Kassie in Peril Book 2: Scientist

By Gregory Tetrault

Ten-year-old Kassie returns to her second semester of her third year at the Academy of the Mind with chemical manufacturing contracts worth more than two million dollars. Kassie and her fourteen-year-old roommate Hermione enjoy the semester until a fateful May Day. Both girls awake naked in an unknown location. They quickly surmise that someone wants Kassie’s chemical manufacturing knowledge, and that same person wants to punish Kassie for helping competitors.

Kassie and Hermione have two rough days until they escape. Their relationship becomes too intense during those two days. That will cause long-term problems. They receive national recognition because of their escape and their frank discussion of the tortures they underwent. Kassie annoys the FBI with a strong commentary about its massive budget and its incompetent and bullying agents. Her frankness causes problems months later.

Kassie returns home to her loving family, or so she thinks. Her twelve-year-old brother Duncan exhibits strong jealousy of his famous sister. That is only the tip of the iceberg, and Kassie’s strong love for her brother becomes heartache and depression when she learns that Duncan never loved her.

Kassie and Hermione, who stays with her during the summers, return to the Academy. Kassie’s criticisms of the FBI return to bite her—the FBI will not charge and arrest the man responsible for kidnapping Kassie and Hermione. Kassie and her security service find a way to bring the man to justice. Kassie independently seeks justice against the jailers and torturers who have been imprisoned since the girls escaped. Those men did not go to trial, and their plea bargain sentences are, in Kassie’s opinion, too short.

Over the next five years, Kassie makes new discoveries in chemistry and becomes astoundingly wealthy. Her work in chemistry often encounters the many flaws of quantum theory—a theory that should have been replaced decades ago. Kassie vowed many years ago to fix the flaws of quantum theory. She switches fields and dedicates years to mastering physics. She develops a new model of subatomic physics that displaces quantum theory and garners her a Nobel Prize. At twenty-three, she’s the youngest recipient of a Nobel Prize in the sciences. Many physicists hate Dr. Kassie Grunwald for the abrupt changes her work precipitates. Many physicist are now irrelevant. One such physicist seeks retribution.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gregory Tetrault
• Release date: Feb 14, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310719714

Gregory Tetrault

Gregory Tetrault grew up in Phoenix, New York, a small town north of Syracuse. He attended medical school at SUNY Downstate Medical Center. Dr. Tetrault became a clinical pathologist and directed medical laboratories for twenty years. He started writing novels after he retired. The Jennifer's Magic trilogy was published in 2015. Kassie, Girl Genius, is a contemporary fiction series. The first two novels were published in February 2016. He’s working on a third Kassie novel.

Book preview

Chapter 1 — Taken

Monday, May 1, 2017 1:00 a.m.

Four commandos crouch in the woods. They wear black battle clothes, black lightweight boots, black ski masks, and thin black gloves. Each man carries an automatic pistol in a belt holster and two small flash-bang grenades in front vest pockets. All holsters and vest pockets are velcroed shut. Two commandos wear black backpacks. At 1:10 a commando dashes towards the Academy and sets up a powerful cell phone jammer. At 1:12 the leader uses hand signals to send two men to the fire escape door of the east dormitory. One man takes a lock-picking device out of his right front pants pocket. He unlocks the door in sixteen seconds. His partner slides a thin steel shim at the top of the door to avoid tripping the magnet alarm. The first man opens the door and applies a thick tape strip across the strike plate to prevent the door from latching. He applies another strip to cover the door latch he pushed in. Then, he tapes the steel shim to the doorframe and uses small metal snips to cut the ‘tail’ off the shim. His partner enters and moves quickly but silently along the hallway. The other two commandos enter the dorm. The commando with the lock picks steps inside, shuts the fire escape door, and walks a few steps to the basement door. He quickly picks the lock and goes downstairs to the landline phone box. He cuts through the wires. He climbs the stairs to the dorm hallway and guards the end furthest from the fire escape door. One of the commandos with a backpack pulls out fifteen strange-looking devices. He takes five of them and so do two other men. They slide them under room doors beneath the doorknobs and press a button to pop-up at a forty-five-degree angle a one-inch long steel plate. The man with the backpack pulls out a device that looks like a small, battery-powered nail gun. He goes to each door device, pulls it out as far as it will go, and drives a small spike through a hole in the bottom of the device, through the carpet and pad, and into the cement floor. The room doors cannot be opened. The other commando with a backpack is a medic. He takes out a spool with twenty feet of half-inch round cord of what looks like blue clay. He presses it all the way around the door to Hermione and Kassie’s room to make an airtight seal. He pulls a small gas canister out of his backpack. He pokes a hole in the blue clay at the top of the door and inserts a clear plastic tube that connects to the gas canister. He opens the valve to release a predetermined amount of the anesthetic sevoflurane. Experts calculated the amount of sevoflurane needed based on room size and Kassie’s estimated weight.

