15. Jasmine
fifteen
Jasmine
Day eight, which in bunker time meant meal sixteen, check-in fifty, and exactly zero sleep.
I’d spent the last two hours doing mental push-ups, counting each heartbeat as a unit of resistance.
I was running on nothing but spite and muscle memory.
My knuckles ached from the failed escape.
The skin under my nails was still black from last night’s run through the brush.
The blood had stopped, but it crusted like a tattoo.
I kept it visible, even after Adam came by with the first aid kit and told me to “keep clean.” I wanted him to see what I was capable of.
He set the tray in front of the slot and crouched, resting his forearms on his knees. His voice was soft, almost warm, like we were on opposite sides of a park bench.
“How’s the hand?”
I didn’t answer. I sat on the cot, back straight, arms folded, feet bare and flat on the slab. He watched me for a count of four, then slid the tray through, careful not to bang it against the bars.
The food was the same as every other morning: two boiled eggs, toast with nothing on it, a plastic cup of juice. The eggs looked like eyes in a skull. I let them sit.
Adam didn’t leave. He stayed kneeling, hands folded in front of him, gaze steady. I stared right back, daring him to look away. He didn’t. The silence stretched, filling with the buzzing light and the low moan of the HVAC.
Finally, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a key. It was small, dull silver, the kind you’d use to unlock a bathroom at a gas station. He held it up between two fingers so I could see it was real.
“This is the only one,” he said. “I made it myself.”
He fit the key into the padlock and turned. The click was louder than the lights, louder than my own pulse. He opened the door. For the first time since I’d arrived, he stepped inside my cell.
No weapon. No show of force. He moved deliberately, like a guy trying to get a stray dog to eat from his hand. He left the door open behind him.
He sat down at the far end of the cot, leaving a full three feet between us. He set his palms on his knees and let them stay there.
“You ever wonder what happens when someone finishes their program?” he said.
I didn’t answer. My fists were pressed tight against my thighs. I felt the ridge of the underwire against my skin, hidden but not forgotten.
He nodded, like that was an answer. He reached into the inside pocket of his shirt and drew out a photograph. Glossy, four by six, edges dog-eared. He held it out, not moving closer, just waiting for me to take it.
I stared at the photo for a beat. I didn’t reach. He waited.
After a minute, he set it on the mattress between us, image side up. I looked at it.
It was a woman in a garden, arms full of wildflowers, laughing at someone behind the camera. The sun was sharp in the picture, the colors so bright it hurt. She was maybe thirty, with hair the color of rust and skin that said she’d lived outside her whole life. I recognized the line of her jaw.
“That’s Steph,” Adam said. “Six months after she left.”
He watched me process it. The photo felt staged. I zeroed in on the eyes, the line of the teeth, the hands. You can fake a smile but not a grip. The woman in the photo had a grip that said she wasn’t letting go of anything, ever again.
“She’s happy,” Adam said, and his voice was so soft I almost missed it. “She wrote me last month. She said she’s never felt this good before. Not even as a kid.”
He picked up the photo and put it back in his pocket, careful not to smudge the print. His hands were steady, no tremor.
“You think this is about breaking people,” I said, my voice flat and dead. “You think if you crack the shell, whatever’s left is worth keeping.”
He took that in. Didn’t argue.
I said, “You took a woman from her life and broke her down until she forgot who she was, and you’re showing me the result like it’s a fucking science fair project.”
He blinked and looked at the floor. When he looked up, his face was smooth and open. “You’re the most remarkable person I’ve ever brought here,” he said. “You don’t bend. You don’t even shake. I can see the pain and the rage, but you hold it all in like it’s the only thing keeping you upright.”
I kept my eyes locked on his.
He reached out with his right hand, slow, and touched my jaw.
Two fingers, barely a graze. The contact sent a jolt up my spine, a reflex that made every muscle in my body seize.
I went perfectly still, not out of fear, but calculation.
I watched his hand, watched the way his pulse beat in the web between thumb and forefinger.
He pulled his hand back, slow as he’d put it out.
“I’m not going to rush you,” he said. “You’ll know when you’re ready.”
He stood, the movement fluid and easy, and walked out of the cell. The door closed behind him, the lock clicking like a death knell. His footsteps faded, each one measured and certain.
I sat there, frozen, hands pressed flat to my thighs. My chest hammered so hard I thought the bones would shatter. The smell of eggs and bleach filled the air.
I didn’t know how long I stayed like that.
Across the row, Renata was watching me through the bars. She didn’t say anything, just watched, her dark eyes catching every twitch in my face.
I looked back at her, and the look we shared was pure voltage: fuck him, fuck this, don’t break.
The lights flickered then steadied.
In my mind, I replayed the last voicemail Sniper ever left me. His voice was soft and clipped, the way it got when he was trying not to sound desperate.
Miss your face. That’s all it said.
I pressed my hands harder against my legs, let the memory burn a hole through the bullshit, and waited for the next move.
Molly, Eve Three, had once whispered that Adam never waited more than two weeks before he made his play. Most women broke in seven days. The ones who didn’t were usually gone by ten.
Day eight, and I was still here.
I looked at the food tray, then at the lock, then at Renata.
I’d outlast him, or I’d die trying.
Either way, I was the story now.