The worddaughterlands shortly after, dropped like a blade, but too quiet for anyone but me to notice.
Valentine’s control flickers. Just for a fraction of a second. Long enough for Seytan to see it. Long enough for me to catalogue it.
So that’s the fracture. Valentine isn’t just a handler. He’s compromised.
Because Kayla is his daughter.
But he’s still operating under orders that outrank Seytan’s control of this facility. That’s the real danger. Not his feelings – the leverage they give someone else.
When Valentine orders transfer protocols, the room reacts like a live wire’s been cut.
Forty-eight hours.
That’s not release. That’s deployment.
Seytan protests. Valentine overrides. Cleanly. Absolutely.
“They hunt,” he says, when she questions what happens next.
That’s the closest thing to truth I’ve heard in weeks.
When they return me to my room, the corridor feels the same – but I know better now. Systems don’t change the atmosphere unless authority has shifted.
They’re keeping us intact on purpose. We are no longer subjects. We are instruments.
Valentine is the hinge between captivity and movement, between Seytan’s control and whatever sits above her.
I don’t trust him.
But I don’t need to.
I just need to understand him.
Forty-eight hours. Enough time to prepare. Enough time to let Nightshade burn just hot enough. Enough time for monsters to remember what direction they were pointed in.
I sit on the edge of the bed and wait for the pattern to break.
It always does.
MR MULCHERSON
Heads Will Roll - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Kookaburra
Mornings pretend to be gentle here. Kettle sigh, radio static, the soft clink of a tray against a door. Last night I lay awake counting guards and cameras and all the ways they think they can keep their hands on me and what’s growing inside of me; this morning has the nerve to pretend none of that is happening. If I didn’t know better, I could let the routine wrap around me like a blanket and call it peace. But Idoknow better. Peace is what they sell you while they measure your pulse. Or in my case, measure up for my casket.
Three, nearly four, weeks is long enough to make any performance look like instinct. I sit up before the alarm, let the camera catch me in profile, soft and harmless. Stretch.Breathe. Smile. The red light above the door blinks like a patient heartbeat. Good morning, little eye.
Breakfast arrives: eggs cooling on toast, orange juice glowing like a halo, and – most importantly – the white cup with two tablets. Prenatal vitamins apparently. Yeah, right. I lift the glass, tilt, hold the chalk under my tongue, smile for the orderly while I swallow the juice. He’s one of the three on rotation since Mr Mulcherson met my wood chipper; his name tag readsAustinbut his eyes screamDirtbag Shithead. He waits for my tongue depressor show, gets the little ahh he requires, and rolls away, already thinking about the vending machine while adjusting his micro-dick in his pants. Surprised he can find it without a headtorch, tweezers and a microscope.
I recalculate in my head. Two day orderlies that actually work. Plus the one that sleeps through half his shift. Add in eight guards, plus the lone night orderly now that Ray is soup. The doc. Me. That’s manageable. The Director doesn’t make the list yet, but only because he’s smart enough to stay on the other end of a phone line. He’s not in this building. I’d know if he were.
Still, I can’t help but feel like I’m missing something. Or someone. It seems strange that I’m the only ‘patient’ in this facility, and I can’t shake the feeling thatsomebodyis still visiting me at night when I sleep.
I take the pills out like pearls, press them into a tissue, and fold the square once, twice, again. The tissue will vanish down the drain, flushed away like it never existed in the first place.
I remind myself: control is a series of unremarkable gestures done perfectly.