The commando guarding the fire escape door snakes a fiberoptic camera under the door to detect any outside activity. The medic puts the now empty gas canister into his backpack. The commandos wait four minutes for the anesthesia to take effect. The man with the lock picks trots quietly down the hall and unlocks Kassie’s door. The leader removes the blue clay sealer and stuffs it in a cargo pocket. The medic and the leader put on gas masks. The two men enter the room and pull down the covers of the nearest bed. They use zip ties to bind together Hermione’s wrists and ankles. They put her into a large heavy canvas bag with grommets near the top to allow breathing. They zip the bag to the top. The medic goes to Kassie’s bed and pulls down the covers. He checks her heart and lungs with a stethoscope. He applies ECG leads and connects them to a portable electrocardiograph. He looks at ECG tracings for a few minutes. He nods to the leader. They bind her arms and legs and work together to get her into a heavy canvas bag with the ECG leads coming out of the top. They zip her bag to the top. The leader pulls a small rectangular device out of a vest pocket and presses its recessed button. A receiver in a black SUV detects the signal and emits a brief return signal. The two commandos who are guarding the hallway go into Kassie’s dorm room. Each slings a girl over his shoulder. The medic and the two commandos who carry the girls dash to the woods. The leader retrieves the cell phone jammer and joins the others. They carefully walk east-northeast through the woods until they see Rainwood Road to the east of the Academy. Two minutes later, a black commercial van and a black SUV stop. The girls get dumped onto collapsed and secured gurneys in the van. The medic and one commando ride with them. The medic unzips the top third of the canvas sacks. He puts facemasks on the girls and connects new sevoflurane tanks to each mask. He puts blood pressure cuffs on each girl, and he puts ECG leads on Hermione. He checks Hermione’s ECG intermittently by disconnecting Kassie’s leads and plugging-in Hermione’s. He adjusts anesthetic gas flow rates as needed.

Forty minutes later, the commandos and girls arrive at the small Millard airport southwest of Omaha. They drive to a military-style small cargo plane. They drive up the lowered ramp and secure the vehicles with chocks and heavy tie down straps. The plane taxis immediately and is in the air three minutes after the vehicles arrived. The destination is a small, private airport in northern Virginia.

* * * * *

The plane lands at 6:15. The black van and the SUV drive for twenty minutes and stop behind a large, drab building. The van backs up to a loading dock. The medic turns off the anesthetic and removes the facemasks from the girls. Two men from inside the building walk to the back of the van. The commandos think of them as blue shirt and gray shirt, and they don’t want to know more. All the commandos pull down their ski masks. They move the gurneys to the loading dock. The medic commando continues to monitor the girls’ blood pressures and ECGs. A second commando helps with the ECG leads. The two men from the building push the gurneys to an elevator. Blue shirt pushes the three button. When the elevator doors open, blue shirt and gray shirt wheel the gurneys to a corridor with four rooms. A commando follows blue shirt as he wheels Hermione into the end room on the left. The men collapse the gurney, remove the blood pressure cuff and ECG leads, unzip the canvas bag, and transfer Hermione to the floor. Blue shirt cuts off Hermione’s pajamas and panties. The commando pushes the gurney with the canvas sack into the corridor. Blue shirt closes and locks the door.

