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Gravel shifted beneath my boots. My bad leg dragged slightly behind the other. I felt it tonight. Every uneven step. Every pull of scar tissue through my thigh. Every place that healed wrong. I kept going.
The building swallowed me. Darkness closed around my shoulders as I crossed the threshold. No lights came on. No voice welcomed me. Nothing. I pulled out my phone and turned on the flashlight. A thin beam cut through the dark. Steel beams rose overhead. Concrete disappeared ahead. Water dripped somewhere in the distance.
Slow.
Measured.
My footsteps echoed.
One.
Then another.
The Phantom pressed hard against my ribs beneath my arm. I tightened my hold. Kept walking. My light moved across rusted machinery. Old shelving. Chains hanging uselessly from a beam. Nothing moved. Still… my body remembered. My ruined thumb began to ache. Then my thigh. A deep pulse inside damaged flesh.
I kept going.
The beam swept ahead.
Stopped.
A chair.
Just a chair.
Metal legs.
High back.
Leather cracked with age.
Nothing attached to it.
Nothing waiting beside it.
Still—my body stopped.
Leather restraints.
Cold steel.
Hands forcing my wrists down.
Stay still.
I couldn’t breathe. My light trembled.
The chair moved with it.
Left.
Right.
Left.
“No.”
Not here.
