Chapter Eleven
Rheda
They’re pleased when they come back in and it’s horrifying.
Mike pulls his helmet off with a breathless little laugh, and the sound makes something inside me go cold.
“Well,” he says, “that worked.”
He says it like it was controlled. Grins like he’s proud of it. The others follow in behind him. The second door slams shut and seals with a series of heavy, mechanical clicks that echo through the space. Sean gives it a firm shove, checking it’s locked.
“That’ll hold him,” he mutters.
Peter doesn’t look up. His attention is on his hands; the blood drying across his knuckles, darkening as it settles into the creases of his skin. He peels the knuckle dusters off slowly, like he’s unwrapping something.
“A start,” he says.
I stay exactly where I am. Moving feels like it would break something.
They shed layers as they talk. Bits of gear drop onto the table with dull, careless sounds. Their shoulders loosen as they come down from it, tension bleeding out of them in quiet, satisfied ways.
Relief. Then something else. Pride.
Peter looks up eventually. “Someone’s quiet.”
For a second, nothing comes out. My chest rises too fast, breath catching somewhere it shouldn’t.
“You hit him.” My voice barely exists. “You didn’t stop.”
His spine straightens.
“Yes,” He says matter-of-factly. “He wasn’t complying.”
I blink. “So, you beat him?”
My voice shifts before I can stop it. Something tighter. Something harder. “What part of that was procedure?”
“You’re focusing on the wrong thing.”
“No,” The heat rises now, pushing through the shock. “There are protocols. There are laws—”
“And he’s already broken them,” Peter cuts in, flat. “Extensively.”
“He’s still a human being!”
The sound he makes isn’t quite a laugh. It slips out the back of his throat, low, incredulous, edged with contempt.
“No,” he snaps, turning on me fully. “He is not. He is a fucking parasite. A thing that hollowed out three people and left their families choking on what was left. And if you think this,” he gestures at his bloody knuckle dusters, “was excessive, then you are painfully na?ve.”
My face burns.
“I won’t be complicit in this,” I manage.
Peter watches me for a moment, like he’s deciding how much I already understand. “You agreed to be here.”
“That’s not what I agreed to.”
“No?”
“I do not condone torture!” I rush. “That was awful, not to mention illegal! I could lose my licence over just being here!”
He snorts. “You’ll be fine.”
He rattles the knuckledusters in the palm of his hand. “As I said, you just need to sit behind the glass and observe. All I need is your signature.”
“Signature for what? You didn’t tell me.”
The silence is disgusting, like something dragging down the back of my throat.
He watches me for a long moment.
“He’s on death row, Rheda.” He finally says.
My mouth dries. “You can’t know that.”
“I know it’s unlikely he sees the inside of a long-term prison cell,” he replies, just as evenly. “The government wants him gone. We have two weeks for a full confession before they take the choice away from us.”
The world stills. I don’t respond straight away.
“Why?” I manage.
He studies me, and then his face turns into something grin. “His methods were...inhumane. Targeted. That’s all you need to know.”
The answer doesn’t settle. Something in me recoils, instinctive and sharp, my lungs stalling before I can pull in another breath.
“I told you things work differently on this side of the prison.” There’s a small pause. “Keep that in mind as we move forward.”
“I’m not coming back.” It leaves me before I’ve fully decided to say it.
My voice is steady, but there’s something underneath it I can’t quite smooth out.
“If this is what you’re building toward...
if you think I’m going to sit here and watch you torture someone into a confession—then no. I won’t be part of it.”
No one interrupts me.
“I won’t sign anything either,” I add, the words tightening as they come. “I’m not putting my name on something that turns into a death warrant.”
For a second, I think he might argue it but he doesn’t. His face twists into something cruel.
“Go ahead,” he spits. “Go back to your old unit. Sit behind your desk. Write your little notes and wait for someone else to decide what they mean.”
My chest tightens.
“That’s what you were doing before I walked in, wasn’t it?” he continues. “Observing. Commenting. Staying just far enough away that none of it ever really touches you. You think they’re going to let you move any further than that? After six years?”
Heat creeps up my neck.
“They already tell you where you belong,” he adds. “They just don’t bother saying it to your face.”
Terry.
His name burns in my mind.
The meetings.
The kettle.
The notes.
“They’ll keep you there,” he goes on, steady, certain. “You’re easy to overlook.”
My fingers curl tighter around the strap of my bag.
“At least here, we’re capable of making real change,” Peter says quietly. “Some of us are willing to do what’s necessary to put monsters away for good.”
The words land exactly where he intends them to.
My throat tightens.
He reaches for my coat and bag and presses them firmly into my chest like the conversation is already over.
“Go home,” he says. “Be back for eight.”
I press my lips together, but my body has already started moving.
My feet don’t feel steady beneath me as I cross the room. The blood on Peter’s knuckles keeps flashing in the corner of my vision every time I blink.
Death row.
The words drag brutally through me.
Two weeks.
My stomach twists hard enough to hurt. The handle bites cold against my palm when I grab it.
Something hot rises suddenly into my throat. Disgust.
At Peter. At this unit. At myself for standing behind that glass and watching it happen.
My fingers tighten harder around the handle.
Leave.
But my body won’t move.
Because underneath the horror, underneath the nausea crawling through me, something worse has already rooted itself there.
Him.
The stillness of him. The silence. The impossible composure while they beat him bloody. I hate that my mind keeps returning to it. Hate it enough that my chest physically hurts.
He should disgust me completely.
He does disgust me.
And yet—I can still see his face perfectly.
The split in his lip. The dark curls hanging over his eyes. The way he looked at absolutely nothing while Peter hit him.
Something cold moves slowly through my stomach.
Fear. Real fear this time.
I should walk out now and never come back.
I know that.
But leaving now feels too much like losing, and I have so many questions that need answering.