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It had been a joke, going in. Ah, it’s 5am in Oz, I’m sleep deprived. As if they didn’t all keep the same hours, arrive exactly as refreshed as one another.
It doesn’t feel like a joke now.
Pearl counts floorboards at the top of a sturdy tower and wishes she could sleep. Like she’s wished a hundred other things in the last six weeks, not least of all I wish you loved me, I wish anybody did. At her feet, a dog that she’s choosing to believe is Tilly sleeps restlessly, thin enough to feel her ribcage when she shifts against Pearl’s feet, jumpy enough that she’d launch straight into a biting, growling attack if anybody came up through that trapdoor in the middle of the room.
They won’t. They don’t. Pearl, on this night as on all nights, is alone.
And it’s - and the worst part is that she doesn’t even think it’s Scott’s fault, as much as she would love to blame him for everything that happens in this place, for the life that she’s been handed, for the people she’s been deprived of since she came. She’s pretty sure that this just… happens, when you’re red. You get antsy, hypervigilant. Tired and wired at the same time. Busting for a kill.
She takes a minute or so to vividly imagine the sight and sensation of blood dripping down her hands, her arms, staining into her shirt. That’s better.
Yeah, no, it’s not even him, as much as it really ought to be. Not him, nor Cleo, nor any of the other people who’ve denied her a chance at a friend. It’s this world. These rules. This game.
Some fuckin’ game. She wants a refund.
Pearl counts the floorboards, begging for a rest that will not come.