Chapter Twelve
They introduce a new position.
One wrist, then the other is secured high overhead.
My arms are forced wide enough that my upper body takes all the strain.
My heels barely touch the ground, the balls of my feet brushing the surface providing barely enough structure for balance or any form of stability.
The position is clinical in its cruelty.
It forces the body to negotiate with gravity until the body loses.
Agony detonates along the right side of my body as they adjust the angle, and my shoulder slips out of place with a sickening pop. I can’t choke back my whimper. Fingers dig into the joint. In the hood’s never-ending darkness, I see stars.
I try to stay ahead of the pain. Try to catalog what’s happening to me in real time.
Shoulder instability accelerating.
Circulation compromised.
Grip strength failing.
Inventory keeps me oriented. Even when the data is bad.
They leave me here.
Without the familiar rhythm of sit, lie, wake, everything collapses into a single extended moment punctuated by sensation. There’s no reset anymore. No clean edges. Just my nervous system guessing what comes next and getting it wrong.
Pain layers itself. Sharp at first. Then dull. Then distant. Like it belongs to someone else.
My fingers tingle. Go numb. Burn as sensation returns out of order. I try to press them together to feel my pulse. I can’t. My hands don’t meet. I don’t have the leverage.
I can’t rock.
Can’t curl my toes.
All I can do is press my tongue against the roof of my mouth. They can’t see me do it under the hood, so they can’t correct it.
It helps for a while. Then it doesn’t.
I keep my breathing shallow. The ache in my ribs makes that difficult. I adjust anyway, accepting the burn. Losing what little I can still control would be so much worse.
There’s a gap.
When awareness snaps back into place, my arms are screaming. I don’t know how long I was gone. Have I been standing the whole time? Did they move me? I don’t know. Why don’t I know?
Food comes, the liquid forced in too quickly to manage. I swallow on reflex, on training, on whatever hasn’t failed yet.
Eventually, my wrists are released from above without comment or warning.
My arms drop.
My legs fold immediately.
I slide down the wall and hit the floor, cold biting straight through the thin fabric. There’s no easing into it. No acclimation. Just a bone-deep chill that bypasses pain and goes straight to something worse.
A rough hand wrenches my arm out, twists, and slams the shoulder back into place with such force, tears stream down my cheeks. I barely manage to stifle my scream.
Every change feels random now.
It isn’t.
They’re being deliberately unpredictable.
Each time I’m moved, it’s something new. A different angle. A different strain.
But the floor is always cold. Cold is the baseline. Cold is the constant.
That and fabric stained with old sweat, dirt, and grime so even stillness burns.
Food comes less often. When it does, it’s quicker. Enough liquid to stop the shaking. Not enough to feel human.
If I shift my weight, there’s pain. If I don’t, there’s pain.
“Careful,” someone says once, almost kindly, as my knees buckle.
Cause and effect begin to blur. I know there’s a system underneath it. I know there’s an order they’re following. But the steps between thought and outcome feel longer now—like my mind is wading through deep water to reach a conclusion that used to be instant.
I have a thought and lose it.
I reach for a word and it slips away.
The absence hurts.
Each time they come, the movements are rougher. No pauses. No time to orient.
Pain arrives no matter what choice I make.
They want me to ask them to stop.
I know that.
They want me to say it out loud.
Bone-deep exhaustion settles in. The kind rest won’t fix even if I got it. My thoughts grow heavier. Slower.
I try to plan anyway.
Compliance.
Language…language…what?
The idea collapses halfway through. I can’t hold all the pieces at once anymore. Every path I map ends in the same blank space.
There is no way out of this.
They move me without warning.
Hands at my shoulders. A grip at my elbow. Pressure guiding my body downward until my thighs hit the chair, and I’m folded into it whether I’m ready or not.
This one is lower. Almost merciful.
That terrifies me.
My knees bend too sharply. My hips tilt back. The position locks my spine into a shallow curve that makes breathing harder than it needs to be.
“This is a compliance review,” a man says.
I nod. Nodding doesn’t cost words.
“You’ve been resistant,” he continues. “Not overtly. But enough to slow progress.”
Progress toward what?
“We believe you’re still framing this as adversarial,” he says. “It doesn’t need to be.”
Pressure settles at the base of my thumb as he speaks. Not enough to hurt yet. Just present. A quiet reminder that my body is part of the conversation.
“We want to return you to baseline,” he continues. “Functional. Predictable. Do you understand?”
The pressure increases when I don’t respond fast enough. Agreement through pain.
“Yes,” I manage when I can finally speak again.
“Raine, this ends when you cooperate.”
Hearing my name after so long feels less like recognition and more like…ownership.
I try to press my tongue to the roof of my mouth, but it snags on my teeth, fuzzy from lack of care, too little water, and the overly sweet chemical “food.” Nausea spikes, hard and fast.
“Cooperate, how?” I ask, my voice wobbling.
Pain flares instantly at my wrist. Sharp enough to steal my next breath.
“Don’t complicate things,” he says calmly. “We’re trying to keep you safe.”
Safe.
The word doesn’t fit anything that’s happened since they took me.
He waits until my breathing settles again. They always wait for that. They want me regulated enough to understand whatever terms I’m agreeing to.
“This can end today. You acknowledge that you applied context to information that was not yours to apply. You agree that your judgment was compromised by personal bias. When you leave here, you will accept reassignment, restriction, or oversight as directed and consent to monitoring for as long as deemed necessary.”
When you leave…
The words flare in the dark, lighting up something in my chest I haven’t felt in so long.
Hope.
“And if I don’t?” I ask.
The pressure shifts higher, closer to my elbow. A warning.
“Then you stay,” he says. “Until this all gets sorted out.”
There’s the edge.
Agreement means release with conditions.
Refusal means no release at all.
My thoughts move slowly. It takes too long to line up all the pieces.
They don’t need me broken. They need me manageable.
But I can choose survival. If I accept their version of the narrative, ignore the truth I know, I’ll get out.
Integrity is a luxury I can’t afford right now.
“I acknowledge that I applied context to information that was not mine to apply. I agree that my judgment was compromised by personal bias,” I say carefully, each word as fragile as glass.
“I will accept reassignment, restriction, or oversight as directed and consent to monitoring for as long as deemed necessary.”
The pressure eases.
Someone exhales.
“That will be documented,” the man says.
Relief flashes through me. Shame hides behind it.
They leave me long enough for the weight of my decision to sink in. To understand what I traded for my freedom.
Monitoring. Blame. The quiet surrender of having been right but agreeing I wasn’t aches deep in my chest.
But somewhere beneath the exhaustion and the cold, beneath the slow, terrifying drag on my mind, another realization settles in—they think this is over.
That they’ve taught me how to behave.
They’re wrong.
I’m still here.
And as long as I am, this isn’t finished.