It’s a game.
A slow, deliberate dismantling.
And some part of me—some stubborn part that used to follow orders like religion—has refused to break.
Until the hallucinations start.
It begins with sound.
A faint radio crackle that isn’t there. Footsteps that stop when I stop breathing. The whisper of my name in a voice I loved trusting.
Cal… hold the line.
Lieutenant Pierce.
Ronan.
My throat tightens so hard it feels like it might tear. It’s been years. It has to be. It has to.
They told us he was dead.
They showed us a clip once—grainy, shaky footage of a helicopter burning against a mountain ridge, bodies blurred and indistinct. They didn’t have to say it.
We knew.
Ronan Pierce doesn’t go down easy… but everyone goes down eventually.
And Lena—
The journalist who got too close, who refused to stay behind, who stared danger in the face like it owed her answers. Ronan’s lady, whom he loved more than anything.
She was dead too in their story.
They made sure we swallowed it.
Because griefis a weapon.
If you believe your leader is gone, your mind starts making bargains.
You start thinking maybe you’ll talk. Maybe you’ll give them something—anything—to stop the ache.
I didn’t.
Not out of heroism.
Out of rage.
Because if Ronan were dead, then the world didn’t deserve my cooperation.
So I gave them nothing.
And they punished me for it.
The door in the corridor opens.
I flinch before I can stop myself. My muscles jerk, chains clink, and the motion sends lightning down my arms. The chains are released through the ceiling enough for me to fall to the cement floor. I go through this whenever they decide to feed me.
Footsteps approach.
