27. Kalev
KALEV
The light never goes all the way out in this place.
It dims, sometimes—sliding down into a sickly gray that blurs the edges of the cell and makes it harder to tell where the walls end and the shadows begin—but it never leaves me alone with the dark.
There is always a hum under everything, a low mechanical vibration that lives in the bones more than the ears, that keeps time when nothing else does, that reminds you—quietly, patiently—that you are still here and it isn’t done with you yet.
I wake before the lights brighten.
Not because I’m rested.
Because the air changes a fraction of a second before the cycle flips—pressure shifting in the vents, the faint metallic click of relays resetting somewhere behind the walls—and my body has learned that moment the way prey learns the sound of a predator’s footstep.
I sit up on the stone slab that passes for a bed, bare feet touching the cold floor, shoulders stiff, jaw aching from where I clenched it through another half-sleep full of broken corridors and glass and the shape of her face vanishing into white light.
The cell smells faintly of disinfectant layered over mold, over old sweat, over something mineral and stale that never quite goes away no matter how often they hose the place down. The vent above my head clicks once, softly. Again. Again.
I count without meaning to.
By the time the door slot grinds open, my breathing is already slow and steady, my hands folded loose in my lap like I’m waiting for a meeting instead of a meal.
Gray paste in a shallow metal tray.
A dented cup of lukewarm water.
The guard doesn’t look at me. He never does.
“Eat,” he mutters, like it’s an insult.
I lift the tray, balance it on my knees, and eat methodically, scraping the sides clean with the edge of the spoon, because I learned in the first year that hunger stacks, and you don’t get points for dignity in a place like this.
Down the corridor, someone starts yelling.
Not screaming. Not yet.
Just shouting words that don’t make sense anymore, voice ragged and raw like a throat that’s been sanded down to nothing.
The guard pauses, listening.
“Idiot,” he mutters. “It’s not even his day.”
He slides the slot shut.
The shouting continues for another thirty seconds, then cuts off abruptly.
I keep eating.
They come for me two hours later.
Different guards today. New faces. Same eyes.
Cuffs on my wrists, mag-locks humming as they seal. Shackles around my ankles. A hand at my elbow, not rough, not gentle—just precise.
“On your feet,” one of them says.
I stand.
We walk.
The corridor smells sharper this time, like they’ve just run sterilization through it. My bare soles make soft, damp sounds on the floor. Somewhere behind one of the doors, something thuds against metal, over and over, slow and heavy, like a body testing the limits of a wall.
“You hear that?” the guard on my left says conversationally.
“No,” I reply.
He smirks. “That’s because you’re polite.”
We pass the chamber with the flickering panel—the one that buzzes like a trapped insect. I catalog it automatically, same as always, noting which lights are out, which stains are new, which doors smell faintly of blood instead of solvent.
Interrogation room three today.
They sit me in the chair, clamp restraints over my shoulders and forearms, snug the collar around my throat until it presses just enough to remind me it’s there.
A woman steps into my line of sight.
Coalition officer. Late forties, maybe. Dark hair pulled tight, uniform immaculate, eyes alert in a way that tells me she doesn’t waste words.
“Kalev,” she says. “You look worse than your file photo.”
“Your file’s outdated,” I say. “Try again.”
She studies my face for a moment, then nods once.
“Fair enough.”
She taps something on the console.
The room temperature drops a few degrees. Not enough to hurt. Enough to distract.
“You know why you’re here,” she says.
“Because you like the sound of your own voice.”
One corner of her mouth lifts.
“I do,” she admits. “But that’s not why you’re here.”
She leans her hip against the table.
“You’re here because the Alliance burned you and the Coalition caught you and neither side is sure what to do with you yet. That makes you… interesting.”
“I’m flattered.”
“Don’t be.”
She gestures, and the screen behind her lights up.
Alliance Command insignia.
A familiar female officer appears, posture rigid, eyes flat.
Former operative Kalev has been declared a rogue actor and traitor to Alliance interests. Any actions undertaken by him are unauthorized and unaffiliated with official Alliance operations.
The feed ends.
The screen goes black.
The woman watches my face carefully.
“Thoughts?” she asks.
I shrug as much as the restraints allow.
“Tell her I said hi.”
She exhales through her nose.
“You don’t look surprised.”
“I’m not.”
“That hurts most people.”
“They never liked me anyway.”
She studies me for a long beat.
“Who extracted your partner from Spuel?”
“No one.”
“Who arranged her safe passage?”
“No one.”
“You really expect me to believe that?”
“No,” I say. “I expect you to keep asking.”
She straightens.
“Fine.”
She taps the console again.
Electricity blooms down my spine like a fist inside my nervous system, white and blinding, every muscle seizing at once. My teeth slam together hard enough that sparks dance in my vision.
I grunt, breath tearing out of me in a sound that isn’t human.
It cuts off.
I sag forward against the restraints, sweat already slicking my ribs.
