“So what does the baby want for breakfast?”She smiled, radiating eagerness “The baby is seriously craving some of those spicy fried breakfast no...dles. The baby can’t get them stateside and wants them really badly.”“You know, I gave you that recipe.”“It just isn’t the same without your greasy thumb in it Pogo, I tried.”She made that mock sad face I’d been seeing since she was ten. Some things just don’t change.I shook my head. “Probably need to just take some beach sand back with you to sprinkle. I’ll go now.” He got up, but she got up with him, and floated in front of him, blocking him off from the door.“Jack, I ... I don’t know what I’m going to do. M-Maybe, if things change in the future, I’ll go. Maybe if ... if things go differently, who knows. I know I can’t stay here forever. I’m ... I’m lucid now, but I know I’m not always like that. Something has to change.”He couldn’t look her in her empty eye sockets, not from this close, not with what she was saying. Not with what he knew. " I know. I already know far too much information that I can't tellothers. I think I'm the youngest adult at The Manor. Years E and abovewere frantic when they were told about Wendy and Jessica going home. Theyremembered all too well what happened at Marshalville. I think all thepsychiatrists were working overtime with that." And yet you keep on asking more questions." Without asking questions and learning new things, I won't know how tohelp others, even if they don't know I'm helping. For. " You don't understand," she said, "it's my older brothers. They raped and beat me the first time when I was seven and told me I was their sex slave. I told my mom, and she beat me for lying. I hid under the house and cried myself to sleep. Dad came home drunk and couldn't find me. When he called me I went to him, and he beat me for hiding. I was so bruised they kept me from school for two weeks to keep from being reported. My life's been like that for the past eight years."“That’s eight years.