I lose count somewhere after two hundred. Sleep drags me down into darkness that is softer than the void. But even in the darkness, I am listening. Even in the darkness, I am waiting.
For the door. For the light. For the sound of his breathing in the room.
For the only person who remembers that I exist.
The warm glow filters through my closed eyelids, painting my dreams in honeyed colors. And somewhere in those dreams, I hear footsteps approaching. I hear the lock disengage. I feel the weight of his presence settling into the room like a physical force.
I do not know if the footsteps are real or imagined.
I do not know if I am sleeping or waking.
I only know that when morning comes—if morning ever comes to this windowless place—I will open my eyes and search for him. And if he is there, I will be alive. And if he is not, I will simply wait until he returns.
Because waiting for him is all I know how to do now.
It is all I am.
Chapter Fifteen
NIKOLAI
I wake to corners.
The ceiling above me has edges. The walls meet at angles I can see. After days in the Processing Room where everything curved into everything else, the sharp lines feel like threats.
I lie still on the cot, my heart hammering, my eyes tracking the perimeter of this new space. It’s larger than the room with the chair. Maybe four meters by five. The corners cast shadows that could hide anything. The door is on my right instead of directly ahead. The disorientation is physical, a nausea that has nothing to do with hunger.
This room has too much space. After the chair, after the restraints that held me in one precise position, the freedom to move feels dangerous.
My body doesn’t trust it. My body remembers the chair, the collar, the precise geometry of captivity. This room is wrong. This room has possibilities, and possibilities feel like traps.
I stare at the ceiling and count the seams in the concrete until my breathing steadies.
The door opens without warning.
Alexei enters carrying a tray. The sight of him unlocks something in my chest—relief so acute it borders on pain. He’s real. He came back. The night wasn’t a hallucination.
“You’re awake,” he says. Not a question. He’s been watching the feeds.
He crosses to a small table against the far wall and sets the tray down. I crane my neck to see.
Bread. Actual bread, dark and dense. Cheese. Thin slices of meat. A glass of water and a smaller glass of something amber-colored that might be juice.
Real food. Solid food.
“Your digestive system has been on restricted intake,” he says, pulling a chair to the side of my cot. “The portions are calibrated to prevent refeeding syndrome. You will eat slowly.”
I nod. I would agree to anything if it meant getting that bread into my mouth.
He helps me sit up. My muscles have atrophied more than I realized. I end up leaning against the wall, my legs stretched out like useless appendages. He arranges the tray on a small folding table across my lap.
His hands are bare again.
I watch them as he adjusts the tray, as he pours a small amount of water, as he selects a cube of cheese and holds it toward my mouth. Every movement is precise. Every movement is also skin against air.
I open my mouth. He places the cheese on my tongue.
The flavor is overwhelming. Salt and fat and something sharp that makes my eyes water. I close my eyes and let it dissolve, too precious to chew.
