Chapter Forty-One
Rheda
Morning drags into existence, loud and taunting. Sunbeams turn my charcoal grey blinds into thin, watery white pieces of fabric. The light is painful. It feels like mid-day rather than seven in the morning.
I don’t remember sleeping.
I remember closing my eyes.
I remember waiting.
I remember whispering his name in the dark like a fool.
But sleep... it didn’t happen.
My alarm cuts through my skull like broken glass. I jerk, hand already moving to silence the shriek. I slam it down onto my clock. I miss. My palm connects with wood, sharp and sudden. Adrenaline slices through me, and for a brief moment, it cuts through my hazy vision.
The alarm screams louder like it’s laughing at me.
I slap blindly until my fingers connect with a button and the noise finally stops.
For a moment, I stay here staring at the ceiling. I try to remember what it feels like when he visits. The hot shift in temperature. That strange, cold awareness of another presence pressing against my body. His gravelly voice or consuming touch.
His eyes. The terrible darkness of them. The way they drag over me like a physical touch, claiming every inch as though it’s rightfully his.
But it feels distant, like from memory light years away.
My apartment feels hollow. My bedroom abandoned. I used to love the slow ticking of my clock but now it feels more like bullets in my skull.
I press my fingers to my temples like I can smooth the pain out.
“Great,” I mumble. My voice sounds rough, like I swallowed gravel in the night.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed and stay here for a moment, letting the room steady itself. My mind spins. Nausea rolls through my stomach. I swallow it down before I can ruin my cream carpet.
Lack of sleep.
That’s all this is.
People go one night without sleep all the time.
It’s not a big deal.
Pull yourself together, Rheda.
I stand. Wobble. My hands shoot out like a windmill to steady myself, knees buckling slightly as though I’m using them for the first time. But I’ve got the momentum going and I keep moving, pushing my way into the bathroom.
The tiles are colder than usual. They bite into the soles of my feet as I shuffle toward the shower.
I turn the water on and hover, counting down the seconds before the pipes bless me with steam rather than ice.
I shower slowly. Hot water beads cascade down my shoulders and neck, loosening the tight knot that formed there sometime around three in the morning when I finally gave up pretending he might still come.
I tilt my head forward. The water runs through my hair, down my cheeks, pooling off the tip of my chin. The hot water feels nice. Not good. But not bad. Just...nice.
I lather shampoo into my hair, fingers aching as I try to rub the stress from my scalp. When it comes to my conditioner, I don’t bother waiting for it to sink in. Just a quick pull through with my fingers and then a rinse. The water sloshes. I flinch, the noise a beat too loud for my pounding mind.
I exhale slowly and turn the shower off, drying myself quickly. I pull on the first set of clothes I can find. A dark blouse. Jeans. Nothing special.
I try to wring the water from my hair, but it darkens my blouse.
I glance at my hairdryer. It would only take ten minutes to run some heat through it and stop the discomfort, but the mere thought of the whirling volume screaming into my ears, is enough to make me refuse.
I turn on my feet and exit the bathroom.
I grab my bag and leave before I can talk myself into staying home.
The facility is already awake when I arrive.
I move through the corridor automatically, nodding at a guard who greets me as I pass. My head feels slightly too light, like my thoughts are floating just a few inches above where they’re supposed to be.
I inhale.
Exhale.
Ground yourself, Rheda, I tell myself.
The viewing room door is half open when I get there. Peter’s voice drifts out. “...no engagement. Let him sit with the silence.”
Mike murmurs something in response.
I push the door open.
He glances up from the console. “Good morning!”
“Morning.” I respond automatically.
I glance at them and force a smile I don’t feel. Peter gives me a quick nod, already turning back to the stack of reports on the desk in front of him. The room smells of printer toner and burnt coffee.
I drag my bag beside my chair and sit.
“I’m sure he’ll crack soon. It’s been almost forty-eight hours of sitting there,” He says. He glances toward the one-way glass.
I watch him through the infrared cameras and for a moment, my chest loosens with something close to relief.
He’s still here.
“Vitals steady overnight,” Peter says, sliding a page toward me.
I keep my attention on Deogal.
