Chapter Forty-Three
Rheda
I enter the building without really registering the journey here, like my body made the decision before my mind caught up. I pass the security man on the front desk.
“Morning,” I say automatically.
He doesn’t even look up. His eyes remain peeled on the newspaper in front of him, eyebrows knitted together, lip curled. He mumbles something under his breath, but I don’t stop to respond. I keep moving through the hallways, past the reinforced steel doors.
I make it halfway down the corridor before my isolation is interrupted.
Mike.
He’s leaning against the door outside of the right side of the wing, scrolling on his phone, coffee balanced precariously in his other hand. As soon as he sees me, he pockets his phone, attention snapping into place.
“Good morning,” he says, his lips already stretching into a smile. Then, it falters. He lets out a short, nervous laugh.
“You look...” he starts, then pauses, forcing his stiff lips into a wide grin. “Great! Have you done something new with your hair?”
Lie.
I see it before the words have even finished leaving his mouth, in the way his eyes dart briefly to the side before settling somewhere above my forehead, anywhere but directly on me. He can’t hold my gaze, and that says enough.
I try to smile. My hands move automatically to smooth down the knots I haven’t properly brushed out after my shower.
He reaches to hold the door for me, awkwardly sticking his foot out to stop the heavy slab from swinging shut. It doesn’t work. The door lurches back toward my face, and I catch it with my hand before it can hit me.
I slip through quickly, trying to put a few paces between us. My head is pounding, thick and relentless behind my eyes, and I’m not in the mood for conversation. But he catches up almost immediately.
“Just us today.” He beams. “Peter’s just finishing up some notes, then he’ll be heading out.”
“Okay.”
“We’re still not to engage with him,” he continues, hurrying a few paces ahead so he can grab the next door before I reach it. “Just babysitting.”
His smile stretches too wide, eyes bright with the kind of nervous energy that makes me more tired just looking at him. He opens his mouth again, like he’s about to say something else.
I step past him before he gets the chance. “Okay.”
He falls back into step beside me anyway. I keep my eyes fixed on the viewing room door at the end of the corridor.
When we push inside, Peter’s hunched onto a console with a stack of files spread around him. His glasses sit low on his nose as he reads, pen moving slowly across a page. He glances up briefly when we enter.
“Morning.”
“Morning,” Mike replies cheerfully.
I murmur something that vaguely resembles the same word, dropping my bag and coat in the usual place. I take my seat, keep my eyes low, busy on retrieving my notebook and pen. I play it cool. Unbothered like this is just another long shift I’m settling down for.
“Vitals were normal overnight,” Peter says without looking up. He shuffles a few pages together and scribbles something in the margin. “No disturbances. No unusual movements.”
Mike drops into the chair beside me with far too much ease.
“Guy’s basically a statue,” he says.
Peter finishes the last line of whatever he’s writing, caps his pen with a soft click, and finally pushes back from the desk.
“Alright,” he says, stacking the reports into a neat pile. “You know the drill. Keep an eye on him and log any changes.”
Mike nods immediately. “Got it.”
Peter looks at me.
“Sure,” I answer, a little too quickly.
Satisfied, he tucks the files under one arm and heads for the door.
“Call if anything changes,” he says over his shoulder.
The door shuts behind him with a heavy, final thud.
The room suddenly feels quieter. I wait for the hum of monitors, but they seem to fade into nothingness. I count down from ten, and then—I can’t help myself. I look at him.
He’s still there. Like time stopped around him and the fluorescent lights, the cameras, the cold recycled air have preserved him there.
Look at me, I beg silently.
Nothing.
His head stays lowered, his body still in that same impossible quiet, like he’s listening to something deeper than this room.
Look at me. Please.
Still nothing.
Minutes drag by so slowly they start to feel physical, thick and suffocating, pressing against my skin. My pulse beats louder. My fingers twitch against the desk. My knee starts bouncing before I even realise it. I stop it. Start again. Stop it.
There’s a sharp, irrational thought that flashes through me so suddenly it makes my stomach turn.
Make him look at you.
My hand moves before I can stop it, lifting from my lap like my body has made the decision without asking permission.
My fingers reach the top edge of the monitor, halfway to doing something I would never be able to justify, before reality hits hard enough to make me snatch it back.
I force my hand down into my lap, gripping hard, nails biting through the fabric as I clamp my thighs shut beneath my fingers.
