I move slower now, controlled, the way you do when you think you’ve learned the rhythm of a place. Like how you can walk around your own house in the dark because you know where everything is. The lack of light is not asscary now. It’s manageable. I hug the wall, count steps, listen for the gaps between movement above and below.
I did that.
I outplayed her.
The pride sneaks in quiet and poisonous. It tastes like relief at first. Like proof.
I can do this. I’m badass.
I picture the end of the Hunt for a heartbeat too long. The Favor I’ll be owed when I win. The way it’ll land heavy and undeniable in my lap, the way they won’t be able to dodge me once it’s owed. Doors opening. Names spoken without flinching. The truth dragged out of whatever office or boardroom it’s been rotting in.
I think about my father standing straight while men talked down to him like he was already a footnote.
No one will speak to me like that. Ever.
A corridor stretches into the dark, the air colder. I slow another notch, listening. Nothing obvious. No boots. No signals. Just the low hum of the Rot breathing around me.
Confidence settles in my bones.
That’s when my foot clips something solid. Plastic cracks under my boot, loud as a gunshot in the quiet.
Fuck.
The sound rings and rings, bouncing off tile and metal and glass. I stop again, heart slamming, every nerve screaming to move and not daring to.
Too late.
Hands hit me from both behind and the side at once.
I go down hard, the impact knocking the breath out of me in a sharp, humiliating burst. My injured knee slamstile, and white pain shoots up my leg while I muffle a groan. Something locks across my shoulders. Another force wrenches my arms behind me, iron-strong and unyielding.
I fight.
I claw and kick and twist, teeth snapping blind. I connect with skin and bite down hard.
Salt floods my mouth.
Blood.
Someone exhales sharply, more surprised than hurt, and an arm slides under my chin, levering my head back until my neck strains and my teeth are forced apart.
I thrash again, furious now, rage burning through the shock. Hands multiply, so many of them. Legs brace. Bodies crowd in, efficient and practiced, every movement countered before it finishes.
I can’t tell how many there are.
Three? Four?
It doesn’t matter.
They don’t rush.
They don’t shout.
Theycontain.
The dark presses in, absolute and smothering. I can’t see my own hands. I can’t tell which way I’m facing. All I have is pressure and restraint and the sound of my breath tearing in and out of me.
This wasn’t supposed to happen here.