The medic and gray shirt roll Kassie into the room across from Hermione. A big steel table is bolted to the floor in the middle of the room. The medic uses his stethoscope to listen to her heart and lungs. He nods. They unzip the canvas sack and lift Kassie onto the table. Gray shirt cuts off her panties. The medic helps gray shirt put leather straps around Kassies wrists and ankles. They fasten the ankle straps to steel rings at the bottom of the table. The use ropes to connect the wrist straps to rings at the top of the table. The medic pushes the gurney out of the room. Gray shirt closes and locks the door. The two commandos bring the gurneys to the loading dock and roll them into the van. The SUV and van drive away. A few miles later, they pull into the drive of a closed business. They switch plates on both vehicles and drive north to I-70 and head towards their headquarters near Denver.

* * * * *

Hermione wakes up half an hour later in a dark room. She’s frightened, and she’s appalled that she’s bound and naked. She yells, What’s going on? She gets no answer. She scoots forward by sliding her butt towards her heels. She reaches the wooden door and pounds on it. She hears nothing.

Hermione scoots around the room and thumps on the walls with her heels. The walls appear to be drywall. The room is about twenty by fifteen feet. There are desks and chairs pushed against one wall. She uses a desk to help her stand upright and feels desks upside down on top of other desks. She half shuffles and half hops to the door. It has a round doorknob that needs a key to open from this side. There is nothing else in the room. She sits in a corner and tries to rest. She hopes Kassie is okay. They want Kassie. This will be awful.

Hermione really needs to pee. She tries to wait but can’t. I’ll pee right in front of the door. Maybe the first one in will slip and crack his head on the doorjamb or the floor. She pees, and her bladder thanks her. I hope it doesn’t drain into the room. She uses the wall for balance and moves to the back of the room where she can watch the door. Why am I so passive? It must be the drugs. She goes back to the furniture and tries to find a sharp edge on a metal desk. She finds a moderately sharp edge on the underside of an upside down desk. She rubs the zip tie around her wrist against the metal edge. The plastic parts about ten minutes later. Hermione rubs her abraded and sliced wrists and feels for something that can work for the zip tie around her ankles. Maybe a drawer will have a sharp edge on the sides or back. She has no luck. She checks the underside of plastic chairs with metal frames. She finds one with a Phillips head screw that was stripped. It has a bit of sharp metal sticking up. She puts chair upside down, sits just past the top of the back of the chair, and positions her legs so she can rub the part of the zip tie between the backs of her ankles over the screw. She uses her hands to keep the chair from sliding. It’s slow going, because she can’t see and rubs different parts of the zip tie over the screw. The zip tie parts after around twenty-five minutes of work. Hermione’s next task is breaking out. She finds a heavy wooden chair. She picks up the chair and holds it so one leg projects more forward than the rest. She takes two quick steps and rams the leg into the wall. It breaks through the drywall. She does it two more times and has a hole big enough for her hands. She reaches in and starts ripping out pieces of drywall. When she can’t pull a piece away, she bashes the wall with her heel or with the chair leg. She clears an eighteen-inch tall section of wall between two studs. She can’t use the chair to break the drywall of the corridor wall because at least one leg hits a stud when she holds it like before. She tries using the corner of a wooden desk drawer. It takes a dozen bashes to significantly damage a small area of drywall. She moves a heavy wood desk almost to the hole. She leans her butt against it and kicks the drywall. She breaks through, but bruises her heel. She starts widening the hole in the corridor dry wall. She makes too much noise to hear the footsteps. A man unlocks the door and goes in. He swears because he steps in urine. Hermione picks up the desk chair and swings it at him. He blocks it and takes it away from her. She moves to the back of the room.

