“Routine update.”
I raise a brow. “About me?”
She hesitates. “About your progress.”
She once slipped – barely – and said I’m the only patient she’s been told she ‘cannot lose,’ and I’ve been turning that over ever since.
So, yes. Someone is measuring me through her. Someone high enough that she trembles when they call. Interesting.
What I can’t work out is who. Is it the same side Seytan works for, or someone different?
Obviously, I think I’m fascinating, but why so many outside agencies are taking such an interest in me, in thispregnancy, is beyond me.
That night I lie awake and think about the chain of command. Doctor Callaway doesn’t decide my future; she follows orders. Whoever signs those orders is the one who wants me alive. That’s leverage waiting to be found. They don’t keep monsters for study unless they’re planning to use them.
Two days later,I test her. The slower guard – the one who smells of chemicals – tries to touch my arm while I’m pruning roses. Not an accident. He lingers. I let him. For a second. Then I press the shears against his wrist until the skin dimples.
He jerks back, swearing. Blood beads on his flesh. Doctor Callaway rushes forward, voice tight, telling me to drop the tool. I do. I raise my hands, palms open, expression docile. “He touched me,” I say. “That’s against protocol.”
The guard mutters an apology, backing away. Doctor Callaway sends him off to the infirmary. When she turns back, I expect the lecture – anger, disappointment, a reminder of trust. Instead she exhales slowly.
“I should report this,” she says.
“Will you?”
Another pause. Then, softly, “No. It would complicate things.”
Complicate. That meansdraw attention.That meanssomeone might ask why you can’t control your subject.She’s protecting herself – and by extension, me. Because she’s been told to.
That night she brings me chamomile tea. “For sleep,” she says. “You’ve been restless.”
I take it, smile, set it untouched on the nightstand. “You’re very kind, Doctor.”
“I believe everyone deserves the chance to be better,” she replies automatically.
“And if they can’t be?”
She studies me. “Then we keep them safe until they can.”
“Safe for whom?”
She doesn’t answer.
Days blur.Therapy, gardening, evaluations. I play the model patient, adjusting my behaviour just enough to feed her narrative. I start dropping subtle hints about forgiveness, redemption, the power of choice. She eats it up, quoting textbooks back at me.
In the evenings, she lingers longer before leaving. Sometimes she tells me small personal things – her dislike of the fluorescent lights, her craving for real coffee, the migraines that won’t stop. I respond with empathy I don’t feel. Every confession binds her tighter. She’s rationalising me: if I’m human, she’s not complicit.
I think about the order that keeps her silent.Keep the subject alive.It explains the rest – the cameras, the guards, the sedatives that don’t sedate. Whoever’s behind it doesn’t want redemption; they want preservation. Maybe Seytan. Maybe another face from the dark. Whoever it is, they’ve made a mistake.
I’m alive. I’m learning.
The test escalates one quiet afternoon. Doctor Callaway brings me lunch in her office. We eat together – soup and crackers, ordinary, domestic. When she turns to the sink, I slide her badge into my sleeve and then, before leaving, place it back on the counter exactly where it was. She doesn’t notice. I feel giddy. Power always tastes clean.
In the following days I adjust the medication charts, “accidentally” over-sedate a guard who has a habit of standing too close. He sleeps for fourteen hours. When he wakes, disoriented, she blames herself. I tell her it’s okay, that mistakes happen. Her gratitude is pathetic.
By the third week’s end, she looks at me differently. Less like a subject, more like a partner in some strange moral experiment. I can feel her trying to convince herself that we’rehealing each other.She wants to believe she’s saving me. I’ll let her. Until I won’t.
Tonight the halls are quiet. The lights hum softly, the way they do when the generators switch over. I sit on the bed, legs crossed, rolling the pill bottle between my hands. The cameras blink. The building smells faintly of bleach and soil.
