Her eyes didn’t blink.
You’re quieter than I was, she said.
My throat ached around the gag.
She tilted her head.
They hate that.
The lights flickered. I looked away. She was still there. Kneeling now.
You think you’re here because you matter, she whispered. You’re here because you remind them they’re not God.
The floor shuddered beneath me. I couldn’t move. My fingers curled into fists. Camille touched my shoulder. Or maybe I imagined it. It didn’t matter. The voice stayed.
Let them watch. Let them count your bones. Let them measure your breath. But don’t let them make you ask for it.
I stared at the ceiling. The light burned my retinas. Tears slipped down my temples. I wasn’t crying. My body just didn’t know what else to give. Camille’s voice faded.
My vision blurred. But my mind sharpened. And I whispered her name inside my head. Not because I needed her. Because I wanted them to remember who they buried. And what rose up in her place. It started low. A vibration. Not in the room. In me.
In the hollowed space between my ribs where breath used to sit. In the curve of my throat where Wolfe had once fastened a collar and taught me how stillness could become worship. In the marrow of bones that hadn’t broken but felt like they should have.
It didn’t come from memory.
It came from refusal.
My lips cracked when I moved them. The corners split. The skin there had turned dry from the gag, from dehydration, from silence weaponized into obedience. But I moved them anyway.
My breath stuttered through the gag. Raspy. Raw.
And I hummed.
Just one note.
Low.
Ugly.
Broken.
It scratched the walls of my throat. Vibrated through my teeth.
And I held it.
The sound didn’t travel far. The gag muted it. Muffled it. Made it small. But it was mine. It belonged to no one else. NotEllis. Not the shark. Not the men behind the mirrored glass who watched me like I was a product waiting to be priced.
It was breath pulled from the part of me that hadn’t given up. The part that refused to be quiet even when quiet was safer. Even when quiet was expected.
I hummed again. Higher this time. A little longer. My lungs burned. My head spun. But the sound held.
The light overhead didn’t flicker. The tray of cold food still sat untouched in the corner. The mirror still stared back with nothing. But the hum filled the space between. Between me and them. Between what they thought they took and what I knew they couldn’t have.
Wolfe would hear it. Not with his ears. But with the leash. The one we never needed to speak about. The one tied to breath. To blood. To every broken piece of me he hadn’t tried to fix, only owned.
He would feel the pull. The vibration. The hum. And when he came, it wouldn't be to rescue me. It would be to end the silence. The hum wasn't a signal. It was war. And I was the anthem.
And Wolfe didn’t need to hear it. He just needed to feel me still breathing—so he could decide who to kill first.