Blink, damn it. Show me you’re there.
“Rheda?” Peter calls to me, and this time, I reluctantly snap my gaze down to the paper.
“I need you to sign this.” He continues, thrusting a pen out.
“What is it?”
“It’s to say you agree with all our findings.”
I frown. For a second, my mind gives me nothing.
Just a strange, hollow pause where the answer should already be.
“You know,” he says slowly. “For the board meeting this week. The thing we were working on yesterday.”
“Oh.” My voice catches slightly. “Yeah. Yes, I remember.”
I don’t. Not properly.
But Peter is already holding the pen out toward me, watching with the kind of quiet expectation that makes it feel dangerous to hesitate now.
I take it a second too late. The plastic feels oddly warm in my hand. My fingers tighten around it automatically as I lower my eyes to the page. The lines blur for a moment before settling again.
Signature.
Right.
I drag my name across the paper carefully at first, then faster once the motion starts, like muscle memory can cover whatever my brain failed to do.
Peter takes the file back and starts speaking again. I try to follow it. I really do.
But every few seconds my attention slips sideways again, dragged back toward the glass before I can stop it.
Toward him.
A strange urge crawls up my spine.
Get his attention.
I don’t know why the thought feels so important, but it does.
I lean forward in my chair. Just slightly. Just enough to be closer to the glass. My fingers tap once against the desk. He doesn’t react.
The hollow feeling in my chest deepens.
“Rheda?” Mike’s voice appears beside me suddenly.
I startle hard enough that my chair jerks slightly beneath me.
He stands above me with a coffee cup balanced loosely in one hand, his eyebrows lifting the second he gets a proper look at me.
“Jesus,” he says. “You look knackered.”
Heat crawls unpleasantly up the back of my neck. I straighten instinctively, shoulders pulling tight. “I’m fine.”
His eyes flick over me anyway. The shadows beneath my eyes. The stiffness in my posture. The way my fingers haven’t properly unclenched from the file.
“That’s nice,” he says mildly.
I frown. “What?”
“The bracelet.” He says, nodding towards my wrist. “It’s nice.”
I glance down.
For a second, the shape means nothing. There’s a thin band of dark metal circling my wrist. Delicate. Old-looking.
The silver surface is etched with faint lines that twist around the metal in a pattern I don’t recognise.
I stare at it. My pulse ticks.
That wasn’t there this morning.
Was it?
I turn my wrist slowly, examining it. The metal catches under the fluorescent light. It’s cold and unfamiliar. Expensive enough to be obscene.
Something prickles along the back of my neck.
I don’t remember putting this on.
I don’t own this.
“I haven’t seen you wear jewellery before.” Mike says eyes still on it. “It’s beautiful. Suits you.”
There’s something unsaid in his words. Something that rests a little too long. His cheeks fan a dark shade of red, a smile spreading wider like he can’t help it.
“Where did you get it from?”
“Old thing,” I say quickly. “Family.”
The lie comes too smoothly, too easily, like it’s been practised.
I notice the clasp then, and it’s strange. It’s not a normal latch, but more like a thin hooked loop carefully twisted closed. My fingers brush the metal. It’s ice cold.
A sudden flicker tears through my mind.
Stone walls.
Firelight crawling across wet rock.
His hand closing hard around my wrist.
My stomach drops violently.
No.
I pull back from the thought immediately.
That’s ridiculous.
I must’ve put it on this morning and forgotten about it. Half-asleep. Distracted. That’s the only explanation that makes sense.
But the unease keeps spreading anyway.
I hook my nail beneath the clasp and try to force it open. The metal doesn’t even shift. I frown harder and tug again, more aggressively this time. The bracelet bites sharply against my skin but the clasp still refuses to move, twisted so tightly it almost looks fused together rather than fastened.
A cold feeling starts crawling slowly up the centre of my chest.
My fingers find my ID badge automatically.
I grip the plastic hard enough that the edges dig painfully into my palm, grounding myself in the familiar shape of my own name.
DOCTOR RHEDA AINSLEY.
The metal around my wrist stays ice cold anyway. And beneath it, my wrist aches sharply.