Heat crawls violently up my neck. If Mike looked at me right now, if anyone did, I think they’d see it written there—something ugly, something slipping.
I stare at the screen like it can erase what just happened.
Breathe.
In. Out.
Again.
I glance over at Mike to see if he noticed. He hasn’t. He’s already reclined in his seat, ankles hooked on top of another chair, face hidden in his book.
The room falls into a strange kind of stillness despite the violence of my heartbeat.
I keep my eyes on the glass.
He doesn’t move.
Mike turns a page.
I shift in my chair. My fingers feel wrong now, heavier somehow, like gravity has only just remembered me. I flex them once, then again, wiggling them under the desk like that might shake the feeling loose.
I glance at Mike. His attention is buried somewhere halfway down the page.
Then back to Deogal.
Then to Mike again.
Make him jealous.
The thought lands so suddenly it almost makes me sit up.
It’s ridiculous. Petty. Completely unprofessional. The kind of thought I should be ashamed of the second it appears, and I am...but not enough to kill it.
Because the moment it crosses my mind, something sharp and electric unfurls in my chest. My pulse stutters. A cold rush of adrenaline moves through me so fast it feels like being caught doing something before I’ve even done it.
I hate how quickly my body responds to it, how easily the idea roots itself.
I lean a little closer to Mike and, at first, he doesn’t notice.
Good.
I shift again, slower this time, careful enough that it looks accidental. Our chairs are close now, nearly touching. His elbow rests loose on the desk beside mine, his body relaxed in that easy, unaware way that makes this feel even worse.
All I have to do is move a little further.
My eyes stay fixed on Deogal through the glass. I wait for something—a glance, a shift, the smallest crack in that stillness. Anything that proves he sees me. That I matter enough to disturb it.
I let my shoulder brush against Mike’s arm.
Mike goes completely still. I see it happen in real time—the stiffening of his spine, the sharp pause in his breathing.
Colour climbs instantly into his ears, pink spreading fast. When he looks at me, his eyes are wide with that startled, hopeful confusion of someone trying not to read too much into a moment while already reading far too much into it.
He doesn’t say anything. Not yet.
I give him a small smile, let my gaze linger a little longer, a bit softer, then turn my focus back to the screen.
It takes him a moment to gather his thoughts before he cautiously turns his focus back to his page.
I can tell he’s no longer reading. His eyes remain trained on one section of the page.
Deogal hasn’t moved though.
Stillness.
Stone.
A flicker of frustration sparks beneath my ribs.
I lean back slightly, wait a moment, then shift again.
This time I let my hand brush Mike’s arm deliberately. His eyes dart down to my hand and then back at me. His face turns red.
I tilt my head slightly. “So, Mike, I was thinking,”
“About what?” His voice is hoarse, low. From the way his skin is flushed, I know he knows what I’m about to say.
I smile. “Maybe we could go for a drink this weekend?”
He startles.
“Wait,” he swallows hard. “Really?”
He falters into silence, and I can almost see it happening—the frantic turning of cogs behind his eyes, every possible meaning being pulled apart and examined for signs he’s not imagining this.
I bite down on the inside of my cheek, hard enough to keep the smile from slipping free. There’s something cruel in the satisfaction of it, in how easy it is, how quickly people will hand you their hope if you lean close enough.
“Yes.”
“You want to date me?”
“I’ll go for a drink with you, yes,” I clarify, slow enough to make him work for every word.
“Great!” He says, a beat too fast. He clears his throat sharply and rolls his shoulders once like he’s trying to push the calmness through his body. “Let’s do it. How about the Tempest Inn on the corner of Mill Road? Does Friday work?”
He races the words like he’s ripping a scab off a wound.
I nod. “Sounds perfect.”
I barely hear whatever he says next. The words pass straight through me, meaningless noise filling space.
There’s no world where I’m actually following through with this.
I’ll cancel later. Family emergency. A sick neighbour.
Lost my phone. Something easy, something forgettable. I’ll invent it when I need to.
For now, I lean a little closer.
Mike looks like I’ve handed him something precious. His eyes go wide, bright and open, all that startled hope spilling across his face so plainly it almost feels intimate to witness.
I know I should feel guilty. I should feel the sting of it somewhere—some decent, human part of me should recoil at the fact I’m using him like this, pulling on his feelings just to satisfy something ugly in myself. I wait for that guilt to arrive.
Nothing.