birds before she heard the footsteps behind her. She barely had time to turn around as he kicked her hard in the arm, knocking her down and continuing to kick and punch.

After he was satisfied with how much he beat her, only then did he drag her down to the basement and ‌torture Valentine.

Now, Nat watches as Stacey changes Valentine's clothes and places him on their bed. Just like Ty slept in Nat's bed with her, Valentine slept in Stacey's, but their relationship was romantic. Valentine looks up at Nat with numb eyes.

"Will you be able to find the keys?" He asks.

"Val," Stacey whispers, "don't talk."

"No." Valentine holds onto the hand that was patting his shoulder. "It's okay—really okay. If you can get us out of here... if you can at least get Stacey out of here, I wouldn't mind dying."

"Val," Nat whispers. She can't do much but hold her arm to her chest as she crawls on her one hand and knees towards the bed that the boy lies on. "It's going to take time to heal, but I'll find the keys. Can you hold on till then?"

"What do you need us to do?"

Nat looks at the other side of the room, following the voice to see Whitney looking at her, eyes burning with rage.

That man was excited by one other thing besides Nat: Whitney's development. She went from being a false leader of the group into the mom of them all. When Nat was hurt, Whitney would yell at her, chastise her, but she would always be right beside Ty, helping to patch her up. She took care of all. She always said it was because she was the oldest, but Nat felt Whitney might feel guilty about not doing much else to help them escape.

"Anything you need me to do to help you," Whitney says, staring at her and then looking at Valentine. "I'll do it."

Nat looks at each person in that room with her; Ty, Jessica, Whitney, Robert, Theo, Laurel, BoonNam, Stacey and Valentine. The fear vibrates around her stomach and into her heart.

"We only have a year left... we'll need to work together to get out of here. I'm not that smart, and all I can do is fight. I'll need your help."

Some of them nod, even speaking out their affirmation, while some just continue to look at her. She looks at Ty with his green eyes roaming her body for more wounds.

If she was being honest, sometimes she hated them. The entire time that she was fighting to get out, they would just sit on their beds and wait for her to save them, not helping at all. Sometimes she would even think to herself that she only needed to get her and Ty out, nevermind the rest. But now, seeing Valentine in pain and still waiting on her... He was so small for his age, and he looked at her with pleading eyes. There was no way that she wouldn't fight for them too.

"One year," she whispers.

Ty places a hand on her good shoulder and gives it a squeeze. "Let's get out of here."

He picks her up and heads over to their bed. He lays her down just as the lights go off. By the time the red floor lights, he's in the bed beside her, wrapping her against his chest.

He'd grown so much that they could barely fit in the bed together, but that didn't stop them.

He leans to her ear and whispers, "I love you, Nat."

"And what do you know of love? You're just a kid."

"I know what I feel," he whispers closer to her.

She nudges him away. "You say this every time, and I'll tell you the same thing. It's not what you think it is. You're confusing feelings."

"I—"

"Alright, alright. Just go to sleep. It's a new morning tomorrow and we need to figure out how to get out of this. When we're free... we'll talk about it then."

"One year," she keeps thinking over and over. "Just one more year."