Chapter Four Elliot
There’s a sound. Something distant, but not—maybe the slap of a door somewhere up the stairwell, maybe the brittle impact of glass dropped on tile.
It cracks the air, sharp and wrong, and my body answers before my mind can name it: every muscle coils, lungs snap shut, blood slams my ears. My vision narrows to a single pinhole.
This is the first warning.
I sit on the floor, pressed into the corner between couch and wall. The surface is too cold, the carpet thinned and scratchy against my feet, but I don’t move. Not even to rub at the bumps running up my arms. I hold still, keep my eyes open, because closing them would be worse.
The next warning comes in the back of my mouth.
Metallic, oily, like the aftertaste of a nosebleed. My jaw locks. I try to breathe but my tongue is a stone in my throat. The world goes white and silent, like someone’s set a pillow over my head.
I blink.
And I’m gone. Back in time.
Back to him.
The walls are closer here. Not just close—crushing. The air is so dense with bleach and sweat and old, dried blood that I can taste it even when I try to breathe through my mouth.
Basement, I remember. Senator Moore’s basement.
This isn’t real. This isn’t real. This isn’t REAL.
And yet…
The overhead lights are white, set in rows. There are no shadows anywhere, which means there’s nowhere to hide.
I try to move but my wrists are already strapped in.
Not rough straps, not the rope or zip-ties they sometimes used in the pens.
This is something custom, kink-grade: black leather, padded on the inside, with heavy silver buckles.
The cuffs cinch my wrists to the arms of a chair.
My ankles are already locked down, and there’s a third strap at the waist.
The chair is cold steel, welded to the floor. No give. No escape.
I don’t remember how I got here, but that doesn’t matter. It never matters.
There’s a table in front of me. Polished steel.
On it: a row of implements. Lined up in order, smallest to largest, each on its own white cloth square.
There are scalpels, bone saws, something that looks like a dental drill, rows of needles, even a handful of things I can’t name.
Tools for taking apart a human, piece by piece, without ever making a mess.
Moore enters from the side door. He’s wearing a lab coat, nothing underneath except tailored trousers and a black turtleneck.
His hands are gloved, blue nitrile so thin I can see the veins beneath.
He picks up one of the scalpels and holds it to the light, admiring the reflection.
I remember he likes clean things, not because he wants to keep me from getting infected, but because bloodstains offend his sense of order.
He speaks, and his voice is exactly the same as the one in the TV ads. That calm, reasonable tone, the one that says I am here to help, to protect your family, to fix what’s broken.
“Elliot,” he says. “You know why you’re here.”
I don’t answer. I can’t. The strap across my chest is so tight I can barely draw breath.
Moore doesn’t care. He never does.
He sets the scalpel down and leans in, pressing a thumb under my chin and forcing my face up. His thumb is dry and rough, the pressure so precise that I know he’s measuring, not restraining. I stare up at him, trying not to blink. I can’t look away.
He says, “We have to do this until you learn. Every time you fail, we start again.”
I try to think of what I failed. Maybe it was the way I looked at him last time, maybe I said the wrong thing, maybe I just existed in a way that annoyed him. It doesn’t matter, not really. The process is the same either way.
He lets go of my chin, wipes the thumb on a towel, and begins his ritual: rolling up his sleeves, snapping the gloves tighter, checking each tool for flaws.
The sound of metal on metal—the clink as he sets down the scalpel—is loud enough to rattle my teeth.
Moore circles behind me, and I feel his breath against my ear. “You can do better this time,” he says, voice low and almost affectionate. “You will, if you want to leave.”
He moves to the tray and picks up a length of clear tubing, smooth as a snake. He threads it between his fingers, then brings it around to my face. I clamp my jaw but he’s already got the tube against my lips, shoving it past my teeth, so deep it makes my stomach heave.
He tapes it in place, tearing the medical tape with his teeth.
“It’s important to keep you hydrated,” he says, as if that’s a kindness. He presses a button on the wall, and the bag of saline hanging above me starts to drip, one perfect bead at a time.
He takes a step back, folding his arms to admire his work.
I close my eyes.
That’s always a mistake.
Because now there are hands on my legs, cold and deliberate, pulling the jeans down to my knees. He takes his time, rolling the waistband, exposing skin inch by inch. The metal of the chair is icy under my thighs. Goosebumps rise everywhere, but I can’t shiver.
Moore’s fingers are impersonal, as if handling meat from a butcher’s counter.
