Chapter 9 – Check In

Margot’s POV

The door sealed shut behind us with a heavy, mechanical clang, locking us inside a stark, white-walled processing room.

The space was eerily clean, the air thick with the stench of antiseptic, like the kind used in medical clinics. A long metal table sat in the middle of the room, its surface reflecting the harsh, fluorescent light above. Along the back wall, a row of lockers stood beside a cabinet filled with neatly stacked supplies – everything from medical kits to folded garments. There were no windows in here. No exit except the door we had just come through. I swallowed hard. Officially trapped? Maybe…

Cara shifted uneasily beside me, her gaze darting around as if searching for an escape route herself, but she too wasn’t going to find one.

The older man in the lab coat, who I now assumed was some kind of doctor or official, strode toward the metal table and placed a clipboard down with a sharp clack. He then turned to face us, his eyes scanning us like we were specimens under a microscope.

“You’ll answer a few questions before we begin,” he said, his voice even and emotionless. “This is standard procedure for all participants. Understand?”

I nodded stiffly. Cara crossed her arms but gave a half-hearted shrug.

“Good.” He picked up the clipboard. “Names?”

“Margot Belle,” I said quickly, my voice sounding surprisingly firmer than what I felt.

“Cara Owens,” Cara muttered after.

The man ticked us off on the list, seeming satisfied, before he scribbled something down. “Ages?”

“Both eighteen,” I answered before Cara could.

Another scribble.

“Medical history? Any conditions we should be aware of?” He tested, raising a brow.

“No,” we both said in unison.

He nodded, checking something off from his list again before his gaze lifted back to me.

His sharp, assessing eyes locked onto my face. More specifically, onto my eye.

I knew what he was staring at before he even said anything. The faint, yellowing bruise around my left eye – a reminder of what I had left behind…

I tensed instinctively, waiting for the question to come…

The doctor narrowed his eyes. “How did you get that?” He pointed with his pen towards my face as I swallowed.

Cara stiffened beside me. I felt her shift, ready to jump in and spin some kind of lie, but I beat her to it.

“It’s nothing,” I said quickly. “Just an accident, that’s all.”

The doctor didn’t look convinced. “Be specific. We don’t need any troublemakers on this experiment!”

I clenched my jaw.

“We don’t want any trouble. I only tripped,” I said bluntly. “Fell against the edge of a table and it caught the wrong spot.”

His eyes lingered on me for a long moment, like he was weighing the truth in my words. Then, without comment, he reached for a drawer in the nearby cabinet and pulled out a small, round compact case. He tossed it onto the table in front of me.

“You’ll need to cover it,” he said simply.

I blinked, astounded. “What?”

“The bruise,” he clarified, tapping his pen against the clipboard. “We can’t have you walking around looking like you just stepped out of a street fight. It might create… unnecessary assumptions with the inmates.”

I hesitated, staring down at the compact case.

It was some sort of peachy concealer or foundation.

Cara let out a scoff, repeating what he wanted. “So you’re forcing her to cover it up with makeup?”

The doctor arched a brow. “You’re required to present yourself professionally. It’s non-negotiable.”

I felt the weight of his words settle in my stomach like a stone. This wasn’t about me or my past; it was about our presentation. About making sure I, and everyone else involved, looked presentable for the prisoners.

I swallowed down the bitterness rising in my throat and snatched up the compact case.

“Fine,” I muttered.

I popped it open, revealing the small mirror and creamy powder inside. The shade was close enough to my skin tone, probably something generic they had on hand for situations like this. I dabbed the sponge into the product and swiped it over my bruised skin – cringing as it was still overly tender.

It almost felt like erasing a piece of myself… Like covering up proof of something I wasn’t allowed to speak about…

When I was done, the bruise was masked completely. I looked somewhat alive and normal again.

The doctor nodded approvingly. “Yes, much better.”

Cara muttered something under her breath that I didn’t quite catch, but I could feel her anger radiating beside me.

The doctor turned to the cabinet again, retrieving a small stack of folded garments.

“Now,” he said, placing them in front of us. “You’ll need to choose a uniform.”

Cara and I exchanged a confused glance.

“Uniform?” Cara repeated. “What kind of uniform?”

The doctor didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he motioned to the garments as though it were obvious.

There were several packaged colors – grey, blue, green, red, purple… pink.

“You may select your color preference, one to make you feel more comfortable in the compound,” he explained in a bored tone. “Once you do, it will be registered to your file and assigned to you for the duration of your stay – providing fresh sets to change into, and so on.”

My brows furrowed. “What’s the difference between them all?”

“Nothing. The choice is purely aesthetic, to remind you that although you’ll be in with the prisoners, you aren’t one of them,” he stated.

Cara sighed. “So what? Is this like picking teams at summer camp? What’s next, matching lanyards?"

The doctor didn’t react to her sarcasm. “Just choose a damn color! It doesn’t even matter that much!” He hurried us on, checking his wristwatch impatiently.

I glanced down at the options again. Something about this felt off. The idea that the colors were meaningless didn’t sit right with me. There had to be a reason for it. A code. A ranking system. Something.

But we didn’t have much choice.

I hesitated only a moment before reaching for the pink uniform.

Cara eyed me like I had lost my mind. “Pink?”

Sure, the bright color was a bold choice amongst the others, but it was the only one I felt drawn to…

I gave a half-shrug. “If I’m gonna be stuck in this for a while, then I might as well wear something I don’t hate.”

She rolled her eyes and grabbed the lilac purple uniform. “Fine. But if this color thing secretly means we’re assigned to some kind of weird experimental torture group, I’m coming for your ass.”

I barely cracked a smile.

The doctor noted our selections, then gestured toward the door we had first entered through. “You’ll go back through there, to freshen up and change. Your personal clothing will be stored safely for the duration of the project.”

I wanted to scoff at that, as though we cared much for our raggy clothes. They could shred them for all we cared.

“Are we finished here?” Cara questioned the man, as he seemed to turn towards a computer system – ignoring us completely after that.

“Yes, the man that brought you here will sort you out now – go out of the only door you can!” He waved us away, swatting the air as though we were flies who were annoying him…

Cara rolled her eyes, and without another word, we took our uniforms and stepped back out of the room.

Whatever this experiment really was…

I’m sure we would find out soon enough…

But I now felt uncomfortably nervous for whatever awaited us both…