“We can walk,” I grit, trying to shake his sweaty palm off me.
“Then walk,” he says, his hot breath fanning across the back of my neck and sending repulsed shivers down my spine. Sharing one last look with Alice, I feel the mantle of protector shift to me. Niamh might have been here longer than me, but somehow she’s clung to some of her innocence, and I’ll be damned if anything happens to her on my watch.
We’re herded up a flight of stairs, the cell door slamming shut behind us with a finality that makes my stomach drop. Niamh keeps looking back, like she expects someone—Alice, maybe—to come charging after us.
But no one does.
The guards flank us on all sides as we’re pushed up a wide staircase and into a corridor lined with heavy metal doors. Everything here feels too clean, too polished, like the building above is pretending it isn’t sitting on top of a dungeon. I try to look for clues along the way, but with them on all sides of us, it’s hard to see little more than their guns and scowls.
A final shove sends us into a room that smells of jasmine tea and citrus polish—too clean, too deliberate. The door slams shut behind us, the sound swallowed by the high ceiling.
One look around the space makes it obvious this used to some kind of canteen.
The space is long and bare, walls tiled halfway up in institutional white, the rest painted a tired, peeling cream. High barred windows line one side of the room, all of them cracked open just enough to let the cold air creep in, the wind stirring the curtains. The glass rattles faintly in their frames, a nervous, restless sound.
At the centre sits a long metal table, bolted straight into the concrete floor—industrial, immovable, designed for order and control rather than comfort. I imagine there used to be longbenches on either side, but they’ve been stripped away and replaced with wooden chairs.
The table is set for four. One chair at each narrow end, two along the side with their backs to the door, no way to see who’s coming without twisting around, without exposing yourself. Starched linen, porcelain cups, and silver spoons laid with obsessive precision.
A tea service pretending it isn’t a trap.
The effort is almost worse than the cruelty. This staged normality, this grotesque imitation of domestic calm in a place built to break people, makes my scalp prickle. My fingers itch with the urge to sweep it all onto the floor, to tear through the illusion and expose the rot beneath.
Because nothing about this room is meant to comfort.
It’s meant to remind us who has control.
Antonio sits at the head, elbows resting neatly on the table, fingers steepled. His dark suit is spotless, hair neatly styled. But none of it can disguise the slimy look in his icy eyes or the way he looks at us a little too long.
“How lovely that you could join me,” he drawls. “Sit.”
Niamh starts shaking her head. “Please—we didn’t—”
“Sit,” he repeats, voice softening in that awful, controlled way that’s so much worse than shouting. The same tone Jen had perfected—quiet, reasonable, and absolute, right before the next words out of her mouth would cut me to shreds.
My legs move on their own accord, finding the nearest chair. Niamh collapses beside me, looking behind her at the doors before turning wide, blue eyes to me. Softly shaking my head, I reach for her hand and squeeze. It’s all I can offer her right now.
Antonio pours the tea with meticulous care, as though we’re guests, not prisoners dragged from a basement. It’s so arrogantly condescending it makes me want to lunge across this table and stab him between the eyes with the dessert fork to my left.
“I thought,” he says, sliding a cup toward Niamh, “we should all get to know each other a little better.”
My pulse spikes, and I lick my lips, trying to summon the courage to say something—anything—before my voice fails me. Then softer footsteps, careful and deliberate, enter the room. Too light to belong to any of Antonio’s guards.
Niamh goes rigid beside me, breath catching. I turn, heart slamming so hard it hurts, lungs already burning.
And just like that, the last fragile thread of hope snaps.
The woman standing behind me does not belong here.
Blonde hair freshly blown out. A fitted skirt suit that screams money and control, not cages and concrete. Her presence is polished, composed—untouchedby the rot of this place.
Una Quinn.
For a second, my brain refuses to accept it. Misfires. Reaches for any other explanation. A trick. A hallucination. Shock finally tipping me into madness.
No.
No fucking way.
