Someone answers. I don't hear what they say. The world has gone cottony and distant, like I'm watching everything through a screen, like this is footage I'm reviewing rather than something happening to my actual body.
He carries me past the chaos, through a door and into a room. An office. He sets me down on a couch that's too soft, too comfortable, and then he's pressing a glass of water into my hands.
"Drink."
I drink. The water tastes like nothing.
"You're in shock. That's normal. You're safe now."
Safe.
The word doesn't mean anything anymore.
He's pressing something against my hip—gauze, maybe, or a towel—and the sting of it makes me gasp, which is the first sound I've made since the maze.
"Superficial," he says. "Won't even need stitches."
His hands are still bloody. He's leaving red smears on my skin, on the white gauze, on everything he touches.
"Eat something." He pushes a bowl of fruit toward me. Strawberries. Grapes. Normal things that belong to a normal world that doesn't exist anymore.
I stare at them.
"Scarletta. I need you to eat. Your blood sugar?—"
I put a grape in my mouth. Chew. Swallow. The motions are mechanical, disconnected from anything like hunger or taste.
He pulls me against his chest, and I should recoil, should fight, shouldrun, but instead I just?—
Drift.
His heartbeat is steady. Calm.
Like he didn't just torture a man to death.
Like his hands aren't still tacky with blood. Like everything is fine.
Maybe everythingisfine.
Maybe this is what fine looks like now.
"I have to go manage this." His voice is soft against my hair. "There are protocols to follow. I'll be back as soon as I can."
He eases me down onto the couch, tucks a blanket around me like I'm something precious, something breakable.
"Stay here. Don't open the door for anyone except me."
The lock clicks behind him.
I stare at the ceiling and see nothing but dead bodies and floating heads…
Arms.
Arms around me and I'm screaming before I'm awake, thrashing against something solid and warm that won't let go.
"Hey. Hey. It's me. You're safe."
His voice. The unmasked man's voice.
