That lands badly.
Nightshade appears in the doorway without sound, gaze going straight to the scanner. He doesn’t touch it.
“We don’t scan her asleep,” he says.
Snow exhales hard. “That’s not what I said.”
“It is what you’re pushing,” Nightshade replies. His voice is low, final. “She wakes. She eats. She decides.”
Bones nods once. “Consent isn’t optional.”
Snow looks between them, anger tight and sharp. “And if we’re already compromised?”
“Then scanning her without warning doesn’t save us,” Bones says. “It just tells them we noticed.”
Silence stretches.
I glance at the scanner again. It looks unimpressive. That’s the problem.
“So we wait,” Snow says. Not a question.
“We hold,” Bones corrects. “Tex has our backs. For now.”
“For now,” Snow repeats, bitter.
Bones pockets the burner and sets the scanner back on the desk, untouched. “This room’s operational,” he says. “Kayla’s stays quiet.”
“And if she asks?” Snow says.
Nightshade’s jaw sets. “We tell her enough.”
But not everything.
We spread out after that. Watches assigned without being spoken. Routes altered, not for efficiency but unpredictability. Movement designed to look casual and feel anything but.
As I step back into the corridor, I glance once toward Kayla’s room.
Warm. Quiet. Ordinary.
They didn’t just let her go.
They let us choose when to act.
Which means the real test isn’t whether she’s being watched.
It’s whether we can wait long enough to see what they expect us to do next.
MONSTERS LIKE US
Mind Games - Sickick
Kookaburra
By late morning the room smells like laundry soap and toast.
Not the stale hotel kind – something cleaner, sharper, like effort. Fresh clothes sit folded on the chair by the window, neutral colours, soft fabrics. Chosen. Considered. I don’t ask where they came from. I already know better than to pull at threads when I’m being given space to breathe.
Nightshade is at the desk, sleeves rolled again, dismantling something small and unimportant with methodical focus. A loose hinge. A rattle. The kind of task that doesn’t matter unless you’re trying to convince a room it’s allowed to be calm.
