I was humming it again.
I didn't try to stop.
6
The Girl
The bar smelled like whiskey and secrets.
I didn't remember driving to this city. I didn't remember crossing state lines or checking into a motel or deciding that this particular bar, on this particular street, at this particular hour, was where I needed to be. But here I was. Sitting on a cracked vinyl stool with my hands wrapped around a glass of something amber, watching the door, waiting for someone I didn't know I was supposed to meet.
How did I get here?
The question surfaced and sank, surfaced and sank, like a body too tired to stay afloat. I'd stopped trying to answer it. The gaps in my memory were widening, and the more I struggled against them, the faster they swallowed me.
Phone.
I pulled it out. The screen glowed. A message I didn't remember reading, from a number I didn't recognize, with an address that matched the bar's neon sign.
Be there at midnight. She'll find you.
She.
Who was she?
I didn't know. But I was here, and she was coming, and my body was already preparing itself—heart rate steady, breathing shallow, knife within easy reach.
"You're ready."
Gabriel's voice.
Or maybe my own.
Or maybe something I'd read once, in a file I shouldn't have opened.
"Batch 39 was a failure, but you—you're perfect."
The memory came without warning, sharp and clear as broken glass.
Gabriel was standing in front of me, his hand on my face, his thumb tracing my lower lip. The pink room was pink. The collar was warm against my throat. His eyes were the color of winter storms.
"There were others before you. Subjects who didn't take. Minds that couldn't bend the way I needed them to."
"What happened to them?"
My voice, small and soft. The voice he'd trained me to use.
"They were... discontinued."
"Discontinued."
"Removed. Recycled. Forgotten."
His thumb pressed against my lip, and I opened my mouth, and he pushed inside.
"But you're different. You're perfect. You're the only one who matters."
The only one.
