“If that were true, you’d have killed me already.”
Silence.
That’s the fifth fracture.
They escalate after that.
Not with more pain.
With timelines.
They tell me I have forty-eight hours.
Then twenty-four.
Then twelve.
Each time I shrug and say, “Cool.”
Bruises bloom along my ribs and jaw anyway.
Purple.
Yellow.
Green.
My reflection in the polished metal of the toilet bowl looks like I got into a losing fight with a truck.
I keep my mouth shut.
I keep feeding selective truths to intermediaries who wander into my cell under the guise of interrogation and leave with just enough information to start fires in other people’s power structures.
The existence of the node becomes common knowledge inside the compound within three days.
They stop pretending otherwise.
Arguments get louder.
People start disappearing.
Someone fires a gun in the lower corridor one night.
The machinery thudding under the floor stutters and changes rhythm like it flinched.
Good.
I sit on my cot and feel the bond hum inside my chest like a second heartbeat.
Steady.
Hot.
Unmistakably closer than it was yesterday.
I close my eyes and breathe through a spike of pain from my ribs.
“He’s coming,” I whisper into the dark.
