Chapter 23
VI
Time drags once Armen leaves.
Not dramatically. Not in a way I would’ve noticed before the Hunt. It drags the way a room does when people stop pretending to be busy, when the noise thins, the movement slows, and what’s left behind feels heavier because there’s nothing distracting you from it. Like a freeze frame.
The corridor doesn’t empty, exactly. Guards remain. Runts remain. The Rot hums on. But the pace changes. Footsteps become less frequent. Voices lower. Orders are no longer barked; they’re murmured, exchanged between people who already know what comes next.
Aftermath.
I sit where they left me, hands bound behind my back, legs folded awkwardly in an attempt to take stress off my injured knee.
The concrete planter is pressing cold through my pants.
It’s getting uncomfortable, but not unbearable, and that, too, feels intentional.
Pain sharpens attention. Comfort dulls it.
I don’t shift again. I learned that lesson already. Instead, I watch.
Across the corridor, one of the women from earlier is being repositioned.
Not dragged. Guided. A hand at her elbow, another at her back.
She keeps her head down, shoulders rounded forward like she’s trying to disappear into herself.
Her restraints are adjusted twice while she stands there, compliant and shaking.
When she’s moved on, she goes willingly.
I file that away.
Another woman, taller, older, refuses to move when she’s told.
She stiffens, feet planted. It doesn’t earn her defiance or violence.
It earns her waiting. Two guards step back, unfazed, and simply stand there while the rest of the corridor continues around them.
After a long minute, she moves on her own.
No one speaks. No one needs to.
The Rot doesn’t correct behavior immediately. It lets it dangle on the vine, like a ripening piece of fruit to be plucked later.
I strain to look at my hands, bound behind me, but it’s no use. Nonetheless, the cord doesn’t bite. It doesn’t loosen either. Whoever tied it expected me to stay present, as if I could really go anywhere.
I’m sorting out what that means, when Armen reappears.
He doesn’t approach right away. He stops several feet away, just inside my peripheral vision, close enough that I register him without having to turn. The effect is immediate anyway. My spine tightens. My breath shallows. My body reacts before my mind catches up.
He speaks to someone else first, low, controlled instructions about placement and spacing. I don’t catch the words, but I catch the shape of them. Nothing wasted. No unnecessary emphasis.
Then his attention turns fully to me.
I lift my head slowly, refusing to rush it, refusing to look startled. He’s standing closer than before. Close enough that I can see the faint crease between his brows. He smells faintly of metal and sweat and something clean beneath it, soap, maybe. Or just discipline.
He’s so… solid.
Not imposing, exactly. Just steady. Almost safe, if I can say that about someone who is my captor. Like the kind of man who doesn’t need to raise his voice because everyone around him knows to listen.
He doesn’t touch me, at least not at first. “You’re favoring the knee,” he says calmly.
I blink. “It’s injured.”
“Yes.” His gaze flicks down, then back up. “You’re also holding your shoulders too tight.”
“That’s not an injury,” I say.
“No,” he agrees. “It’s a habit.”
I shake my head. “No. It’s a reaction.”
“To what?”
I look around to make my point. “This isn’t exactly the most normal place. You know, with restraints around my wrists and ankles. Whimpering women everywhere and big, burly guys barking orders. If my posture is a little off, it’s no wonder.”
He steps closer and crouches in front of me, slow and deliberate. Not looming. Not crowding. Just close enough that the air between us changes somehow.
I know my breathing does.
His hands move automatically at first, reaching behind me for the binding at my wrists.
I feel the brush of his fingers through the fabric of my shirt where it’s ridden up, the heat of his palm as he checks the knot.
He doesn’t tighten it. He doesn’t loosen it either.
His hands pause. The hesitation is subtle, but I feel it immediately.
A fraction of a second where his grip adjusts, where the motion stops being purely procedural.
I look up at him. Really look.
He’s watching my posture. The way I’m holding myself upright despite the strain. The way my chin is lifted just a little too high, my shoulders drawn forward like armor. Of course, I’m uncomfortable. Everyone in this shithole of a shopping mall is uncomfortable.
His fingers slide away from the restraint and land lightly at my upper back instead. Two fingers. Barely pressure at all. Just contact. “Straighten,” he says.
It isn’t an order. It isn’t gentle, either. It’s instruction—plain and precise.
I hesitate, then shift. Carefully. My back protests. My knee flares. I move anyway, adjusting my weight the way he indicates, rolling my shoulders back just enough to ease the tension without collapsing forward.
His fingers remain there, steady, guiding rather than forcing.
The difference is immediate. The ache in my neck eases. My breathing deepens without my permission. The constant burn in my shoulder blades dulls to something manageable.
I suck in a breath before I can stop myself.
His hand withdraws at once. Too fast.
The sudden absence makes my muscles tighten again, instinctively bracing against the loss of support. I look at him again.
He hasn’t moved away. He’s watching me closely now, eyes sharper than before, not predatory but not soft either. Calculating. Noticing. I have no idea whether he’s smiling or disgusted. Can’t see his damn face for that mask.
I realize then that this isn’t about restraint at all. It’s about control of a different kind. About deciding how much of myself I’m allowed to keep intact. I straighten again on my own, slower this time, mimicking the posture he corrected. My body remembers it.
He notices.
Our eyes meet.
I expect him to look away.
He doesn’t.
The moment expands, not suspended, not dramatic. Charged in a quiet, dangerous way.
I become acutely aware of how close he still is. Of the fact that if I leaned forward even an inch, I’d be inside his space instead of at its edge.
He doesn’t move either.
“Don’t slump,” he says at last, tone neutral again. “It’ll make the knee worse.”
Concern, framed as practicality.
I snort quietly. “You always this generous with advice?”
“Only when it’s relevant.”
“Okay, Armen,” I say.
His eye twitches. Not a frown. Something sharper. He rises to his feet and steps back, reestablishing distance like it’s a conscious correction. He turns as if to leave, then pauses. “Later,” he says, without looking at me, “you’ll be moved.”
“Where?” I ask.
He glances back over his shoulder. “Somewhere quieter.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one you’ll get.” He starts to walk away.
Something in me tightens. Not panic, not desperation. Irritation. The sharp edge of wanting clarity and being denied it.
“Armen,” I say.
He stops and turns fully this time. “Yes?”
I meet his gaze, refusing to look away first. “If I’m not being punished, and I’m not being released… what am I?”
The question hangs between us, heavy and unanswered. For a moment, I think he won’t respond at all.
Then he says, “You’re being assessed.”
“For what?”
His eyes linger on me a second longer than necessary. “That,” he says, “is still being decided.”
He leaves after that and this time, I don’t watch him go.
I stay where I am, spine straight, shoulders aligned the way he corrected them. My knee throbs. My hands ache. My body hums with awareness I don’t want to admit.
Around me, the Rot continues its steady pulse. Somewhere down the corridor, someone laughs softly. Somewhere else, a door closes. The mall settles into its new configuration.
I sit there, contained but not collapsed, replaying the feel of his hand at my back, not the touch itself but the intent behind it. And the unsettling realization that part of me wants to know what else he could correct if he decided I was worth the effort.
The thought lingers long after he’s gone. And it scares me more than being bound does.