Chapter Ten Elliot #2
Not a simple restraint. This one has electronics embedded in it, small lights that blink in sequence, a control mechanism that looks like something out of a nightmare.
"This is a compliance device," Webb explains, holding it up so I can see.
"Standard issue for assets who require..
. adjustment. It delivers an electrical current directly to the nervous system.
Low settings cause pain. Medium settings cause paralysis.
High settings cause death." He smiles again.
"I'm told the experience is quite unpleasant. "
He moves toward me with the collar.
I thrash against the restraints, pull until my wrists bleed, scream until my throat tears.
It doesn't matter.
The collar clicks into place around my neck. Cold metal against the bite mark Jace left, pressing down on the bruise, erasing his claim with its own.
Webb steps back, examines his work.
"There," he says. "Now we wait."
"For what?"
"For your Reaper to come and get you." He picks up the tablet again, taps something on the screen. "I've sent him your location. Along with a simple ultimatum: surrender himself for reconditioning, or watch you die."
My blood goes cold. "He won't—"
"He will." Webb's voice is certain. "That's what makes this so elegant. A month ago, Jace Harrison would have calculated the odds, assessed the risks, and walked away. You're not worth dying for, objectively speaking. You're a broken asset with no value, no skills, no future."
He leans in close, close enough that I can smell the antiseptic on his breath.
"But he'll come anyway. Because whatever's broken in him has made you valuable beyond calculation. And that, Elliot Rowe, is exactly what I need to prove."
He straightens, tucks the tablet under his arm, and walks toward the door.
"Make yourself comfortable," he says without looking back. "This might take a while."
The door closes behind him.
And I'm alone.
Strapped to a table. Collar around my neck. Waiting for my monster to save me from other monsters.
Jace, I think. Don't come. Please don't come. It's a trap.
But even as I think it, I know he will.
He'll come because I'm his.
And he'll walk into whatever Webb has planned because giving me up isn't something he can do anymore.
I close my eyes and try to breathe.
The collar is cold against my throat.
Just like Moore's.
At least I had one week…
Time passes. I don't know how much.
The light never changes. The cold never fades. The collar sits heavy on my neck, a constant reminder of what I am, what I've always been.
Property. Leverage. A thing to be used.
I thought being with Jace would be different. I thought being his meant something other than being owned.
Maybe it does. Maybe it doesn't.
Either way, I'm here. Strapped down. Waiting.
And somewhere out there, Jace is making a choice.
I hope he chooses himself.
I hope he runs, disappears, finds somewhere Webb can't reach.
But I know he won't.
Because I wouldn't, if our positions were reversed.
Because that's what it means to belong to someone.
You don't get to be safe anymore.
You just get to be theirs.
The door opens.
I don't know how long it's been. An hour. Two. My arms have gone numb from being held above my head. My throat is raw from screaming earlier, before I realized no one was coming, no one could hear.
I expect Webb. Another round of cold smiles and clinical observations.
It's not Webb.
It's a woman. Tall, elegant, dressed in black that looks more like fashion than tactical gear. Her hair is silver-blonde, pulled back in a severe knot. Her face is ageless, beautiful in a way that feels dangerous.
She stops at the foot of the table and studies me like I'm an exhibit in a museum.
"So you're the one," she says. Her voice is soft, cultured, with an accent I can't place. "The asset who broke the Reaper."
I don't respond. I've learned that responding only gives them ammunition.
"I'm Helena Cross," she says. "Director of Design. I oversee psychological operations, information engineering, and..." She pauses, smiles. "Persuasion."
Design. Jagger Harrison's Ministry. The one that handles propaganda and mind games.
"Webb thinks he can fix Jace with reconditioning," she continues, circling the table slowly. "Crack open his skull, rewire the faulty connections, make him compliant again." She stops by my head, looks down at me with something that might be pity. "He's wrong."
"Then why are you here?"
"Because I'm interested in alternatives." She reaches out, runs a finger along the edge of the collar. "Jace Harrison isn't malfunctioning. He's evolving. Something about you triggered a response that wasn't supposed to be possible. An attachment. A desire. A want."
She says the word like it's sacred. Like it's the most fascinating thing she's ever encountered.
"The Foundry's conditioning is supposed to eliminate want," she explains.
"Make them perfect tools, perfect weapons, incapable of prioritizing anything above the mission.
And for fifteen years, it worked. Jace was our best. Our most reliable.
" She tilts her head. "And then he saw you, and something. .. woke up."
"What do you want from me?"
"I want to understand." She leans closer, studies my face with unsettling intensity. "What is it about you, Elliot Rowe? What makes you special? What makes you worth breaking protocol for?"
I don't have an answer. I've been asking myself the same question since the night Jace said mine and changed everything.
"I'm not special," I say. "I'm nobody. I'm just..."
"Broken." She straightens, nods slowly. "Yes. That's what Webb says. That's what your file says. But broken things can be beautiful, can't they? Broken things can have value that intact things don't."
She walks to the door, pauses with her hand on the frame.
"Webb wants to use you to destroy Jace," she says. "I'm not sure that's the right approach. But I suppose we'll find out."
She leaves.
And I'm alone again.
Alone with the collar and the cold and the growing certainty that whatever happens next, I'm not going to survive it unchanged.
Jace… Please.
I don't know if I'm asking him to come or to stay away.
I don't know anything anymore.
I just know that I'm his.
And that has to mean something.
It has to.