I turn. The uniform reads right: the Sanctuary gray. His badge sits where it should, laminated, clipped cleanly. He’s lean, late twenties, crisp hair, pale line around the ring finger like he wore one until yesterday. I don’t know his face. I don’t know a lot of faces here; South Annex has its own crew. But something small in my hindbrain stirs, a bird shifting on a branch.
“Yes?” I say. My voice is steady. It surprises me.
“Could you come with me for a quick ID check before you go?” he asks. “Security is re-verifying guest passes today. It will only take a minute.” He gestures toward the north wing with a professional open palm. “We’re doing them in the service office.”
I look automatically toward Cassian. He’s still with the doctor, signing a second form. The man in gray says, “Mr. Ward sent me.”
“He sent you,” I repeat.
“Yes, ma’am,” he says. “We want to clear everything, so you’re not delayed leaving.” His smile is small and practiced.
The child tugs my sleeve. “Can you draw my shoes?” she demands. The demand is a shield as good as any.
“Give me one minute,” I tell her. I look again for Cassian. He’s bent over the clipboard, writing a longer note now, pen moving as if the words matter. The doctor is still talking.
“Okay,” I say to the man. “Quickly.”
He turns and walks toward the north wing at a pace designed to be brisk without signaling alarm. I tuck my phone into my pocket and follow. I tell myself I am making an adult choice, not a scared girl one:handle your own ID check. Don’t need a man to hold your hand while you let a stranger scan a badge.
The corridor we enter isn’t on the path we took earlier. The hum of conversation from the long room fades behind us. The air cools and takes on the refrigerator smell of a building’s back brain—cleaners, dust, a ghost of diesel from the loading bay. Our footsteps bounce off concrete instead of wood. Glass panels give way to service walls with scuffed baseboards. No art here or therapy posters. Just white paint and a bulletin board full of schedules.
“Where exactly is the check?” I ask. Keep my voice casual. Keep my questions present tense.
“Just ahead,” he says. “We don’t like to pull guests through resident lanes when we can help it.”
“Good policy,” I say. It is, except I didn’t see a notice. Sera didn’t say, “Hey Aurora, at some point someone will grab you for a pass refresh.” Reid didn’t smirk his way through a warning. My throat tightens. I can hear my own swallow.
He pushes open a heavy door with a metal paddle. We step into a wide corridor that runs along the back of the building. Overhead, strip lights hum. There’s a red EXIT sign at the far end above a door with panic hardware. The letters look extra bright, as if they’ve been polished for my benefit. Another door on the left stands ajar; I glimpse a laundry cart, folded towels like a magazine ad, a mop bucket.
“Is this really necessary?” I ask.
“It is today,” he says, and nods toward a keypad mounted by a gray door on the right. “We—”
My phone vibrates. I pull it out, thumb already sliding to the message.
Hurry.
I stop walking.
“Who is sending me these?” I ask the air, then him, then myself. The words scrape.
He doesn’t look at my phone. “If you’ll step through, Ms. Hale,” he says.
“Who asked for the ID check?” I push.
“Mr. Ward,” he says again, with the same polite finality. He keys the pad and the gray door clicks. He holds it open. The room beyond is small and square. A desk. A chair. A printer. A secondary door at the back with a small square of wired glass. I can see sunlight through that square. It’s the color of the service yard outside.
A memory bursts up from nothing—the night in Tulsa the message mentioned, a locked room that smelled like old coffee and men, the square of wired glass above a door where no one looked in. My ribs go tight. I start to step back.
He shifts his body and he’s close enough now that I can see the pores around his nose and a pale line across his jaw where a teenaged razor left a first scar. His smile is still on, but it’s a shade dimmer. “It will only take a second,” he says. “Then you can go.”
I should say no. I know that. I hear Cassian’s voice in my head: stay close to me. I see the long corridor in my mind and the courtyard beyond it and the way the sun drew a clean map across the paving stones. It’s not far. I can walk back. I can call his name. I can make a scene in a place that doesn’t do scenes and watch the room turn toward me.
I step into the little office and the door shuts behind me with a sound that makes my stomach drop through the floor.
He walks past me to the back door and palms the panic bar. The square of glass shows me exactly what I don’t want to see—a strip of concrete loading area, a chain-link service gate, and an unmarked van idling with its back doors open like a mouth. The engine’s hum comes through the glass in a thin, steady buzz. Two men stand at the open doors. One wears gray. One wears black. Neither looks like a therapist.
I spin. The door behind me is shut. There’s no knob on this side. Panic coughs in my throat.
