Page 281 of Operation: Defiance

He’s wrong. He’s lying. Telling Raine I’m gone.

She’ll believe him. She’ll watch this and think⁠—

Do something.

I have to show her I’m still here. Something small. Something they can’t take from me. Something only⁠—

The camera angle is wider this time. Wide enough for her to see my hands.

I brush my left index finger with my thumb.

Once.

Twice.

I’m here, Raine. I’m still here. Please understand, I’m still here.

Voss is still talking. I’ve lost the words again. I don’t care.

She’ll see it. She has to see it.

Chapter Eighty-Eight

Raine

I’ve gone over the last packet—the one that includes every reference to Dr. Julian Voss in black and white as well as Brett’s second affidavit—a dozen times in the last twenty minutes. Not changing it. Checking it. Making sure I haven’t missed anything. I’m about to go over it once more when the notification comes in.

New message from: Dr. Julian Voss

The subject line is blank. One attachment.

I think I’m prepared. I’m not.

The moment I see Asher, my hand flattens on the table, and my fingers spasm.

I catalogue the damage before I can stop myself. His face. The stillness that takes effort. The way his eyes don’t quite track to the camera anymore.

“Say hello, Mr. Locke.”

Asher’s lips part. His chest rises and falls, but there’s…no response. No defiance. No sound at all.

The tremor in my fingers gets worse. They slip off the trackpad, almost sending the mug of tea across the table.

A man steps into the frame. He’s older, a little soft around the middle, in a pressed suit, with white threaded through his hair.

Voss.

He turns to the camera, and almost…smiles. “Agent Calder, as you can see, Mr. Locke is alive. However, I want to be transparent with you about his current condition. The accelerated protocol he’s been subjected to has resulted in significant cognitive decline. His capacity for complex thought, for recognition, for sustained connection to reality has been compromised. Mr. Locke is present in his physical body. Whether he remains present in any meaningful sense is, I’m afraid, up to you.”

I watch Asher’s face while Voss talks, searching for something—anything—of the man I⁠—

The man I love.

Voss gestures toward Asher. “What you’re seeing is the result of a process that, once begun, is quite difficult to reverse. I want you to understand that before you make any decisions about what comes next.”

Asher doesn’t react. He looks…defeated.

Two men move into the frame, uncuffing him from the table. They haul him upright, and I can’t breathe. His shirt is torn, stained almost black with his blood. His head hangs forward. I don’t think he can stand on his own. The two men in standard GSD gray drag him toward the door without looking back.