If you make me chase you, I’ll torture your little friend. Hermione stands still. Lay on your belly. Hermione does. The man pulls rope out of his pocket and hog-ties her. Then he gags her with a bandana. We’ll be back soon. Any more nonsense and we’ll punish you.

Tears run down Hermione’s face.

* * * * *

Kassie slowly wakes, but her confusion lingers. It takes a few minutes to realize that she’s naked, that her legs are spread moderately wide, that leather straps encircle her wrists and ankles, and that the leather straps secure her to a table. Kassie lies on a thin plastic-covered pad on a flat table. Light shows the outlines of a door. She can’t clearly distinguish the corners of the room, but the room appears to be twenty by fifteen feet. It looks like a drop ceiling above. They probably took Hermione. She listens carefully. She hears what may be footsteps, but they aren’t close. She suspects that the room has cameras and mikes. She looks but can’t see any in the dim light. She sees eyebolts in the wall in front of her. I don’t like that at all. They’ll probably bring in Hermione and torture her to get me to cooperate. She meditates for a while to calm herself. About forty minutes later she hears intermittent thumping that sounds close. She has no idea what it is.

Kassie doesn’t know the time but believes it is between seven and ten in the morning because she badly needs to pee. No sense being uncomfortable, though I won’t like urine under my butt. She pees but does not emit a sigh of relief. I’ll tell them I’ll cooperate fully. Justify it with logic. Tell them cooperation will be not as good if they hurt us. I’ll meditate again to reduce my fears. I won’t yell even if I’m hungry or thirsty.

Two hours later she’s both. She can’t show weakness, even if they hurt Hermione. She doesn’t know if she can use meditation to decrease physical or severe emotional pain. She hears footsteps in the hallway. It sounds like two people. She hears a door open across the hall. She hears a smack. Two minutes later, overhead fluorescent lights blind her just before the door opens. Two men drag in Hermione. She’s gagged and has leather straps on wrists and ankles. They use carabiners to attach the leather straps on Hermione’s limbs to the eyebolts. Kassie can’t see the lower eyebolts, but Hermione’s legs make a ninety-degree angle or a bit more. She appears to be raised at least a foot above the floor. The fit is almost perfect. The obviously knew her size. I don’t know whether she’ll fall apart from a rape or tune it out. She survived five weeks of rapes when she was six. She’s tough. I need to stay calm and detached. Kassie breaths slowly and deeply. One man goes out for a minute and then wheels in a small cart with a tray on top like the ones used to hold dental or surgical instruments. This looks very bad.

The other man removes Hermione’s gag.

Who’s in charge? Kassie demands.

The man who pushes the cart slaps her face hard, splitting her lower lip. You don’t ask the questions.

You don’t want him to know that I agree to cooperate?

He slaps her again. He knows you’ll cooperate. We’re here to show you what happens if you don’t cooperate one hundred and ten percent.

If you hurt us, the pain and bad emotions will interfere with my concentration and thought processes. You’ll be lucky to get seventy percent efficiency from me.

He smacks her face again. The boss thinks otherwise.

Then, your boss is a fool. I doubt he knows anything about efficiency. He’ll probably get off by watching you torture and rape us. That’s more important to him than saving millions of dollars.

The other man, who she labels Thug because he looks like one, slams his fist into her belly, knocking the wind out of her. She can’t inhale, but she forces herself not to struggle. Better to die now. The room fades to darkness except for a small circle of the ceiling above her. She desperately wants to breathe, but she focuses on feeling floaty. She hears voices, but they are indistinct. Her thoughts fade away… She returns to full consciousness and feels a mouth around hers and a scratchy cheek against her nose. She feels air forced into her trachea. She exhales and inhales loudly to get him to leave. Hermione sobs, but Kassie doesn’t know whether it’s from relief, anguish, or pain.

You idiot, you almost killed her. Get the medic to see if she’s bleeding internally. The man who hit her runs out of the room.

Kassie says, You’re all idiots. We’ve seen you. Hermione and I know we’re dead. I don’t have a great incentive to cooperate.

