“That’s where you’re wrong,” I reply. Honey’s breath catches. Bones nods once, almost imperceptibly.
“You can punish us again,” I say. “And again. And again. You can starve us, break us, erase us one by one.”
I tilt my head slightly. Curious, not threatening. “But we will keep trying to leave because we will not give up on her.”
Seytan’s voice sharpens. “You will not succeed.”
“No,” I agree easily. “Not like that. But there are other ways. And I vow that we will get out of here and we will find her. Because we will not give up on her.”
I gesture vaguely at the room. At the restraints. At the cameras.
“But you already know something you don’t want to say out loud.”
The lights flicker – a fraction too slow.
“You don’t have anyone else who knows her the way we do.”
That one hits.
Snow lifts his head fully now, eyes bright despite the hunger. “You can send trackers,” he says quietly. “Analysts. Clean teams.”
“They won’t read her right,” Bones adds, voice tight but steady. “They’ll miss her tells. Overcorrect. Push too hard.”
Ghost smiles again, all teeth. “She lies like she breathes. You won’t know which version you’re talking to.”
Hatchet doesn’t speak.
He doesn’t need to.
He simply lifts his bound hands slightly, then stills – a reminder of what he does when words fail.
Honey swallows. “She’ll run,” he says softly. “And if she thinks she’s alone…she’ll take risks.”
Seytan doesn’t interrupt this time.
She’s listening now.
I finish it.
“We are the ones she won’t expect,” I say. “The ones she trusts enough to get close. The ones she’ll underestimate just long enough for it to matter.”
I let the silence work.
“You can keep us here,” I continue. “Or you can use us. Those are your options. Everything else is theatre.”
“This is not a negotiation,” Seytan says.
I shrug. “Then stop responding like it is.”
Another pause. Longer now.
The cameras whir, refocusing, recalculating. Models colliding.
“What makes you think,” Seytan asks slowly, “that I won’t simply extract this information and dispose of you?”
I smile.
“Because if you could afford to,” I say, “you wouldn’t still be talking to us.”
