Page 63 of Fractured Devotion
One turns into two. Then three. The weight in my chest loosens its grip.
I claim a booth in the back corner, the kind that hugs your body and your secrets in equal measure. The cracked leather creaks beneath me as I sink deeper, my fingers curling around the glass.
Kade’s voice replays in my mind over and over. It’s the same van, same guy, same plates. Parked with purpose.
So I’m not spiraling. I’m not imagining things.
Someone is watching me.
It’s a small relief. And an even bigger terror.
My mind goes back to my own findings about the same van and its fake plate, but I couldn’t tell that to Kade.
Around midnight, I leave the bar. My steps are slow, heavy with heat and liquor, but measured. My apartment isn’t far. And there’s no van in sight.
Not that I trust that.
I reach my building door and linger, my eyes scanning the shadows, the parked cars, and the street’s too-perfect stillness. It looks clean. Untouched.
I go inside.
As I enter my apartment, I peel off my coat and let it fall.
In the kitchen, I grab a leftover container from the fridge, throw it in the microwave, and program it to heat for ninety seconds. The hum of the machine fills the room as I pad down the hall and undress with slow, almost ceremonial movements.
Everything about tonight needs to come off. My jacket, shirt, bra, and jeans. The tank top and shorts I pull on afterward feel like borrowed skin.
Back in the kitchen, I retrieve the warm food, take a few bites standing by the counter, then carry the rest to the couch. The cushions accept me like an old friend.
I eat slowly, my mind blanking with each mouthful until the fork falls from my hand and the plate slips to the side. I blink, then push off the couch, too tired to process much, and walk down the short hallway toward the bedroom.
I collapse onto the bed without ceremony. My body sinks into the mattress, my limbs heavy and unruly from the liquor and whatever tension has been living in my spine for days. The sheets are cool against my skin. Familiar. I roll onto my side and close my eyes.
Sleep drags me under fast, before I can question anything else.
I don’t notice the faint red light blinking once above the closet door.
Until it’s morning.
And far too late.
I wake to a metallic taste in my mouth and the distinct scent of antiseptic under my skin. It’s not real. It can’t be real. But it lingers like the phantom pressure of something Idon’t remember consenting to. My eyes open slowly, catching the faintest spill of morning light against my bedroom wall. It’s noon. Later than I intended. Later than usual.
I sit up, the sheets crinkling beneath me, too cold against my legs. My mind is already busy, sifting through fragments I didn’t dream but remember. The sounds. A presence in the dark that wasn’t mine. A rhythm that repeats.
I shower quickly, trying not to think about the eyes I swore I felt the night before. There’s no evidence of them now. There’s no van, no window cracked the wrong way. Nothing but the persistent sense of being threaded into someone else’s narrative. It makes my stomach tighten.
I skip breakfast. I don’t want the taste. Instead, I run my fingers over the spine of the journal on my table. The one I restarted last week. The one I keep writing in with someone else’s handwriting.
It’s time to see Reyes.
The day at Miramont moves at a crawl, muffled in its own stillness. My boots echo too sharply on the polished floors. People glance at me, but I don’t meet their eyes. If I see recognition there, I might break something.
At my desk, I pull up the revised logs Mara flagged two days ago. It started with the diagnostics suite. A timestamp she hadn’t scheduled. Then, again, in the simulation lab. Minor entries and nothing damaged or corrupted, just out of place. Too consistent to be accidental.
And today, there’s another. My name… in a module I never accessed.
I feel it. The slow creep of dread, crawling up the base of my spine. Someone’s still inside. Someone who knows how to wear my ID like a second skin.