The man who resuscitated her, who she names Mouth, says, You’re reasoning is faulty. You’re never going to escape, so seeing our faces doesn’t matter.

Oh, so we’ll be captives until we die of old age or until you kill us. That’s essentially the same as death. Here’s what I think will happen. I help improve chemical manufacturing processes. There will be a limited number of processes, and once they’re all improved we’ll be killed. Another incentive not to work efficiently.

We’ll provide plenty of incentives.

I think your boss is incredibly stupid. He could have contracted with my company. Manufacturing costs would have dropped, there’d be no risk of prosecution for crimes that would put all of you in prison for life, and he’d have a working relationship with someone who could help him in the future. I think your thickheaded and witless boss is more interested in punishing me because I helped competitors and because I’m a girl who outperforms his chemists.

I think you’re a fool for running your mouth. The boss may order more punishment.

You’re the fool. He’ll order more punishment no matter what I say or do. Mr. Boss, if your thugs harm Hermione or me, I’ll give you processes that will never work. You’ll waste time and money testing them.

The man who resuscitated her touches a black earphone. He says, Are you sure? Kassie sees his jaw muscles tense and his face redden. Carl, in the hall. They come back inside a minute later. The man Cassie names Thug Carl moves towards Kassie. She hears a whirring sound, and the table tilts up at the top so she can see all of Hermione, who weeps silently. Most of the urine runs along Kassie’s left leg and drains to the floor. Carl says, The little girl wet herself. Maybe she needs a diaper.

That would be nice. I prefer not to lie in urine.

Carl squats and opens a cabinet under the tray. Neither Kassie nor Hermione can see what he’s doing. Neither thinks it will be good. He tortures and injures Hermione. She toughs it out and tries hard not to scream. Blood runs down her right thigh and leg. Kassie says nothing. I hope she bleeds out and dies.

The man Kassie labels Mouth Jim says to her, Your friend will get worse than that if you don’t cooperate.

Carl goes back to the cabinet. Kassie hears scratching noises and then a brief whoosh. A propane torch. She closes her eyes and steels herself. Carl carries the torch towards Hermione. Her head still sags, so Hermione doesn’t see the flame. Carl grabs her hair, pulls her head up, and puts the blue flame about one foot in front of her face. Hermione doesn’t respond. Kassie keeps her eyes closed. Jim pokes Kassie in the side. You watch, or we torture her twice as much. Kassie opens her eyes.

Thug Carl steps beside Hermione and runs the flame across the skin of her right abdomen just below the rib cage. Hermione can’t block it and emits a piercing scream that lasts ten seconds. Less piercing screams follow. Thug Carl looks at Kassie and says, The next time I’ll do her little breast. He points the flame at Hermione’s breast, but it’s far enough away that she gets only a first-degree burn. Kassie remains impassive throughout the burning.

Mouth Jim says, You don’t seem to get it. We can do this day after day for weeks. If rape and torture don’t work, we’ll progress to mutilation. He goes to the tray, picks up a small pair of bone shears, and shows them to Kassie. He turns and walks towards Hermione. He quickly turns right at the foot of Kassie’s table, slips the bone shears around the base of her fifth toe, and amputates it. Blood spurts and then pulses out of the stump. Kassie clenches her hands and then relaxes them. Carl approaches the foot of her bed with the propane torch still burning. Kassie steels herself against much worse pain. The flame hits the stump of her fifth toe but also the skin around it and on the left side of her fourth toe. Kassie never experienced this much pain. She doesn’t scream, but she clenches her hands and teeth tightly. Beads of sweat appear on her forehead, her underarms get sweaty, and she has terrible nausea and gut spasms.

You don’t need toes to work. We can do this nine more times. Then, we bring in a surgeon and do half a foot, whole foot, half a leg, and maybe an entire leg. The pain of sawing through bones is quite intense, Mouth Jim lectures.

Kassie manages to stop clenching. I offered a deal, and your boss turned it down. He’ll get no cooperation, Kassie asserts.

You’ll watch your friend suffer?

