27. Damien
Damien
The Golden Hollows doesn’t creak.
It hums . Low. Subtle. Electric.
The kind of sound you don’t notice until it stops—and when it does, you realize you’ve gone deaf in one ear.
I like it that way. Controlled. Alive.
The motion sensors click softly as I move down the east corridor. No footsteps echo here—too much insulation, too many layers of soundproofing. The only noise is the buzz of the lights overhead and the scuff of my boots on polished concrete.
I stop at the viewing panels. Each room has one.
Just a slit in the wall, covered in reinforced glass, masked from their side. But I see everything.
One girl paces.
Another hums to herself, swaying on the edge of her cot like she’s waiting for a lullaby that never comes.
The boy stares at the wall, unmoving. Perfect. I gave him a little extra sedation yesterday. Just in case.
They’re quiet now. Soft around the edges.
Two more weeks, and they’ll be currency. Transformation incarnate.
I move to the main control room and run my fingers across the keys without pressing a thing.
I know the codes by heart.
I know everything by heart.
Each camera. Each hallway. Each heartbeat within these walls.
No one breathes without my permission.
I flip open the logbook and mark today’s entries.
— Water intake: Sufficient
— Tranquilizers: Consistent
— Reese’s rounds: Late by 4 minutes
— Harmony: No requests
— Brooke: No incidents
My pen hovers over the last name. Then keeps moving.
I decided to keep Harmony and Brooke with everyone else. It prevents incidents. Like Reese trying to fuck my queen. Well—she was my queen. Fuck her.
I pass through the hall with the broken security camera—still “under maintenance” because I like the blind spot.
It’s the only place I can think.
I lean against the wall and light a cigarette. Blow the smoke toward the flickering emergency light overhead. It makes the haze shimmer like dust caught in sunbeams.
This place is everything the Orchard wasn’t. The Orchard had history. Secrets I didn’t write. The Golden Hollows?
This one’s mine.
Empty for decades and dirty intent. Each room is tagged with initials burned into the framework. Each captive assigned based on compatibility and price bracket. Each pipe, each wall, each vent was inspected by me.
Painstakingly slow. Precise. Perfect.
Bu t Harmony still hasn’t broken.
And that means something in here isn’t working the way I want.
I flick ash into the corner, watching it settle like snow. Then I keep moving.
I check the supply room. The branding tools. The sedation fridge. The storage unit for auction boxes. Every lid is sealed. Every strap in place. Every lock is tight.
I check the medical records, the behavioral charts, and the shower rotation. I read Harmony’s latest interview:
-Silent.
-Still.
-Distant.
-Present.
Good girl.
I check the closet where I keep the spare cloaks.
The black ones are for the ceremony.
The red one is for punishment.
It’s still there.
Waiting.
By the time I circle back to the control room, the lights have dimmed on their own. Night mode.
It softens the walls, but doesn’t make them kind. Nothing here is kind. That’s the point.
I sit down in the leather chair and lean back, hands behind my head. And I listen . Not for footsteps. Not for speech. For stillness.
The stillness that only comes when obedience has replaced hope.
And in that quiet?
I smile.
Because it’s almost time.
And everything is exactly where it needs to be. Then I remember a big event coming up.
Lu cien’s wedding. I walk to my office to think about it. I need to do something special for my little brother on his big day.
* * *
The very phrase tastes like blood in my mouth.
A wedding.
I stare at the plan of his wedding again. It’s spread across the table like an autopsy—cold, clinical, precise.
White roses. Two hundred guests. A manor estate with glass walls and a wine cellar.
How poetic.
A celebration of loyalty… built on betrayal.
I drag the knife slowly down the page, slicing through the section labeled Vows . Red ink bleeds around the edge. I like the symbolism.
Harmony steps through the door a moment later, silent, cautious. She’s always cautious now.
Good.
I don’t look up. I know she has free time right now. It’s part of her schedule.
“Did you know your dear Lucien is getting married next month?” I ask softly, running the blade in neat rows down the margin.
She doesn’t answer. I didn’t expect her to. I rise from my chair, circle her slowly. She’s dressed in black again—my choice, not hers. I like her best in the color of mourning. Because mourning is what she does best.
“You’ve been so good lately,” I murmur. “Quiet. Soft. Even helpful.”
Still, she doesn’t speak.
I grab her chin, tilt her face up.
“But I need more now.”
Her lips part, barely. “What do you want?”
I smile.
“I want fireworks.”
I gesture toward the plans on the table. Diagrams. Guest lists. A courier schedule. Backup generators. Everything Lucien thought he kept protected.
But nothing is ever safe from me.
“Four bombs,” I say calmly. “One in the east garden. One near the ceremony arch. One beneath the catering truck. And the last…”
I drag my fingertip down the sketch of the manor’s heart— the ballroom .
“…in the floor beneath the first dance.”
Her eyes widen, but I don’t stop.
“Remote detonated. Timed. Precise. Poetic.” I brush a strand of hair from her cheek, almost lovingly. “But only if you help me.”
“No.”
Her voice is a whisper, but it’s enough.
My smile doesn’t fade.
“If you refuse,” I say gently, “I will burn everything down anyway. But this time? I’ll start with Reese. Then Brooke. Then every girl in the Hollows. One by one. Alive.”
A beat of silence. Her knees nearly buckle, but she stays standing. Just barely. I lean in, mouth hovering next to her ear.
“You’re the only thing keeping them alive.”
Then I hand her the detonator. Cold. Smooth. Heavy with consequence.
“You’re running out of time, Harmony.”
I place the folder in her arms—maps, instructions, names.
“And when it’s done, we disappear. You, me, and the ash of every liar in silk.”
She doesn’t say yes. She doesn’t have to. I already own her answer.
And the wedding?
It ’ll be the most beautiful massacre this city’s ever seen.
* * *
The lights in the Golden Hollows buzz.
Faint. Steady.
I walk the corridor barefoot, every step echoing off concrete and steel. The walls sweat with condensation, dripping like the veins of a dying god. Down here, beneath the surface, there’s no time. No day. No night. Just obedience.
I like it that way.
A girl screams down the hall. Not loud. Not defiant.
Just enough to remind me they still feel fear. I light a cigarette. I exhale.
Smoke drifts toward the security monitor—twelve screens, twelve cages, twelve carefully calculated investments. Their faces blur into one over time. Open mouths. Empty eyes. Every cry is indistinguishable from the last.
Harmony appears on camera, pacing like a ghost.
I zoom in.
She’s clutching the detonator now. Holding it like it might bite. It will. If she makes the wrong move, it will bite everyone.
Good.
I tilt my head and watch her for a moment longer, then switch to the loading bay feed. Enrique is welding shut the auction crates. Sparks light up the screen in flashes of blue and gold. It looks like fireworks. Like war.
I take a final drag.
Then I press delete on every trace of the transport footage—routes, names, timestamps, tags. Gone. Burned from the system like scripture in fire.
My legacy is clean. Untouchable.
I close my eyes and listen. To the electric hum. To the distant sobbing. To the whisper of power threading through my veins like morphine.
I whisper the words under my breath, like a prayer.
“Obedience is golden. Sin is cleansed.”
Then I smile to myself.
Because next?
Next, they’ll all be begging to be sold.
And I’ll be the one holding the gavel.
Speaking of begging to be sold—I almost forgot. I have to give Harmony her going-away present.
I postponed her auction until after Brooke’s. She is the only one I have to get into Lucien’s wedding, after all. That is something I’m willing to hold on to her for.