And in it, I can see the shape of the trap I’ve built around myself. Every wall, every habit, every circuit reroute and carefully calculated silence. It’s all just structure, isn’t it? A scaffolding made of don’ts: Don’t engage. Don’t respond. Don’t react. Don’t trust. Don’t make waves.
Don’t remind anyone you’re still here.
I push up from the desk. My legs ache like I’ve been running even though I haven’t gone anywhere.
The room doesn’t look back. It never does.
Four walls. One bed. One console. One drawer that sticks every time I open it, like it’s protesting the routine too. There’s food in the cabinet. Not real food. Processed nutrient packs. Chewable regret. Nothing in this apartment has texture. Or scent. Or risk.
It’s all socontrolled.
And I know exactly why.
Because if things are small enough, still enough, stripped enough... maybe I won’t detonate.
Maybe if I shrink my world down to the size of a single task—shift in, shift out, ignore the past, ignore the noise—I can survive myself.
Then the knock comes.
And it’s not polite. It’sCynna.
Before I can pretend I didn’t hear it, she’s already overridden the buzzer somehow—probably hacked the damn thing again—and is pounding on the metal like she’s auditioning for the role of Wrecking Ball in a musical I never signed up for.
I consider hiding. Briefly. Like an idiot.
“Rox!” she calls, voice muffled through the door but still infuriatingly chipper. “Iknowyou’re home. Don’t make me break in. I brought lipstick, attitude, and a good reason to misbehave.”
I mutter something anatomically impossible under my breath.
My fingers hover over the lock like they might choose differently this time.
They don’t.
The door hisses open.
Cynna stands there, backlit by the hallway lights, wrapped in something glittery and tactical—a hybrid of nightclub and utility belt that somehow makes sense on her. Her hair’s pinned back in a style that saysI planned this ambush.Her smile is all teeth and conspiracy.
“You look like a trash ghost,” she says, walking past me like she lives here. “Charming, in a post-apocalyptic hacker queen way.”
“I wasn’t expecting company.”
“Youneverexpect company. That’s the problem.”
“I was working.”
She glances at my console. “You were staring at nothing and brooding. That’s not work. That’s emotional composting.”
I close the door with more force than necessary. “Why are you here?”
“Because you haven’t answered any of my messages. Which means you’re spiraling. Which means you need to put on pants and come outside before you become a myth told by your apartment building’s maintenance crew.”
“No,” I say instantly.
“Yes,” she counters, breezing into my kitchenette and opening cabinets like she’s taking inventory for an intervention.
“I have plans.”
“You’re lying.”
