34. Valaria
Valaria
Iforce myself to look at the screen. The technician presses a final sequence on the console. Cold electrodes snake along my temples.
A high-pitched whine begins, vibrating through my skull. I feel the first pang of disorientation, like the gravity beneath me has reversed. My mind reels as images begin to flicker—Pietro’s crooked grin, the heat of his hands, the way he said my name like it’s a secret.
The machine strips away traces of him, reducing my memories to ash. I cling to the fragments of him—but my fingers close on nothing.
Then—blackness.
The darkness settles. There is no Pietro. No love. Only the mission. The containment. The certainty.
Still there is a wisp of a memory I cannot place. A man’s eyes gazing into mine.
I search my brain for anything to bring the man back to me.
I won’t drown out the memory of his voice in the dark, the press of his mouth against mine, the promise he made. I won’t.
I remember his name: Pietro.
They start the pressure cycle at midnight.
First: lights. Bright, strobing. The sound of my own voice on repeat.
Next: her voice. My mother’s voice.
Whispers through the walls. Promises.
Then: silence.
Hours of nothing but darkness.
I think they expect me to fold.
To panic. To beg.
But they don’t understand what black ops training taught me.
How to wait in the dark.
How to breathe through pain.
How to choose who I am.
By dawn, the woman with the red streak in her braid brings me water.
“You’re fighting this. If you don’t comply, we’ll activate a new operative. He’ll think a mosquito bit him when the chip is implanted,” she says. “He’ll be faster. Meaner. Easy to control.”
She hands me a file.
Inside: an operative’s dossier. Oracle Two.
She taps the name.
I go cold. The man whose eyes have been gazing into mine. A memory sears through my brain like fire.
Pietro.
No.
“What is it you want with me?”
Her smile returns.
“There she is.”
But I’m done playing.
Because this isn’t about survival anymore.
This is war. And I will win.
She spreads a cashmere blanket over me, offers me chamomile tea. Talks legacy. Tries to seduce me with power.
“Come back to the fold. We'll wipe your record. Give you control.”
I laugh. Slowly. Dangerously.
“I don’t want control. I want closure.”
“Then you shall have it.”
The door slides shut behind her.
The room darkens then strobes white light.
A continuous loop of pressure cycles.
I do not know if it is day or night.
Time slips away from me.
I fight the cold. The dark.
Behind my eyelids I gaze into Pietro’s eyes.
Keeping me safe.