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I look down at the bandage on my hand. Heather cleaned the scrape after I lost consciousness.

She also undressed me, put me in clothes she’d already bought in my size and left water beside the bed after using my coffee to drug me.

I don’t touch the glass.

Oliver.

I remember her saying it beside the car.

Because that’s your name now.

The clothes make that sentence different. So do the books.

She didn’t decide what to call me in the parking lot. I look around the green room again. She decided long before last night.

I go back through what I’ve opened, checking the dresser, wardrobe and bathroom once more. A shirt corner has shifted in the second drawer. I fold it back beneath the one above it. The biography is slightly farther forward than the books beside it, so I push the spine flush. I turn the shampoo bottle a fraction until the label faces front again.

When I’m finished, the room looks the way it did when I woke up. Almost.

I take the glass of water from the nightstand and carry it into the bathroom and dump it in the sink before returning it to the nightstand.

I sit in the chair and wait. From here I can see the door, the window and most of the room without turning my head.

Heather has a head start of almost a year. That’s an advantage. But it isn’t the same thing as knowing me.

I settle back into the chair and look at the locked door. I notice nuance for a living. A changed word. A missing one. What someone emphasizes and what they avoid. The answer underneath the answer they actually give.

Usually I’m the one deciding what deserves attention.

When Heather opens the door, I’ll learn what she notices first.

The empty glass. The chair I chose.

Me.

I want to see if she gets it right.

CHAPTER 16

Heather

Imake Oliver breakfast before I let Jamie out. Eggs, toast, strawberries, and coffee go onto the tray, along with a napkin and silverware. I pick up the tray and take the little shocker with me.

I knock once on his door.

“Good morning,” Oliver says. He sounds much better than he did last night.

“Move away from the door and keep your hands where I can see them.”

“I’m already across the room.”

“Hands where I can see them.”

“Of course.”

Jamie would have asked why or told me to fuck off, and I would have known exactly what I was opening the door to. Oliver sounds like I’ve asked him to pass the salt. He’s trying to make obedience look harmless.

Let him. I like a doll who helps while I’m training him.