We’re dead anyway. We’ll suffer first, but we’ll be dead. My final thoughts will be that unless your boss owns the company, his boss will be rather angry. I hope he suffers for his mistakes, Kassie says. She shouts, Are you listening Mr. Boss? I’ll give you one chance to correct your mistakes. You bring someone in to treat our wounds. Your thugs treat us well for five days: no restraints, bathroom privileges, shower privileges, full sets of clothes, toothbrushes, good food, comfortable beds, and books. Hermione and I stay in the same room so I’ll know she’s untouched. Then, I’ll cooperate. Any torture or rape or mutilation from this point on, and I’ll never cooperate. You have one hour to decide.

Mouth Jim says, You don’t dictate to the boss, little girl.

You don’t dictate to me, stupid thug. I’ve got something your boss needs, and it can’t be forced out of me. You should think about something. However this ends, the boss won’t want anyone alive who knows what happened. The faster I improve the chemical processes, the shorter your lifespan will be.

Thug Carl returns with a tall, thin, white man who claims he has medical training. You idiots. She should be tilted head down! Jim tilts the table. Mr. Medic steps in the puddle of urine and sees urine beneath her. Get this cleaned up. Mr. Medic looks at Kassie’s abdomen. He listens with a stethoscope. He presses in with his fingers and asks if it hurts. Kassie doesn’t answer. Mr. Medic looks at her and says, It’s for your own good.

Great, another moron. I’m a dead girl. I’d rather die today then after weeks of torture, Kassie explains.

Mr. Medic continues palpating with no responses from Kassie. He checks her heart rate and takes her blood pressure. She seems okay. Do you want me to treat their injuries?

Jim says, We have to hear from the boss.

The girl on the wall is bleeding a lot. Jim looks at the puddle of blood under Hermione.

Put something in to stop the bleeding.

Mr. Medic rolls together and inserts four large gauze pads. I’ll be back in twenty minutes, he says.

Kassie meditates again. It reduces pain, but not enough. Her foot burns and throbs. She hopes that meditation for pain reduction will work better with practice. It must be worse for Hermione. She has a big area with second-degree burns.

Thug Carl walks to Hermione, grabs the underside of her jaw with his large right hand, turns her face to him and says, We’re going to have a great time once I take you back to your room.

Will you ask me to tickle you? That’s the closest you’ll come to sex with a woman Mr. Pervert Torturer.

Carl lets go of her jaw and pulls his right arm back. Before he can punch her, Jim grabs his elbow and spins him halfway around. Jim holds a knife in his left hand, and presses the point against Carl’s belly. You’re becoming a liability. You touch these girls without orders again, and you’re dead. He pushes the knife in far enough to break the skin. Do you understand?

Yeah, I got ya. He leaves the room. Jim wipes his knife clean on the cloth beneath the instruments on the tray. He leaves and locks the door. Kassie realizes it’s to keep Carl out, since they can’t escape.

Kassie looks carefully at her chest because she feels something on her skin despite the severe pain from her foot. The skin looks different in a few places on her chest. She gets it—adhesive residue from patches for an electrocardiogram. She can’t see if they are present on Hermione, but it doesn’t matter. Kassie’s certain they were anesthetized and monitored.

Hermione, are you holding up?

Barely. I know what you’re doing Kassie…

Careful, I’m sure we’re wired for video and sound.

I see two cameras at the wall-ceiling junction. Kassie, will they meet your demands?

No idea.

What will happen if they don’t?

I’m sorry, Hermione, but I can’t give in. We’ll be hurt badly before they kill us.

Is there no other way?

Hermione, I’ve read the studies on these types of situations. If you give in and do what they ask, they kill you afterwards. If you don’t do what they ask, they torture you and kill you, but they get nothing out of it. Our only hope is that I cooperate, they kill the thugs, and they let us go because the only kidnappers we can identify are dead.

Why would they do that? Hermione asks.

The odds are low. The only reason is so they can snatch me again. A second kidnapping would be easier than keeping us on ice for months or years.

