Jace takes his hand away.
He sits back on his heels, watching me breathe. I watch him through slitted eyes, expecting the next blow, the next order.
But there is none.
He waits.
Finally, when my breathing slows, he stands and leaves the room.
I don’t know what happens next.
I just keep breathing, waiting for the next lesson.
The apartment is silent after the scream. There’s no echo, just the tight click of my teeth as I grind them. Back and forth. Back and forth. The rawness in my throat feels like I’ve torn something loose.
I lie on the floor, breathing in short, animal gasps. I stare at the underside of the coffee table, watch the dust swirl in the light, focus on the numbers in the serial tag glued to the wood. Anything to keep from drifting again.
Jace stands in the hall, not moving. He watches me. I can feel the weight of it, but not the intent.
I expect him to return with a punishment, but the next sound is a cabinet door, the click of a lock, the soft slide of a tray.
When he returns, he carries a sealed case, the kind used for first aid but more expensive. He opens it on the couch and pulls out a syringe, a vial, an alcohol pad.
He sits cross-legged on the floor across from me, sets the kit to one side.
He speaks in that same, flat voice. “This will help you sleep.”
He holds up the syringe, draws the liquid slow and precise, flicks out the air bubbles with a practiced thumb.
“I’m going to give you something to calm you,” he says. “It is not harmful.”
He looks at my arm, at the thin skin just below the elbow. He waits for a sign of movement, but my body doesn’t resist. He swabs the skin, injects the needle, pushes the plunger in a steady, slow squeeze.
The chill of the drug spreads up my arm, then down, tracing the veins to my fingertips. My muscles unclench in one slow release.
Jace sets the needle aside and folds my arm over my chest.
He watches me, the way you’d watch a chemical reaction, waiting for it to finish.
As the sedative works, my breath slows. The shaking stops. Even the ache in my jaw and the pit in my stomach starts to dull.
He leans in, close but not touching. “You are not in danger,” he says. “You’re not in that place anymore.”
He waits until my eyes stop darting, until I can look at him.
“You’re safe here.”
The words make no sense. Nothing in my life prepares me for that.
He slips his arms under me. He lifts me with no effort, as if I weigh nothing at all.
I probably don’t.
I’m nothing but a skeleton.
A corpse.
A rotten egg.
