Page 79 of White Noise

I let the room fall into a dead, heavy silence after that. I watch her shiver, the quiet acting as a vacuum that pulls her closer to the screen. The silence doesn't just haunt her—it hunts her. And I'm the one holding the leash.

She starts waiting for the next pulse without meaning to, posture tightening little by little while her attention shifts toward the speaker behind her.

By the time I send a lower frequency through it, she is already braced.

The reaction still comes hard enough to make her suck in a breath.

Interesting.

Expectation is becoming part of it.

That changes the experiment.

I lean closer to the glass. “You know what I like most about this?”

“Can’t imagine I care.”

“You’re starting to react before I do anything.”

The sarcasm disappears from her face for half a second.

There.

Fear looks better on her when it comes with understanding.

Another quiet hum moves through the room and her breathing changes again, but this time I barely have to push. The signal only brushes the edge of the speaker before the muscles along her stomach tighten and her pulse jumps.

The strength hardly matters now.

What matters is consistency. A pattern I can repeat and a threshold I can lower.

Something inside her is learning what comes next.

Saga catches the way I’m studying her and points at the screen. “Stop looking so fucking pleased with yourself.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re manipulating a reflex, not curing cancer for fuck sakes.”

“That’s exactly why I’m pleased.”

She glares at me and I can’t help but smile wider.

“A reflex doesn’t argue.”

Her expression darkens.

“You’re literally impossible.”

I send another faint pulse through the room.

This time the reaction is smaller, but faster. Her knees shift inward before she can stop them, and the slight hitch in her breathing tells me more than anything she could say.

The screen is becoming unnecessary.

So is touch.

That thought settles into me slowly.