14
The Memory That Breaks Her
The whiskey was warm and bitter and it didn't taste like anything at all.
I'd been sitting at the bar for an hour—or maybe two, or maybe just minutes—staring at the amber liquid in the glass, watching the light from the streetlamp outside catch the edges and turn them gold. The bar was empty. The chairs were up. The doors were locked. Matt had gone home an hour ago, after making sure I had everything I needed, after reminding me to lock up, after telling me to get some sleep.
I couldn't sleep.
I couldn't eat.
I couldn't stop thinking about Mercy Logistics.
The name was written on the back of my eyelids.
The warehouse was still there, in my memory, the bodies cooling on the floor, the blood drying on my hands.
The phone was in my pocket.
The messages were still there.
Shipment 47-B.
My batch number.
My designation.
My name.
I took another sip of whiskey. The liquid burned my throat, settled in my stomach like something heavy, something that might keep me grounded.
It didn't help.
Nothing helped.
Nothing ever helped.
Sasha.
The name surfaced like a body rising from deep water.
I was standing in a room I didn't recognize. White walls. No windows. A table between us, metal, the kind they used in medical exam rooms.
Across from me sat a woman.
Blonde. Young. Her eyes were hollow in a way I recognized, a way that made my chest ache.
"You're Bunny."
Not a question.
"Who are you?"
"Sasha. Batch 36. Before you. Before Gabriel decided I wasn't worth keeping."
"He kept me."
"For now."