And what’s the likelihood of that?

Essentially zero because they know I’d hire a great security firm.

It really sucks that you’re so good at chemistry.

Perhaps I should have studied law.

I really hurt, Kassie.

I see the burn. How’s your vagina?

The burn hurts so much I barely notice it. How about your toe?

Same deal. The burns hurt more than the amputation.

How come you didn’t scream?

Lots of torturers like their victims to scream. I won’t give them the satisfaction.

They might take it as a challenge.

Good. Maybe they’ll kill me by mistake.

Kassie, I don’t want to die, Hermione moans.

I’m not thrilled about it myself. It’s not likely that we’ll live, and we have to accept that.

Maybe someone will rescue us.

I think pain has shut down your mind. The kidnapping was very professional. They must have used anesthetic gas. I can see where they put ECG leads on me to make sure the gas dose was right.

Hermione says, I can see the adhesive residue on my chest, too.

Kassie says, The FBI will have nothing to go on, and they’re bumblers. The FBI won’t figure out that we weren’t kidnapped for my money until a few days pass without a ransom demand. Then, they’ll suspect the kidnapping’s related to my patents, but they’ll get no further.

The girls both say nothing for a while except for an occasional gasp or moan from the pain. Kassie tries to meditate, but the pain prevents her from becoming calm. Catch 22. Can’t meditate for pain because of the pain.

Kassie and Hermione hear a key in the door lock. Carl comes in with rags to sop up the urine and a spray deodorizer. Wow. Jim trusts you enough to lend you the key. Why don’t you slug me again so Jim will kill you? Or you can use one of those torture devices. You know you want to, Kassie goads.

Carl grumbles quietly but continues to sop up the urine. When he finishes he says, I hope the boss wants you dead, because I’ll get to do whatever I want before killing you.

Maybe you’ll get a thrill after torturing me for an hour you sick creep, but you still won’t be able to rape me, Kassie says.

Carl fumes but leaves.

Kassie sighs. I really hoped he’d do something. I’d love it if Jim kills him. I wouldn’t love it, but it might have been better if Carl killed me.

How close is the deadline?

My guess is around ten minutes. Got anything interesting to talk about?

I thought Robbie was going to ask for a date. I was sitting alone, and he started walking towards me. Then, he veered off and sat with Can and Tom.

I didn’t think he’d be such a wuss.

Which, ironically, means that I will turn him down, if I ever return to the Academy so he can have a second chance. We haven’t talked lately about your interest in boys.

Nothing has changed. I want boys only as friends. If I live to puberty, then I’ll think about going out. I still don’t know if I would prefer boys or girls.

The door opens, and Jim enters. The boss has agreed to meet your requests. You’ll stay as you are until we set up the room. Carl comes in with two sleeping bags and inflatable mattresses. He drops them on the floor and leaves. Carl returns with two pillows, two sets of scrub suits, two pairs of panties, and two pairs of socks. Carl holds the door open, and Jim wheels out the surgical tray cart. Carl returns with tools and unbolts the floor clamps that hold the wheels of the table Kassie lies on. Carl steps towards Hermione and says, Give me a hand with her. Jim holds Hermione while Carl releases the carabiners. Hermione sags forward and yells because her burn rests against Jim’s shoulder. Jim ignores her yell and lowers her until her feet touch the floor. Jim says to Hermione, Don’t move. He takes the leather straps off her wrists and ankles.

Jim says, Sit in the far corner, not the one with the sleeping bags. Hermione walks carefully to avoid aggravating her burn. Carl uses a large screwdriver to twist the eyebolts out of the wall. He puts them in his pocket. Carl and Jim take the leather restraints off Kassie. Jim helps her off the table. He points at Hermione. Sit with her. It either of you moves; you’ll be sorry. Carl and Jim pick up the floor clamps and wheel the table out of the room. They come back and look for anything that could help the girls escape. They find nothing and close and lock the door.

Hermione asks, Should we get up.