Page 92 of Buried in Blood
The motion sensors click softly as I move down the east corridor. No footsteps echo here—too much insulation, too many layers of soundproofing. The only noise is the buzz of the lights overhead and the scuff of my boots on polished concrete.
I stop at the viewing panels. Each room has one.
Just a slit in the wall, covered in reinforced glass, masked from their side. But I see everything.
One girl paces.
Another hums to herself, swaying on the edge of her cot like she’s waiting for a lullaby that never comes.
The boy stares at the wall, unmoving. Perfect. I gave him a little extra sedation yesterday. Just in case.
They’re quiet now. Soft around the edges.
Two more weeks, and they’ll be currency. Transformation incarnate.
Imove to the main control room and run my fingers across the keys without pressing a thing.
I know the codes by heart.
I knoweverythingby heart.
Each camera. Each hallway. Each heartbeat within these walls.
No one breathes without my permission.
I flip open the logbook and mark today’s entries.
— Water intake: Sufficient
— Tranquilizers: Consistent
— Reese’s rounds: Late by 4 minutes
— Harmony: No requests
— Brooke: No incidents
My pen hovers over the last name. Then keeps moving.
I decided to keep Harmony and Brooke with everyone else. It prevents incidents. Like Reese trying to fuck my queen. Well—she was my queen. Fuck her.
I pass through the hall with the broken security camera—still “under maintenance” because I like the blind spot.
It’s the only place I can think.
I lean against the wall and light a cigarette. Blow the smoke toward the flickering emergency light overhead. It makes the haze shimmer like dust caught in sunbeams.
This place is everything the Orchard wasn’t. The Orchard had history. Secrets I didn’t write. The Golden Hollows?
This one’s mine.
Empty for decades and dirty intent. Each room is tagged with initials burned into the framework. Each captive assigned based on compatibility and price bracket. Each pipe, each wall, each vent was inspected by me.
Painstakingly slow. Precise. Perfect.
But Harmony still hasn’t broken.
And that means something in hereisn’tworking the way I want.
