Honey’s eyes widen. Snow exhales, something like relief flickering through his control. Bones closes his eyes briefly, then opens them again – resolved. Hatchet plants his feet harder.
Ghost leans in, voice soft and lethal. “You need us functional. Motivated. Pointed in the right direction.”
Silence.
Then Seytan speaks again – smooth, composed, carefully rebuilt. “You are proposing conditional compliance.”
“No,” I correct. “We’re proposing inevitability.”
I meet the lens again, unwavering.
“We will keep trying to find her. Together. Or separately. Broken or not. You can decide whether we do it with your resources or against them. And if we return with her once we’ve found her.”
The room settles into a new stillness.
Not waiting.
Calculating.
Finally, Seytan exhales – slow, controlled, but no longer certain. “You are asking for authorisation,” she says.
I shake my head once. “We’re telling you what happens next. Because with or without your authorisation, that is what’s going to happen. You can’t keep us locked up and starving forever.”
No food arrives. No water.
But no punishment does either.
The cameras remain fixed, watching something they no longer fully control.
I lean back, conserving energy, eyes half-lidded but alert. Around me, the others hold their ground – injured, starving, unyielding.
Seytan still has the room. She still has the power to hurt us. But she doesn’t have the outcome anymore. Because she knows the truth now.
If Kayla stays lost, this never ends.
And if she wants her found?—
She needs us.
PICK WHICHEVER MEDICAL EUPHEMISM HELPS YOU SLEEP
Love Abuser (Save Me) - Royal & The Serpent
Kookaburra
The facility is too quiet the morning after the scan, and not the usual institutional quiet where people pretend not to hear things they shouldn’t – this is curated quiet, a hush that clings to the walls like condensation. Even the lights seem dimmer, humming at a lower pitch, as if the building is holding its breath.
When the door unlocks, there are two guards instead of one, both standing too straight, too alert, like someone finally reminded them that I have a body count. The taller one gestures for me to step out, the kind of gesture meant to look polite but soured by fear. I slip past him without comment, letting the air brush against my skin, testing the currents in the corridor.
They’ve changed something. I can smell it.
New cleaning chemicals, fresh paint near the west wing, the faintest ghost of latex from gloves that weren’t in rotation yesterday. The building’s been touched. Rearranged.Prepared.
But for what?
Callaway is waiting at the end of the hall, pale under the fluorescents, her clipboard clutched with both hands as if it’s armour. “Morning, Kayla,” she says, and her voice has that brittle brightness people use when they’re terrified and trying to pass it off as hope. The guards hover a little too close to her shoulders – protective or monitoring, I can’t tell yet.
“We’ll adjust your schedule today,” she continues. “Slightly.”