He murmurs, “I had a dog once. Every time it disobeyed, I’d lock it in the cellar. It learned quickly.” He runs a hand down my calf, almost gentle, then stands and selects the next instrument from the tray.
A needle, long and fine, the tip catching the light. He holds it up for me to see.
“If you move, it will hurt more,” he says.
I don’t move. But I can’t stop the tremor in my feet.
He slides the needle under my skin, just below the kneecap. The pain is instant, a spike of white-hot clarity, but I don’t scream. I can’t, not with the tube in my throat.
He does the other knee. This time, I flinch, just a little, and he clicks his tongue.
“Disappointing,” he says. “But we have time to improve.”
He moves up to my arm, tightens the cuff, and takes a blood sample, filling a vial with slow suction.
I watch the blood swirl, dark and thick, and I wonder if he’s saving it for something.
He sets the vial aside and wipes the inside of my elbow with an alcohol pad. The smell stings my sinuses, makes my eyes water.
He leans in again, so close I can feel the heat of his cheek against mine.
“You’re very lucky,” Moore whispers. “Most don’t survive even the first round. But you—” His tongue clicks against his teeth, savoring the idea. “You’re exceptional. I don’t want to scar you. So perhaps torment of another kind is in order.”
He steps away, drops the bloody cotton into a metal tray, and writes something on a clipboard.
He never stops narrating.
“There’s a girl upstairs,” he says. “She’ll go next. But I want to see how much you remember when I’m done here.” He picks up another needle, this one thicker, and slides it under the skin at my neck.
He presses, slow and careful, until I hear the wet pop as it goes in.
“There it is,” he says, satisfied.
He tapes the needle in place, then adjusts the bag of fluid so it drips faster.
My stomach twists, the pain mixing with the nausea, but I hold still. I always do.
He stands back and folds his hands behind his back.
“Your body is adjusting to your medication,” he says. “That’s good.”
My world blurs at the edges. The saline tastes bitter, and the pressure in my throat builds with every drop. The blood in my neck pulses in a ragged, angry rhythm.
He sets a timer on the table, so I can watch the seconds crawl by.
He leaves me there, strapped and impaled and unable to move. The sound of the ticking fills the room. The only other sound is my heart, pounding so hard I think it might explode.
He’ll come back soon, and when he does, it will be worse.
It always is.
But for now, I float in the whiteness of the lights, the too-clean air, the cold steel of the chair. I focus on the crack in the ceiling, the one flaw in this entire, perfect room.
If I look at the crack, maybe I won’t have to feel the rest of it.
I wake up in the same position. Joints locked, tongue so swollen I can’t swallow. The saline bag is empty, a limp balloon. My jeans are still tangled at my knees, but the needles are gone, leaving a slow trickle of blood down my legs and arms.
Moore returns, this time carrying a small white pill. He presses it against my lips, waits until my mouth opens, then pops it inside.
“Antibiotics,” he says. “I don’t want you to get sick. Not until I’m done.”
He kneels in front of me, face level with mine.
“Thank me,” he says.
I shake my head, just a tiny motion.
He smiles, a small, pleased smile.
“We’ll do this again,” he says.
He stands, releases the strap at my waist, and yanks my head back by the hair.
The world flips and I slam onto the floor. The tile is cold enough to burn, and I lie there, shivering, until the next set of hands hauls me up and drags me back to my cell.
I know the cycle now. I know how to wait.
There’s a sound. A quiet murmur.
I blink.
I’m back in the apartment, my cheek pressed to the carpet. My arms are locked around my knees, jaw aching from the bite of my own teeth. The taste in my mouth is blood and saliva, just like before.
Nothing has changed.
Except now, I can hear footsteps in the hall. Not Moore, not this time.
It’s Jace, moving silent and slow, the way only his kind can do.
I brace myself for the next thing.
The next lesson.
And then white.
The second lesson always comes faster. Once the body learns how to split, it’ll do it on its own, like a dog returning to a trigger word.
Back on the chair. Strapped, naked except for the shirt bunched up at my shoulders, legs spread and held open by two leather cuffs buckled tight against the ankles. Moore likes to make the spreader bar visible, a metal rod connecting my legs and locked in place at either end.
He’s already here, gloves changed, clean lab coat on. The tray is ready, a new lineup of instruments I can’t name. Some are curved, some are blunt, some just glass vials with liquid in different shades—yellow, red, blue.