“Try again,” she says calmly. “Who helped her?”
I swallow, jaw tight.
“No one.”
Another shock.
Longer this time.
My vision goes dark at the edges.
When it stops, my breathing is ragged and loud in the too-quiet room.
She crouches in front of me, eyes level with mine.
“You care about her,” she says softly. “That makes you predictable.”
I meet her gaze.
“Then predict this,” I rasp. “I’m not talking.”
She studies me for a long moment, then stands.
“We’ll come back to you.”
The cell feels smaller when they put me back in it.
The walls seem closer.
The vent hum seems louder.
My hands are shaking faintly, not from fear, not from pain, just from the residue of electricity still echoing through my nerves.
I pace the length of the cell three times, slow and controlled, until the tremor fades.
I sit on the slab.
Close my eyes.
And instead of counting clicks, I picture her hands.
Not her face.
Not the moment at the pod.
Her hands.
The way her fingers always fidgeted when she was thinking.
The scar across her knuckle she never remembered getting.
The way she pressed her thumb into my palm when she was nervous and didn’t want me to notice.
I flex my own hands slowly, one finger at a time, grounding myself in the sensation of skin and bone and movement.
They don’t get that from me.
They don’t get her.
Days blur.
Weeks.
Months.
Sometimes they leave me alone for long stretches, like they’re letting my mind rot in silence.
Sometimes they come every day.
New interrogators rotate in. New strategies.
One of them tries humor.
“You know,” he says one afternoon, leaning back in his chair, boots propped on the table, “most people break before year two. You’re kind of ruining our averages.”
“Sorry,” I say. “I’ll try harder.”
He chuckles. “That’s the spirit.”
He shows me fabricated reports.
Dead bodies they claim are hers.
Graves.
Ruined settlements.
I stare at the images, expressionless.
“You’re not even blinking,” he says, annoyed. “Doesn’t that bother you?”
“It would,” I say. “If you were better at lying.”
His smile fades.
Another one brings me food from the outside.
Fresh bread.
Warm.
The smell alone makes my stomach clench.
“Just answer one question,” he says. “One. And this is yours.”
I look at the bread.
Then at him.
“You’re going to eat that in front of me anyway,” I say.
He hesitates.
Then does exactly that.
I watch him chew.
I don’t speak.
My body changes over the years.
Muscle hardens, then thins.
Scars overlap scars.
My joints ache in the cold.
Sometimes my hands cramp so badly I have to pry my fingers open one by one.
They never give me enough sleep.
They never give me enough light.
They never give me enough time to forget where I am.
But they also never get what they want.
One night, a guard stops outside my cell longer than usual.
“You know,” he says quietly, not unkindly, “you could make this easier on yourself.”
I open my eyes.
“Why would I do that?”
He shrugs. “Because no one’s coming for you.”
I consider that for a moment.
“Good,” I say. “Then I won’t miss them.”
He snorts softly.
“You’re a weird bastard.”
“Occupational hazard.”
Sometimes, in the long, silent hours when the hum in the walls sinks into my skull and my body feels like a sack of broken parts stitched together with willpower, I let myself remember one specific thing.
Not the goodbye.
Not the pain.
Not the fear.
The way Leah used to fall asleep halfway through arguments.
Mid-sentence.
Mid-rant.
Her voice would trail off, forehead dropping against my shoulder, stubborn even in sleep.
I hold onto that.
Not because it hurts.
Because it’s real.
And as long as it’s real, so am I.
They come for me again.
New room.
New machine.
New man.
“You still think she made it?” he asks casually, strapping electrodes to my arms.
I look at him.
“I don’t think about it.”
“Bullshit.”
I shrug.
“Believe whatever helps you sleep.”
He flips the switch.
Pain detonates across my nerves.
When it stops, I’m panting, sweat dripping off my jaw.
“You could end this,” he says. “All of it.”
I lift my head slowly.
“No,” I say hoarsely. “You can’t.”
He frowns.
“Why not?”
“Because you don’t own what you’re asking for.”
They never understand that part.
That what I’m protecting isn’t just data.
It’s a future I’m not allowed to imagine too clearly.
A woman who deserves a life without war following her like a shadow.
I don’t frame it like that in my head.
I just don’t answer their questions.
I just keep breathing.
I just keep standing up when they tell me to.
I just keep refusing to give them anything that matters.
Years in, one of the guards tosses me a towel after a particularly ugly session.
“You’re a stubborn son of a bitch,” he says.
I wipe blood from my mouth.
“Still here, though.”
He studies me for a second.
“Why?”
I meet his eyes.
“Because someone I care about is somewhere I’m not,” I say quietly. “And I don’t get to quit until that stops being true.”
He looks away first.
The cell hums.
The vent clicks.
The light dims.
I lie back on the slab, staring at the ceiling, chest rising and falling slowly, deliberately.
Somewhere out there, Leah is alive.
I don’t need to turn that into poetry.
I just need to stay alive long enough to prove it mattered.