Chapter 9
Katana
My hands are still shaking when I reach the cafeteria.
I grip the tray harder than necessary, like white-knuckling it will keep me from trembling.
The line is short this morning, a blur of eggs, toast, and oatmeal dumped onto trays.
My stomach growls, but my thoughts keep circling back to his words.
“You read the note.”
He said it so casually, as if he’d handed me a flower instead of a threat. If he wasn’t the one who wrote it, how else would he know? The idea that someone else slipped inside my room seems impossible now. Micah Morrow had to be the one.
But I didn’t ask. I froze, my voice failing me. Shocked that he was speaking to me.
I heard the whispers that Micah doesn’t speak. Therapists, psychiatrists, and even a few rare, brave patients have tried, but none have been successful. Yet, I did nothing, and he spoke to me. Twice.
I find a corner table and take a seat, my eyes scanning the room. Waiting. Expecting him to walk in and stare. To claim another piece of me without lifting a finger.
Every time the door opens, my pulse spikes.
But he never shows up.
His absence isn’t relief. It’s worse. It’s waiting for a storm you know is on the horizon.
One I can’t begin to prepare for.
Group therapy is awful.
The circle of chairs smells faintly of bleach and nerves. Patients slump or twitch, eyes darting around the room. The therapist, a man with a too-wide smile and glasses that keep slipping down his nose, calls on each person.
When it’s mine, my throat closes. “I’m Katana Morgan,” I manage, my voice small.
“And why are you here, Katana?” His tone is gentle, coaxing.
My fingers knot in my lap. I can feel eyes on me from every side, expectant, waiting for me to spill the filth of my life for them to pick apart. My breath catches. If I tell them—if I say out loud what I did—they’ll look at me the way they look at him.
They’ll think I’m a monster. Just like Micah Morrow.
“I don’t want to share,” I whisper.
The therapist pauses. His glasses slip again, and he pushes them back up with one finger. “That’s okay, Katana. You can share when you’re ready.”
But the way some of the others glance at me, like I’m already hiding something awful, makes me want to crawl out of my skin.
By the time therapy ends, my nerves are frayed. We’re released, an hour of free time ahead. The guards stand near the doors like watchmen. Some patients shuffle to the common room while others go to the courtyard.
I choose outside.
The air bites colder than I expect, sharp and damp, but it feels clean in my lungs compared to the staleness inside. The courtyard is surrounded by the same high iron fence I can see from my window, topped with barbed wire, but at least there’s sky above me. A place to breathe.
I sit on a weathered bench, pulling my sweatshirt tighter around me. For the first time all day, my shoulders loosen. I let my eyes close, tilting my face to the gray sky.
Footsteps crunch over gravel. My eyes snap open.
Micah Morrow is there, his shadow cutting across me, tall and inevitable.
He wears the same gray sweatpants and sweatshirt I’m wearing, institutional sameness meant to erase identity, but on him it doesn’t work.
The fabric clings to his size, his presence, like it knows better than to try to contain him.
The soft slip-on shoes whisper against the gravel as he stops in front of me.
The guard trails several paces behind, watching but not close enough to matter. Not close enough to stop anything if Micah decided to move.
He doesn’t speak at first. Just stares—sharp, unblinking, cutting through me like the edge of a blade. My pulse stutters. My breath catches. I can’t speak or move. The whole world narrows to the space between his eyes and mine.
Then his mouth curls, like he’s savoring something. “Katana Morgan.”
My stomach drops. Hearing my name in his voice feels wrong, invasive, like he reached inside and stole something private.
But the part that chills me most—the part I can’t explain—is that I only said my last name in group therapy.
And Micah wasn’t there.
So how the hell does he know my last name?
My voice scrapes out before I can stop it. “How… how do you know my name? Was it you? Did you leave that note?”
He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t move. A sinister grin stretches across his mouth, dark eyes gleaming like they see straight through me.
“I know more about you than you can imagine, Katana.”
My chest tightens. Instinctively, I glance toward the guard trailing him—too far back, hands tucked in his pockets, eyes drifting toward the fence line like he’s bored out of his mind. Oblivious. Useless.
The realization crashes over me, cold and heavy. If Micah wants to do something to me, no one can or will stop him.
My pulse jackhammers, urging me to run, but I stay rooted to the bench. Fear hammers at my ribs, but there’s something else beneath it—curiosity. That magnetic pull I felt the first time I saw him. The terrifying certainty that if he reached for me, I might not pull away.
He tilts his head, watching me tremble, like my fear is a song only he can hear. Like he already owns every note of it.
I swallow hard, forcing air into my lungs, and finally push myself up from the bench. My legs are shaky, but I force them to move, breaking the weight of his gaze.
“Leave me alone,” I whisper, the words weak and trembling, my last defense as I turn away from him.
My body screams to run, to put space between us. And yet, even as I walk away, every step feels wrong.
Beneath the cold fear curling in my stomach, a darker truth lingers. Part of me hopes he doesn’t listen.
Part of me hopes he follows.
But I don’t dare look back.