The screen fills with static before resolving into a grainy blur, shadows pretending to be a baby. I feel the tension crawl up my spine, feel something ancient shift in my gut.
It’s too still. No twitch, no defiant little kick, just that heartbeat pounding like a mechanical fist.
For the first time, something in my rib cage clenches. Not fear for me. But maybe a tiny stab of fear of losing whatever the hell this thing is. And I don’t know how to feel about that.
The girl presses harder, and the image sharpens, then shifts – barely, a flicker – and for a heartbeat even I can’t tell if it moved or if the machine blinked.
“It looks good,” she lies, without the courtesy of meeting my eyes.
“It looks like a crime scene photo,” I say back.
Callaway tries. “Everything appears normal.”
Normal.
Offensively normal.
Normal pregnancies glow. Normal pregnancies swell and flutter and give women something to look forward to. Mine feels like a quiet parasite curled in the dark, pretending to behave.
A shape rolls across the monitor. The girl inhales sharply, too sharply to be nothing. “There,” she says, forgetting to hide the tremor. “Do you see that?”
Callaway steps in close. “Freeze it.”
The captured frame hangs in the air like a snapped bone. Neither of them speaks. Neither of them breathes. Their silence is too loaded, too precise, and I feel the back of my neck prickle.
“What?” I ask again, and the softness in my voice is the kind you should fear.
Callaway swallows. “We’ll…compare it to the previous images.”
My head snaps toward her. “What previous images?”
She hesitates – a tiny, damning pause. “There were preliminary checks after surgery. Standard.”
Lie.
Lie.
Lie.
I sit up so fast the wand skids across my skin, leaving a smear of gel that looks indecent. “Don’t lie to me.” My feet hit the floor, cold and steady.
Behind Callaway’s elbow, a folder sits half-tucked into a tray, cream-coloured, unlabelled except for a red stamp: SUBJECT VIABILITY – PRIORITY. I reach for it. She’s faster. That tells me more than the file ever could.
“You aren’t monitoring me,” I say. “You’re monitoringit.”
“Kayla,” she tries, too softly. “It seems healthy. But if you destabilise again?—”
“Again?”
Her voice thins. “The Director may request intervention. For the child’s safety.”
For a split second – just one – the world narrows to black around the edges.
Intervention. Containment. Extraction.
They can rename it however they want. They want what’s inside me. Not me. And that means the only person allowed to decide if this thing lives or dies isme. They’re not having it.
For the first time since leaving the island, something cold and electric knives up under my ribs – not fear for myself. Something uglier. Something I refuse to name.
