Page 22

He's changed the rules.

And I have to survive them.

The corridor outside the showers echoes every noise. Louder than it should, and when he opens the next door I half expect a firing squad or another white-walled box. Instead, it’s a holding suite. Not a cell, not really—a room with a real bed, bolted to the floor but made up with tight corners, a table, a chair, and a flat plastic mirror bolted to the wall. No windows, but the light is a little softer. The only color is the navy blue of the blanket on the bed, and that’s so dark it might as well be black.

He gestures for me to go in first. I do, and stand in the middle. I wait for him to close the door, but he doesn’t. He follows, crosses to the table, and sets the clear bottle there. He moves slow, but there’s an energy in him now, like the aftermath of a fight—restless, caged, vibrating under the calm.

He sits on the edge of the table, arms folded, watching me like I’m a puzzle he can’t quite solve.

I shake my head, water flying off the ends of my hair. “You really get off on this, don’t you?”

He smiles—not a real one, but it bares his teeth. “Not in the way you think. The medical evaluation is protocol. The rest is… adaptive.”

“Adaptive,” I echo, letting the word roll around in my mouth. “You mean you’re winging it.”

He cocks his head. “I respond to the subject’s behavior. That is my function.”

“You want another show? You could just say so. Would save us both time. I could do a strip tease this time? Maybe suck your dick for brownie points.”

He stands, and for a second I think he might hit me. Instead, he walks right up, crowding into my space, eyes boring through the wet hair clinging to my face.

“You mistake the purpose of the test. It’s not compliance I’m measuring. It’s capacity.”

He’s close enough that I can feel the heat coming off his skin, even with the robe and all the space in the world. He’s close enough that, if I wanted to, I could lunge and take a chunk out of his cheek.

“You see what you need to see, then?” I ask. My voice is steady, but my hands curl into fists inside the robe’s sleeves.

He doesn’t blink. “I do.”

I hold his gaze for a count of five, then step back and sit on the bed, the mattress squeaking under the sudden weight. The tension in my shoulders leaks out in a slow, controlled exhale.

“So, what happens now?” I ask.

He watches me, not moving. “You rest. In four hours, the physical phase begins.”

I laugh, short and sharp. “You’re not worried I’ll break something in here?”

He glances at the walls, at the lack of anything sharp or heavy. “No.”

He moves to the door, pauses with his hand on the frame.

“I’ll be back for you,” he says, and the words are almost soft. Not a promise, not a threat. Just a fact.

He leaves. The door locks behind him with a soft click.

I spend the first minute checking every sound and every surface. The table is resin, easy to wipe down. The mirror is plastic, distorted at the edges, but it lets me see most of the room without moving from the bed. I sit, then lie back, arms crossed over my chest, staring at the ceiling.

It would be easy to fall asleep. My body aches for it, bone deep, and the shower wrung me out more than any cell extraction I’ve ever had. But I don’t let myself. I count backward from a thousand, timing my breathing to the slow rise and fall of the blanket at my chest. The cold starts to fade, replaced by a dull burn in my thighs and a low ache in my wrists.

After twenty minutes, I get up and pace the room. There’s a drain in one corner, a red panic button beside the door (doubt it does anything), and a slot in the wall for food trays. It’s so quiet I can hear my own blood, rushing in my ears.

I stand in front of the mirror, study my reflection. I look like a washed-up convict on the wrong end of a bender: eyes sunken, skin tight across the cheekbones, a bruise starting to bloom under the left eye where one of the handlers clipped me on the way down the corridor. My lips are cracked, but I lick them, and they taste like salt and metal. I flex my hands, watch the veins stand out, then relax.

How much time has passed?

It feels like days, but could be hours… or weeks.

The reflection is ugly, but it’s mine.