It was better than it could have been. The governor’s staff had booked three rooms for the four of us, letting Ben and Mat sleep alone while Audrey and I enjoyed the seemingly endless supply of hot water in our shower. Our equipment was spread through all three rooms, and we all had key cards to each door. “Do Not Disturb” signs were respected like hazmat warnings. More than once, when I’d forgotten to take ours down, Ben had stayed stationary in the hall and called my phone rather than risk accidental nudity. So it wasn’t like we were being tortured or anything. Just being penned up and refused access to the rest of the world, where things were actually happening. Ben was okay—he had plenty of news to filter through, exclusive interviews with the governor to unveil, and footage to comb—and Mat had done a series of elaborate makeup tutorials based on the victims of the rose garden attack. Even Audrey had gotten into the act, running profiles on each of the people who’d died there, stressing the fact that they were victims, they had been taken, and most of all, that they had names: names we shouldn’t allow ourselves to forget, not after everything that had happened.
