Page 251 of Operation: Defiance

My hands are clenched hard enough my knuckles turn white. The video keeps playing for another thirty seconds before it glitches and turns to static.

Eight other videos from the past thirty-six hours carry Ellen’s Detainee ID in the metadata. I move them into a new folder with her name on it. She’ll never be reduced to a number again.

Neither will I.

A spark of anger flares in my chest. It banishes the last of the chill from my fingers. If I hold onto it long enough, it’ll carry me through to the end.

The file names start to blur as I search for Tessa’s intake video. Or…was I looking for Ellen’s? I can’t remember anymore. I know I’m pushing myself too hard. That I should sleep. But even thinking about rest feels like a betrayal.

They won’t let Asher sleep.

The thought sends me back to the list, but now the screen has dissolved into a glowing black and white blob. My eyes ache. My hands aren’t mine anymore, disconnected from my body in a way that should scare me.

Two hours. I can give myself two hours. That’s long enough to dream. Long enough to claw back a bit of clarity.

The hallway light is too bright. Without Asher, everything is too bright. Too loud. Too much.

In the bathroom, I stare at my reflection as I brush my teeth. The woman in the mirror had just started to look more like me the past few days. Now…she’s practically a stranger again.

I let my eyes unfocus, my hand on autopilot. Top left. Center. Right. Spit. Move to the bottom teeth. Repeat. Put the toothbrush back in the cup with Asher’s. My eyes start to burn.

A flash of yellow catches my eye before I turn off the bathroom light. A square of paper on the floor. I pick it up and turn it over.

Don’t forget to sleep - Asher.

My throat closes so fast it hurts. In the next second, I’m on the floor, my entire body shaking.

A sound I don’t recognize fills the room. Part sob, part scream, part pure, raw grief. It tears at me, shatters any semblance of strength I thought I had left.

I clutch the note to my chest like it can somehow reach him. Like if I hold it hard enough, he’ll feel it.

“I choose you,” I whisper, and my voice fails halfway through the sentence. “I choose you.”

The tile leaches the heat from my legs, threatening to send me somewhere too dark to come back from. I can’t allow that to happen. Using the counter for support, I pull myself up and stagger into the bedroom.

His pillow sits at a slight angle. Right where he left it. I crawl under the covers and hold it to my chest, burying my face in the soft cotton. The scent of him has already started to fade and that small, quiet loss—it undoes me.

My shoulders shake. Tears soak into the pillow case. I can’t save him yet. But I can do this one thing. I can let myself sleep long enough to save him in the morning.

The last thing I feel is the note crumpled in my fist.

The last thing I see is his face.

The last thing I hear is his voice. “I choose you, too.”

Chapter Seventy-Five

Asher

My head keeps dropping. Not all the way. The chain pulls tight, my torso jerks, and I force myself awake. Each time, my reaction slows.

My shoulders stopped burning not long after they left me here, the cuffs positioned so far from the table’s edge they hold my arms almost straight out in front of me. Most of my upper body is hollow now. Detached. The shaking comes and goes without warning, a faint vibration under my skin I can’t control.

Everything after they left has blurred into light and silence and the steady throb of the gash in my side.

The bleeding has slowed again. Maybe stopped. I can’t tell in this position. I could feel the warmth of it soaking into the bandage for a while. Now, it’s cool and sticky. Heavy. Each breath tugs at the jagged edges of the wound, despite the compression wrap.

Thinking takes more effort than it should. Counting is easier. The scratches on the table are still mostly clear. Number fourteen is deeper than the rest. Number thirty-seven looks like a lightning bolt.