Chapter Seven Jace
His pulse jumps under my thumb.
My thumbs squish into his chin, tilting his face up to meet my eyes, and I can feel the rapid flutter of blood through his carotid. Elevated heart rate. Dilated pupils. Shallow breathing. The physiological markers of fear.
Except his body is leaning toward me, not away.
He’s horny.
The realization should mean nothing. It's just information. But something shifts in my chest, a pressure that wasn't there before, and suddenly, I’m staring at the shape of his mouth, the way his lips part slightly, the wet gleam of his tongue against his teeth.
I release his chin. Step back. Put distance between us.
"Finish eating," I say.
He blinks, disoriented by the sudden withdrawal. His hand comes up to touch where my fingers were, like he's checking if the contact was real.
"You didn't answer my question," he says.
"Which one?"
"Why you're doing this. Risking everything." His voice is steadier now, but there's something underneath it. Something raw. "You said your conditioning is wearing off. That you got attached because I'm weak. But that's not an answer. That's an observation."
He's right. It's the most insight anyone has shown into my verbal patterns in years.
"I don't have an answer," I say. "Not one that would satisfy you."
"Try me."
I consider lying. It would be easy. I've built entire operations on fabricated motivations, false emotional appeals designed to manipulate targets into compliance. I know what he wants to hear: that he matters, that he's special, that I see something in him worth saving.
But the words won't form. When I open my mouth, what comes out is closer to truth than strategy.
"I've killed two hundred and seventeen people," I say. "I remember every face. Every sound they made. Every way the light left their eyes." I pause. "I felt nothing. Not guilt. Not satisfaction. Nothing."
He's watching me with an expression I can't understand.
Curiosity, maybe.
"Then I saw you at the auction. And something in my programming... stuttered." I search for the right word. "You were already broken. Already disposed of. There was no reason to intervene. No tactical advantage. No operational benefit."
"But you did anyway."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because the alternative was intolerable." I meet his eyes. "You would have been bought by someone who would finish breaking you. And I found that I could not allow it."
The silence stretches between us. I count the seconds. Seven. Eight. Nine.
"That's not nothing," Elliot says finally. "Feeling something intolerable. That's not nothing, Jace."
I don't know how to respond. So I do what I always do when faced with an input I can't process: I redirect.
"Finish eating," I repeat. "I have work to do."
The encrypted feed from Jagger comes through at 2300.
I'm at my laptop, running another security sweep, when the notification pings. I open the channel, scan the message.
Custodian inquiry logged at 1847. Subject: Asset transfer irregularity, case file 7-Kappa-221. Requested by: Office of the Director of Erasure.
Webb.
I read it again. The words don't change.
Webb isn't just watching me now. He's building a case. Pulling files. Documenting the deviation. The inquiry was logged three hours ago, which means he's been working on this since before I got home.
I type a response: Timeline?
Jagger's reply is immediate: Unknown. But inquiries don't happen without intent. He's moving toward something.
Recommendations?
Accelerate your cover story, find evidence against Moore or make some. Make the asset valuable enough that disposal becomes costly.
I close the channel and sit in the dark, processing.
The fabricated intelligence on Moore is good, but it's not enough. Webb won't be satisfied with second-hand information about a political network. He'll want something concrete. Something that proves Elliot is worth more alive than dead.
Something that proves I'm still functional.
I pull up Elliot's acquisition file and start reading again. Medical records. Psychological assessments. Handler logs from his time with Moore.
Eighteen months of documented abuse. Seventy-three separate "disciplinary sessions." Four suicide attempts, all interrupted. One escape attempt, punished by three weeks in isolation with minimal food and water. Rape. Medical abuse. Psychological torment.
The data is clinical. Detached. Just numbers and dates and incident reports.
But as I read, something happens that I don't expect.
I start to feel.
Not empathy. I don't have the capacity for empathy.
But something adjacent to it. A coldness that spreads through my chest when I read about the incidents which are far too detailed for what is considered necessary reporting.
A tightening in my hands when I see the medical photos of his injuries.
A pressure behind my eyes that I haven't experienced since I was nine years old and the Foundry taught me that crying was a weakness to be eliminated.
I close the file.
