I didn’t look at the tray again. I looked at him. Because I knew that’s what he wanted. Because I wasn’t here to crawl.
His mouth twitched like he wanted to smile.
“You’re holding up well,” he said. “All things considered.”
I didn’t respond. Couldn’t. But my breath stayed even.
His eyes dropped to the floor between us.
“Camille begged by day three.”
My body went still.
He saw it.
“She thought we were bluffing. Thought if she stayed quiet, if she stayed clever, we’d let her go.”
He leaned forward.
“We did.”
My heart stuttered.
He smiled now. Soft. Cruel.
“Thought maybe she’d forget what she saw. That if we gave her a window and a way out, she’d bury it herself.”
He shrugged.
“But it didn’t matter, did it, Cloe?”
My breath caught against the gag.
“No,” he said, standing slowly, smoothing his sleeves. “We won’t be making the same mistake with you.”
He walked to the tray. Picked up the bread. Held it like it offended him. Then tossed it back onto the tray.
The sound was louder than it should’ve been. He didn’t look at me again. He didn’t have to. Because I wasn’t supposed to fight. I was supposed to starve. I was supposed to fade. But I didn’t.
I closed my eyes. And I bit down on the gag. Hard. Pain kept me present. And I wasn’t Camille.
They wouldn’t let me go. But I wouldn’t leave anything behind to clean. It didn’t happen all at once. That was the cruelty of it. The slowness. The erosion.
My body didn’t scream anymore. It whispered. Little things. The twist in my gut. The way my eyes pulsed every time I blinked. The low throb in the back of my skull that made light feel like needles.
My mouth was too dry to swallow. The gag rubbed every time I breathed, and now even breath had turned to friction.
I lay on my side. The tray was still on the floor. The food cold now. Forgotten. A performance that ended when he walked out. A script he didn’t need to finish. He left it there so I could fail in front of it. I didn’t. But I was close.
My thighs shook. My ribs stung with every inhale. I felt the sweat between my shoulder blades go cold, then dry, then return again. I didn’t know how long I’d been like this. But I knew I was slipping.
The light overhead buzzed. My eyes fluttered. And then I wasn’t in the room anymore. Not fully. The white walls softened. Warped. The mirror melted into shadow. The floor no longer pressed cold into my cheek. Something else did. Fabric.
I blinked again. The shadows shifted. A woman sat across from me. She wasn’t real. But she was there.
Camille.
Not in the dress they buried her in. Not in the photo Barron kept on his desk. But in a plain blouse, sleeves rolled. Blood dried on the collar. Her lip split.
