The bond pulses faintly.
Sharp.
Alive.
CHAPTER 23
KIMBERLY
The cell is a concrete rectangle with a ceiling low enough that I can touch it if I stand on the cot, lit by a recessed strip that flickers every few minutes like it’s thinking about dying just to spite me.
The walls sweat.
Not dramatically.
Not in cinematic rivulets.
Just a constant, quiet dampness that leaves my fingertips cold and gritty whenever I pace too close, the moisture carrying a faint mineral tang that coats the back of my throat and never quite goes away. The floor slopes slightly toward a drain in the corner that smells faintly of rust and old coolant, and the thin cot bolted to the wall creaks every time I shift my weight like it’s offended by my continued existence.
Somewhere beyond the concrete, machinery pounds in slow, distant rhythms.
Thud.
Pause.
Thud.
It’s either a pump system or part of the old transit infrastructure cycling through a load balance routine, and therepetition is just irregular enough to keep my nervous system from settling into anything resembling calm.
Good.
Calm is a liability.
I sit on the cot with my back against the wall, knees drawn up, my injured ribs wrapped tight in a strip of scavenged cloth torn from my shirt, and I listen.
Not passively.
Actively.
Aggressively.
I map this place the way I used to map dinner rush flow patterns back at the Grill: by sound, by rhythm, by interruption, by what changes when people think they’re not being watched.
Footsteps pass my door every nine to eleven minutes.
Not regular patrols.
Guard rotation.
Two different gaits.
One heavy, heel-first, sloppy with fatigue.
One lighter, more precise, trained.
The heavy one hums under his breath.
The trained one doesn’t make noise at all unless he wants to.
