“No,” I say. “Ask better ones.”
Her mouth tightens, but she doesn’t look away. “Fine,” she says. “How many women don’t leave?”
There it is. Not a plea. Not a bargain. A data point. I straighten slightly, just enough to reset the angle between us. Not retreating. Reframing.
“People don’t leave in the way they imagine they will,” I say.
She absorbs that without visible reaction. No flinch. No sharp inhale. Just a subtle tightening around her eyes, like she’s focusing harder.
“And the ones who do?” she asks.
I don’t answer. I watch her process the silence instead.
She shifts her weight carefully, mindful of her knee, then looks up at me again. Still not begging. Still not posturing.
“You talk about Hunts like they’re stories,” she says. “Not warnings.”
“They are stories,” I reply. “Warnings are for people who think they have a choice.”
“And I don’t.”
“That depends,” I say, “on what you think choice looks like.”
Her gaze sharpens. “That’s evasive.”
“Yes,” I agree.
She exhales through her nose, slow and controlled. I notice then how she manages herself physically — how she doesn’t fidget, doesn’t waste movement. Even bound, she occupies her body efficiently. Like she expects to need the energy later.
I shouldn’t be tracking that. But I am.
“You said I wasn’t being punished,” she says. “You said I was being placed.”
“Yes.”
“So place me,” she says. “Tell me what that means.”
I close the distance before I can stop myself. Too close this time. Not touching, not yet, but near enough that her knees are almost between my boots. Near enough that I can feel the heat coming off her skin, the tension held tight in her shoulders.
Her breath deepens again. She still doesn’t retreat.
“This isn’t a negotiation,” I say.
“I know,” she says. “That’s why I’m not negotiating.”
I crowd her space deliberately now, angling my body so the corridor behind me is no longer visible from where she sits. Not blocking her escape, she doesn’t have one, but narrowing her world to this moment, this distance.
Tome.
Her pupils flare. She swallows once. Still, she doesn’t lean back. “What happens to Runts,” she says carefully, “after you’re done sorting them?”
The question lands heavier than the others. “They’re assigned,” I say. “They’re used.”
“For what?” she presses.
“For what they’re suited for.”
She watches my face closely now, eyes flicking from my mouth to my eyes and back again, like she’s searching for something I’m not giving her.
