I had to get out of here.

I crossed to the outline of the door and pressed my hand up against the space where the handle should have been. There was a little give, the hinges flexing where I’d shoved it—but not enough to force open. I wasn’t the kick-down-doors type on the best of days; I was pretty sure, weakened as I was, that if I tried to throw myself against it then I would break before it did.

The walls were padded slightly. The beds they’d given us were no more than cots, really, a metal frame welded together at the corners, with no screws or nails or convenient angle brackets I could pry free. I made a full lap of the room, tracing the space between the tiles, and ended up right back where I’d started—just as figuratively as literally. They’d gone and been smart about the whole business, about their own architecture—they’d seen nightmares consumed by obsession overlook anything outside it and put their own safeguards in place.

So you can’t open the door, the dead man said.

“What do you care?” I responded. “Not like you’re going to be coming with.”

Well, friend, you told me I’m just your fractured thoughts projected on the only face, and I’m sure you’d appreciate if your mind tagged along. So—if only Jabberwock can open that door, Starling, all you must do is entice them to do so.

“Mm-hmm.” I knocked on the door three times. “Hey,” I said, loud enough that it’d hopefully carry. “Let me out.”

There was a shuffling on the other side. “In your dreams,” came a voice, one I didn’t recognize. There was a pause before it cackled at its own joke. The door remained resolutely shut.

You thought that would work?

“Don’t have a lot of enticement at hand.”

Nothing?

I frowned. I picked up the note that had been tucked between the dead man’s fingers and skimmed it. “‘You are hunted, Starling,’” I read. “‘Discover its cause before it discovers you.’ They have no idea, do they? They’re just as clueless as we are about how it moves, where it hides, how sharp its damn claws are. They’re trying to scare me by telling me it can gore me even in here—but they don’t know it can’t.” I rubbed at my eyes. “That’d draw them in. Just have to get clawed to death first and I’ll be damn well set.

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“I mean,” I said, “I don’t. I hope I don’t. But I don’t think just shouting about it is going to do the job. No matter the surprise I have, they’ll see damn quickly that I’m not bloodied like I should be. I don’t even have a weapon—I can’t fight whatever they bring.”

So convince them.

The dead man was a wreck. Where the blood had run down his clothes or seeped into the sheets, it’d dried to an off-brown; but he was so torn up that fresh, scarlet blood was still seeping from a dozen different wounds. I swiped a finger—already stained with his blood from earlier—through one of the deeper lacerations, and smudged the drop of blood along my cheek to leave a thin red smear. The metallic smell was almost overpowering, as though his blood was laced with some strange component, as though it’d marinated in the hours he’d been lying here.

It wasn’t enough. They hadn’t provided me a mirror, of course—but the light covering that I could eke out didn’t feel like it was enough to convince anyone. When I ran my fingers along my exposed skin, his blood was already flaking away. Right now, I thought, I looked like I’d been standing next to someone attacked by a monster—and done nothing to help. Bloody by association. “If they don’t believe it, I’m doomed,” I said. “They won’t allow it again—and if that monster ever does come calling, I’ll have cried wolf and be left screwed.”

Convincing them would take something sharp. I needed to look cut up, I needed to be bloodier.

The dead man seemed to grin at me. His hands were ruined, the nails torn off—but he still had many of his teeth, some dangling by a thread. They were chipped and jagged, but they were intact.

I stared at them for a moment. Then I reached down and wrenched one of his teeth free.

It hurt. I was never meant to use it as a knife—it was dull in places, resisting breaking the skin. I tore a piece of the sheet off and wadded it between my teeth to bite down on for the pain. I didn’t have the power to make the cut deep, but neither did I have the precision or control over how far it pierced, and my shaking hand drew a jerky cut all the way down my arm. My own blood welled up out of it and began to run in small streams down to my wrist.

I dragged my arm roughly across my front, letting the thin fabric darken in large blotches. Then I raised my hand to my face and, inch by inch, carved the same cut into my cheek. “Hell!” I spat, then wished I hadn’t. Speaking hurt.

The taste of my own blood was unfortunately familiar. I pried the bedding from between my teeth and wiped a hand along my face to smear the blood up around my eyes and forehead. I tossed the tooth back onto the bed, next to the dead man. He didn’t look like he was smiling anymore—he was gap-toothed and angry. “Sorry,” I whispered. “I wish there’d been another way. But you’re not getting out of here anyway, so…”

I took a breath and screamed. It wasn’t hard to let the pain enter my voice. Before the sound had faded, I stumbled-sprinted to the door and pounded on it with the flat of my hand, hardly letting up except to speak. “The monster,” I gasped. “It’s here.”