I sit in the dark and breathe and wait for the feeling to pass.
It doesn't.
At 0200, I hear him moving.
The bedroom door opens. Soft footsteps in the hallway. He's trying to be quiet, but I've been tracking his breathing patterns for hours. I knew he was awake before he did.
I don't turn around. I stay at my laptop, screen dimmed, watching his reflection in the darkened window.
He stops at the edge of the living room. Hesitates.
"I couldn't sleep," he says.
"I know."
"You heard me?"
"I hear everything."
He processes this. I watch his reflection shift, arms crossing over his chest, a self-protective gesture.
"Can I... sit with you?"
The request is unexpected. Assets don't ask for proximity. They endure it or avoid it. They don't seek it out.
"Yes," I say.
He crosses the room and sits on the couch, pulling his knees up to his chest. The oversized shirt rides up, exposing the pale line of his thigh. I catalog the detail and file it away.
"What are you working on?" he asks.
"Your file."
He goes still. "My file?"
"Your acquisition records. Medical history. Handler logs." I turn to face him. "I need to understand what Moore did to you. In detail."
His face loses color. I watch the blood drain from his cheeks, track the way his hands tighten on his knees.
"Why?"
"Because the Ministry wants proof that you have value. And the only value you have is the information in your head." I pause. "I need to know what's in there before they decide to extract it themselves."
"Extract it how?"
"There are methods."
He doesn't ask what methods. He's smart enough to fill in the blanks.
"I don't remember most of it," he says. His voice is small. "I... I wasn't there. When it happened. I went somewhere else."
"Dissociation. It's a common trauma response."
"Is that what it's called?" A hollow laugh. "I always just thought of it as leaving."
"The memories are still there. Stored in your subconscious. With the right techniques, they can be accessed."
"The right techniques?" His voice sharpens. "You mean torture."
"I mean guided recall. Controlled conditions. Safe parameters."
"Who decides what's safe?"
"I do."
He stares at me. I watch the fear flicker in his eyes, followed by something else. Something that looks almost like hope.
"You'd do that? Help me remember?"
"I would help you access the information in a way that doesn't destroy you." I stand, cross to the couch, sit on the opposite end. Still maintaining distance. Still giving him space. "The Ministry's methods are not gentle. They don't care about preservation. They care about extraction."
"And you care about preservation?"
The question catches me off guard. I consider it.
"I care about keeping you functional," I say finally. "That requires preservation."
He's quiet for a long moment. Then he unfolds his legs, shifts closer on the couch. Not touching, but near enough that I can feel the heat radiating from his body.
"What do you need me to remember?"
"Everything you know about Moore's operation. Safe houses. Communication protocols. Financial channels. Personnel."
"I was property. They didn't tell me things."
"But you observed. You listened. You survived for eighteen months in an environment designed to break you." I turn to face him fully. "You know more than you think you do."
He considers this. I watch him process, file, organize.
"When do we start?" he asks.
"Tomorrow. After I've prepared."
"Prepared what?"
"The protocols. The safeguards. The contingencies if something goes wrong."
"You think something will go wrong?"
"I think trauma is unpredictable. I think your mind has built walls to protect itself. I think breaking those walls down carries risks." I pause. "But the alternative is the Ministry breaking them down for you. And they won't be careful."
He's quiet again. Then, slowly, he reaches out and places his hand on my arm.
The contact is unexpected. I feel the warmth of his palm through my sleeve, the light pressure of his fingers. My first instinct is to pull away. Touch is data. Data requires processing. Processing requires distance.
But I don't pull away.
"Thank you," he says. "For giving me a choice."
"I'm not giving you a choice. I'm giving you an illusion of choice. The outcome is the same either way."
"No." He shakes his head. "It's not. Because you asked. You could have just done it. Strapped me down and taken what you needed. But you asked."
That shocks me. He's right. I could have used force. It would have been easier, faster, more efficient. Standard protocol for asset intelligence extraction.
But something in me rejected that option before I consciously considered it.
"I don't want to hurt you," I say. The words come out before I can stop them. Before I can analyze whether they're strategic or sincere.
Elliot's hand tightens on my arm.
"I know," he says. "That's what scares me."