He starts speaking again.

“Doesn’t matter who you are or what side you’re on, everybody is conditioned to react to the hate in the same way. It’s all about self-preservation at the expense of everyone and everything else. Everybody fights. Everybody wants to survive. That’s why everything fell apart so quickly-at the first sign of trouble we all turned on each other to protect ourselves. And despite all the noise and bullshit that was thrown around at the start, do you know which side was worst of all?”

Instinctively I shake my head, still held down by the wide strap.

“We were,” he says, answering his own question. “And we still are. Did you see anything of the massacres we carried out? Gas chambers, for crying out loud! We spend years educating generation after generation about the Holocaust and how we can’t ever let it happen again. Then, when it suits us and we’re the ones facing the threat, we forget everything we’ve always believed in and resort to genocide. Thousands upon thousands of men, women and children slaughtered… I tell you, Danny, it makes me feel ashamed to be human.”

Christ, could there actually be some substance to what this guy’s saying? Don’t be stupid, I tell myself, he’s Unchanged. In the sudden silence I try to concentrate on the dripping water in the corner again, doing all I can not to let myself get suckered in by Mallon and his mind games.

“Question for you,” he suddenly announces. “What’s going to happen if we just let things run their course?”

He waits expectantly for an answer, knowing full well I won’t give him one. More to the point, I can’t. The future is something I’ve only dared to think about in my quietest, darkest moments. Until recently the virtually constant adrenaline rush of fight after fight after fight has been enough of a distraction. Surviving today has been more important than thinking about tomorrow.

“What happens if we don’t break the cycle? Where’s this all going to end? If I trusted you enough to take off your chains and let you walk outside, all you’d see would be rubble and ruin. We’re not safe here-no one is anymore-but we’re in a better position than most. The world’s falling apart, but the people here are getting stronger. We’ve been sifting through the debris looking for people like you, Danny, to rehabilitate. We’re going to form that firebreak and stop the pain and hate from spreading.”

He gets up quickly, as if he’s just remembered he’s supposed to be somewhere else. He moves closer to the bed as he pushes the chair back, and his sudden proximity makes me react. I quickly reach out for him with my left hand, but the chain snaps my wrist back when it reaches full stretch. Mallon doesn’t flinch, but I can see him watching me over his shoulder. He did that on purpose to see if I’d bite. I watch him intently as he moves toward the door and try to maintain my aggression. I’ve been forgetting myself.

“That’s enough for now. I might bring you some more food and water in a while. Until then, just try to relax. Build your strength up. You’ll need it later.”

What the hell did he mean by that? He quickly crosses the room again and replaces the board over the window. The impenetrable blackness returns. Can’t stand it like this. Don’t leave me in the dark again, please. He stands in the doorway, looking at me, waiting for a reaction. He starts to close the door.

“Wait-” I say, surprising myself with the sound of my own voice, but it’s too late. The door’s shut and Mallon’s gone and all I can hear is the dripping in the corner.

IT FEELS LIKE AN eternity has passed before he comes back again. He enters the room hurriedly and doesn’t look at me or speak. Unusually, he leaves the door open. I can see two other Unchanged men waiting outside, and my pulse starts to quicken. Is this my execution party? But that goes against everything he said earlier. I don’t know what to think. I’ve lost track of what’s bullshit and what’s fact.

Mallon removes the strap across my forehead, then lies on the floor and does something to the chains holding my arms and legs down. I try to lift my head and look, but I can’t see anything. He’s out of sight under the bed for a couple of minutes doing Christ knows what; then he scrambles back up and brushes himself down. He stands on the other side of the room and looks at me.

“There you go, you can-”

Before he’s even finished his sentence I’ve realized the shackles have been detached from the bed frame. I swing myself around in a sudden single, painful movement and use my weight to throw myself forward and stand up. My legs and arms are cold, numb, heavy, and unresponsive, but I know this is my chance to kill him. I raise my aching arms and stretch a length of chain between them, ready to wrap it around the fucker’s filthy neck and squeeze the life out of him. I lunge, but he sidesteps easily, then sticks out a foot and trips me. I fall quickly, too fast to put my hands out and stop myself. My left shoulder clips the edge of the chair, and then my head smacks against the wall. I roll over onto my back in agony, head spinning and vision blurred. Mallon stands over me. He looks down, shakes his head, and tuts.

“Do you think I’m stupid?”

He moves the chair out of the way and sighs with disappointment.

“Honestly, Danny, weren’t you listening to anything I said earlier? Haven’t you worked it out yet? The more you struggle and fight, the less you’re going to achieve.”

In the confusion of my pathetic, fumbled attempt to attack, I managed to kick the door shut. It opens again, and Mallon gestures for the two men outside to come in. One of them, a huge, evil-looking bastard, grabs the chains hanging from my wrists and hauls me up onto my unsteady feet with worrying ease. If he’d been like us, I think to myself, he’d have been a Brute. He grips my arms tight, and it feels like I’m being squeezed in a vise. There’s nothing I can do about it. The other man walks toward me and puts something over my head. It’s a pillowcase, I think, thin enough for me to be able to breathe but thick enough to block out the light and stop me from seeing. The chains around my ankles are padlocked together. The floor is cold and wet under my bare feet.

“Stay calm and keep your temper in check and you’ll be okay,” Mallon says. “Fight back and you’ll regret it.”

Is that a threat or just a warning to play by his rules? Whatever, the slight glimmer of hope I’d been feeling since Mallon’s earlier visit has gone now and has been replaced by fear. What are they going to do to me? I’m completely at the mercy of these foul bastards, and there’s nothing I can do about it. I feel like a failure, ashamed that I’ve been beaten by the Unchanged. Even if I did manage to fight them off, I’m still bound and chained. I’d never get away.

“Move,” the huge man standing behind me grunts in my ear, his voice deep, loud, and emotionless. He shoves me square in the middle of my back, and I fly forward, barely managing to stay upright and not trip over the chains between my feet. I almost fall, but one of the men-it might even be Mallon-catches me and pulls me back up.

Head bowed, all I can see is my dirty, shackled feet. My legs feel leaden with pain and weak with nerves as I realize this could be my final walk. All that crap about not fighting fire with fire and trying to break the cycle… it was all lies-a cheap, pathetic ruse to keep me occupied and catch me off guard. And the worst thing of all is how easily I fell for it. I should have seen through the bullshit. They were just trying to keep me pacified to make it easier for them to kill me when they’re ready. What am I walking toward? A firing squad? A stoning? The room where I’ll be given my lethal injection? I try to stop-try to turn around and fight my way out of this-but the fuckers surrounding me are having none of it. They restrain me, but they don’t strike back, not even allowing me the satisfaction of going down fighting. When I stop struggling again, they relax their grip and let me walk on alone. The journey to my final destination feels endless. I think about Ellis, and then about Lizzie, Josh, and Edward, and the pain and frustration is too much to stand. I start crying like a fucking baby, sobbing and shaking and pathetic.