I’m too wired to sleep. I need to figure this out. Jagger bought me time, but I have to figure out how and why I felt the need to take Elliot in the first place.
So, I clean the kitchen, line up the water bottles, check the security feeds. I walk the perimeter of the apartment, checking for breach points, even though there are none.
At 0200, I stand outside his door. I listen to his breathing, the way it rasps in and out. He’s not asleep. He’s waiting for something. Maybe for me to come in, maybe for the lock to fail, maybe for the whole thing to have been a trick.
It isn’t.
There are sixty-eight hours left.
I move a chair to the hall outside Elliot’s room. The legs scrape the tile, a sound I’d never allow on a job, but this isn’t a job. I sit, hands on knees, feet flat, spine straight. The pose is something between meditation and threat display.
I listen.
He doesn’t sleep at first. I hear the creak of bedsprings as he shifts, the soft slide of fabric on skin. He sits up, then down, then up again. He crosses to the door, stands there, breathing hard, then goes back to the bed. He does this for an hour.
Breathing lightly, I track every movement, every micro-variation in footfall. I build a map in my head, a set of probabilities for every outcome. He could kill himself, try to escape, try to come out and confront me. But he does none of these. He just… waits.
At 0300, the pattern changes. The breaths are slower, but thicker, like he’s holding them down. I hear the start of a sob, cut off so fast I think I imagined it.
My hand tightens on my thigh.
He’s been through this before. Not just here, but in the holding pens, in the Auction, probably since the day he was stamped as property. There are protocols for handling trauma, but nothing in the manual tells you what to do when you’re the cause and the cure.
He whimpers. Once, then twice. It’s the kind of noise you make when you think no one can hear you.
I stay where I am.
At 0317, I hear a different sound. Glass against wood. He’s pouring water. He drinks it too fast, then gags, coughs, spits. The glass tips, rolls across the floor, stops at the door. He doesn’t get up to retrieve it.
The city noise outside ramps up as the hours pass. At 0500, the garbage trucks start. At 0511, the neighbor in 3B slams her front door. At 0517, the heat kicks on and the pipes knock three times.
Elliot doesn’t sleep. Neither do I.
I watch the line of light under his door. At 0600 it turns blue, then gold.
My head hurts. I haven’t eaten, but that’s not the problem. The problem is the sensation in my chest, like a pressure cuff inflating slow and steady. I know every kind of pain, but this isn’t pain. It isn’t anticipation, either. There’s no threat here.
The clock just keeps ticking.
At 0615, his breathing slows to a shallow, even pattern. He slides off the bed, curls up on the floor. The sounds are small, resigned. He’s waiting to be hurt. He’s waiting for me.
But I don’t move.
I sit there, counting the seconds, cataloging the micro-expressions of my own body. My fingers twitch, then go still. My jaw clenches, then releases. My heart rate never spikes above baseline.
At 0700, I get up, grab the chair and walk to the end of the hall. I make coffee. The process is slow, ritualized. I count the scoops, the seconds to boil, the number of rotations as I stir. I pour two cups, even though I know he probably won’t drink it.
I set the second cup on the floor outside his door.
At 0709, I hear the lock click. The door opens a crack, then closes again. I hear him crouch, pick up the cup, carry it back to the bed.
He sips. He winces. He drinks.
He’s learning the new routine.
At 0730, I sit at the table, eyes fixed on the spot where the door meets the wall. He doesn’t come out. I don’t expect him to. Butat 0803, he opens the door and stands there, holding the empty cup.
He looks at me, then looks away.
