Chapter Thirty-Two
Rheda
I keep my eyes on my notebook, forcing myself to write even though the words barely register once they hit the page.
Subject remains seated.
My handwriting looks wrong again. I press harder.
The silence starts getting under my skin after a while. I become too aware of myself inside it. My breathing. The pulse in my wrists. The microphone switch sitting inches from my hand.
Don’t touch it.
My fingers twitch anyway.
I can still picture the screenshot perfectly. Water dripping down his throat. His hands cuffed together. The bruising.
Blood everywhere.
My stomach twists.
I force my eyes lower, staring so hard at the paper that the words begin to blur
And then his voice cuts clean through me. “Come here.”
The words ripple around my mind, dark and heavy. There’s gravel in the sound, a roughness like fire scraping over coal. Not loud. Not shouted. Worse than that—quiet and certain, intimate in a way that makes my skin tighten.
And I hate that I notice it’s the same voice from my dream.
Deogal.
My pen slips from my fingers and clatters against the desk. The noise is sharp in the small room. My body locks, blood draining so fast I feel it behind my eyes.
I freeze.
The words stain everything. It feels like chains tightening around my throat, one link at a time, tugging me forward without touching me.
I don’t want to look.
I look.
Shadows stare back. I can’t make anything out of it and yet, I can’t move. I can’t blink properly. I’m transfixed under his glare. I realise I’m holding my breath again—and I don’t know when I stopped breathing.
My vision tunnels. The sounds warp. The hum of monitors becomes a distant roar, like I’m underwater. I catch myself reaching for my badge again. The movement is automatic now, desperate in a way I don’t want to examine too closely.
And Mike doesn’t react.
“Mike,” I whisper.
I swallow hard, the lump in my throat threatening to choke me.
“Mike.” I try again. “Look.”
He glances up, frowning. “What?”
“He—" my throat closes around the word as if my body refuses to let me say it. “Spoke.”
The word tastes insane. It catches on my tongue.
“Wait. What?” he freezes. “It didn’t beep though.”
My chest seizes.
“Mike,” I say and it comes out pitched.
He finally moves. He shoves forward, hand already on the controls, rewinding the footage with a quick jerk. The room fills with the soft scratch of playback, the tiny mechanical sound suddenly too loud.
My heartbeat turns violent. I lean in before I realise I’m leaning, drawn toward the screen like the answer is waiting to be extracted.
The CCTV roars to life, infrared technology revealing him in the dark.
On screen, Deogal is frozen in his familiar stillness, head bowed, eyes down.
I crowd the monitor without meaning to. My whole back pulls inward, hovering in suspense.
The timeframe kicks forward. But no sound rings through.
“What?” I croak. “Go again.”
Mike scrubs the footage back, slower this time.
Something sick rolls low in me.
The sound is still there in my head.
Come here.
I clamp down on the thought hard enough to hurt.
“Rheda,” Mike says carefully, “are you sure you heard him speak?”
“Yes.” I say too quickly.
Mike runs a hand down his face and exhales. His brows furrow, lines cutting into his forehead as he stares at the monitor like he’s not able to look me in the eye.
“Could’ve been... I don’t know,” he mutters, searching for something safe. “The intercom? Feedback?”
No.
“I know the difference between a machine and a voice. I know what I heard.”
I turn my gaze to the glass again, throat tight.
Deogal sits with his head bowed as if the last five minutes never happened. As if he hasn’t just reached through the room and wrapped something around my mind.
No.
Stop.
What the fuck are you thinking?
This is real life. Cameras don’t ignore the truth.
I made it up. I must have.
I force a slow inhale. The air tastes like warm electrics. I make my face to do what I’ve trained it to do: soften and neutralise.
“Sorry,” I say quickly. “I think I just...”
My laugh catches halfway out. “God, I don’t know. Maybe I’m more tired than I thought.”
Mike smiles. Relief flickers across his face so fast it’s almost insulting.
“Hey,” he says, gentler. “You’re not dramatic. You’re just—” he pauses, searching for the right word, but fails. He exhales. “This case is a lot.”
“Yeah,” I agree. “It’s a lot and I’m tired. That’s all.”
I pick my pen up off the desk with careful fingers, like I’m holding something fragile. My hand trembles once. I force it still.
I glance at my notebook, at the page still open.
Subject seated. Minimal movement.
I stare at it. My pen moves.
No vocalisations.
I add slowly, almost like if I write it down, it will become true.
Mike shifts beside me, trying to reset the atmosphere. He taps the edge of his book with two fingers, like it’s a harmless offering.
“Want me to read something out loud?” he jokes. “Lighten the mood?”
A laugh almost escapes me. Almost. It would be nice to pretend this is normal, to let the moment fade away. But my skin still remembers the voice like a bruise remembers the fist.
“No,” I say with a small, forced smile. “If you start reading about murderous little girls, I’ll never sleep again.”
Mike snorts.
“Fair,” he leans back. “Though, you’re missing out.”
My heart continues to pound violently. I push forward. “I’m just going to splash some water on my face. I’ll be back in ten.”
He nods his head, already turning back to his book.
I move to the bathroom quickly, stopping in front of the mirror.
My eyes look wrong. My pupils are blown, face flushed like I’ve run a mile instead of walking twenty steps from the observation room. I lift a hand and press two fingers against my throat, feeling for a pulse. It ticks back at me. Steady. Normal.
Almost mocking.
I lean closer, like if I look hard enough, I’ll find evidence that someone else is looking back at me.
My lips are a little sore, I realise absently. Dry. Probably dehydrated. I haven’t been drinking enough water.
I stare at my reflection and wait for it to blink first.
I huff out a quiet breath.
Get a grip, Rheda.
I reach for the tap and turn it on too hard.
Water slams into the porcelain basin and splashes up my wrists, cold and sharp, staining my crimson sleeves a deep shade of brown.
I tilt the tap handle until the water runs slower.
I cup it, throw it into my face once, twice, three times until the shock bites and my breath stutters.
I lean closer to the mirror, gripping the basin.
He didn’t speak.
I repeat it like a mantra.
He didn’t speak.
He didn’t say a word.
I hold the thoughts in place like weights, pressing them down until they stop squirming.
Sleep deprivation does strange things to the mind. Stress compounds it. I’ve written about this; diagnosed it in others. I know how this works.
And yet—the memory sits heavy in my chest with an undeniable weight, not sharp, not loud, but just...there.
The way my stomach dropped. The way the hairs prickled on my neck like something had brushed past it. I was certain that he spoke.
My fingers tighten around the edge of the basin until my knuckles pale.
I want something to blame.
Him. The room. The speakers. The cameras. My lack of sleep. Anything that makes everything feel more safe.
But blame needs shape, and this doesn’t have one yet.
I splash my face again, then straighten.
My shoulders move backwards, spine straightening into alignment.
Posture helps. It always does. It makes me feel more in control like I deserve a space in this prison.
I square myself in the mirror and make a point of smoothing my hair, checking my blouse, adjusting my collar.
Normalising.
That’s the word that floats up. That’s what this is. A moment of instability acknowledged and corrected.
The tap drips once.
Twice.
Each sound lands too distinctly. It lands too heavy in the room, too deliberate—and my skin tightens like I’m waiting for a command that never comes.
I curl my fingers into the paper towel until the shaking subsides, blotting my face until the beads stop running down.
Control is not something you feel.
It’s something you do.
I turn away from the mirror before it tricks me that I’m not really fine.