Page 41 of Fractured Devotion
“As far as I know. I didn’t want to log it into the official system until I showed you. I wasn’t sure if it was… internal.”
I nod my head. “You did right. Thank you.”
She turns, nods once, and disappears out the door.
The moment she’s gone, the silence deepens. But it’s not emptiness. It’s anticipation.
I glance toward the flash drive.
Some files from it still stay a mystery, unopened.
I should open them now, not because I’m ready, but because I need to be.
The screen flares softly as I connect the flash drive, then populates with lines of text, data grids, and embedded video files. Some are labeled by date, others by number, and some by names I haven’t spoken in years.
I open one.
It’s a short clip. There’s static, and then the audio kicks in. A voice—mine—from over six years ago. The tone is brittle and clinical, detached in the way only someone who isdeeplyattached can sound.
“Subject displayed favorable compliance in response to auditory recalibration. Threshold sensitivity dropped below the resistance curve by hour four. Emotional indexing remains in flux. Recommend delayed conditioning.”
My breath catches in my chest.
I remember this trial, and I remember how it ended. I remember the subject’s sobs during hour five and how the data clipped them down into neat bars and unfeeling spikes.
A knock comes again, and this time, it’s soft and hesitant. It pulls me from the data, and it’s not jarring, but deliberate. “Come in,” I call out.
Alec enters.
His coat is unbuttoned, a subtle departure from his usual neatness. He looks tired, more than usual, and when our eyes meet, something unreadable flickers there. He closes the door behind him, but he doesn’t speak right away. Instead, he walks to the chair across from me and lowers himself into it.
“You look like you need a reason to stop staring at that screen,” he says.
I let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. “Was it that obvious?”
He smiles faintly. “Only to someone who’s done the same thing.”
The silence between us isn’t uncomfortable. It’s weighted, yes, but not suffocating. He leans forward, his arms on his knees, watching me without pressing.
“I saw Kade come in earlier,” he says suddenly, too casual to be nothing. “Didn’t realize he made office visits now.”
I tilt my head, a small smirk forming. “He dropped off a folder. That’s all.”
“Right,” Alec murmurs, his gaze flicking away before returning. “Just a folder.”
“Don’t tell me you’re jealous,” I say, my voice cool but edged with something sharper. “You know I prefer substance over spectacle.”
He breathes a short laugh, the tension around his eyes easing slightly. “I’m not jealous,” he says. “Just observant.”
“Then keep observing,” I say, my voice softer now. “But don’t make assumptions you’re not ready to prove.”
“You looked at the files in the drive yet?” he asks all of a sudden, changing the topic.
I nod. “Some of them. I couldn’t go further yet.”
“I looked through some of it before I passed it to you. Not all, but enough to know it wasn’t nothing. Reyes didn’t tell me anything, though. He just said you’d understand what mattered.”
I glance back at the screen. “There’s too much. And none of it feels like the past. It feels like something is still moving beneath the floor.”
