Page 33 of Heresy
“You found something,” he says, not asking.
“Everything,” I reply.
We walk the four flights down to my office in silence. I close the door, leaving him outside. I need the solitude. I need to process the victory.
But it doesn’t feel like a victory.
I sit at my desk, the photography book open before me. I stare at the image of the hammer, my “art.” The cold satisfaction I felt when I took the picture is gone. Replaced by what?
The deconstruction in her cell wasn’t just a punishment for her; it was a performance for me. A way to reassert the control I felt slipping, the cold, calculating king putting the emotional, impulsive animal back in its cage. I needed to prove to myself that I was still the one in command, that her defiance hadn't cracked my foundations.
I succeeded. I saw true fear in her eyes. I broke through her defenses and touched a nerve from a life she thought she had buried. I won the battle.
So why does it feel like I’m losing the war?
I look from the photo of the hammer to the live feed of her cell on my monitor. She is not pacing. She is not exercising. She is sitting on her cot, perfectly still, staring at the wall where the barred window casts a pale, gray rectangle of light. She is rebuilding her fortress, brick by silent, defiant brick.
The splinter isn't gone. I haven't removed it. I’ve just proven how deep it goes. And in doing so, I’ve lodged it even deeper in myself. My obsession with understanding her, with breaking her, has become the new center of my universe. The war with Cain, the needs of my club… they are distant noise. The only thing that feels real is the silent, psychological war being waged between me and the woman in that cell.
I close the book. The lesson wasn't for her. It was for me. I’m the one trapped in a cage of my own making, haunted by ghosts I can’t exorcise, staring at a woman whose will may be strongerthan my own. And the terrifying, unspoken truth that hangs in the silence of my office is that I’m not sure I want to win.
FIFTEEN
A KEY OF BREAD AND BONE
VERA
The sound of the bolt sliding back no longer makes my heart leap. It's been three days since he stood in this cell and methodically dismantled me, not with his fists, but with a name from my past and a stolen book. Three days since he took the last weapon I thought I had: the illusion that I was an unknown quantity.
A new prospect stands in the doorway. He's little more than a boy, with nervous eyes that refuse to meet mine. He jerks his head, the silent, now-familiar command to follow. The walk down the four flights of stairs is the same, but the atmosphere I descend into is completely different.
The clubhouse is a ghost of itself.
Before, it was a beast, loud and snarling, a place of constant, aggressive energy. Now, it's a tomb. The main room is mostly empty, the air stale and quiet. The usual pack of patched members is gone. Hex is gone. Rook, Zero, Fuse… all of them. Vanished. The war with the Sin Santos, it seems, has finally moved from the planning stages to the battlefield.
I am escorted to my usual isolated table in the corner. My cage has been upgraded from concrete to a few square feet of scarred wood, a silent island in a sea of emptiness. The onlyother signs of life are a few club girls, their faces etched with a boredom that borders on despair, wiping down empty tables with listless movements. Two other prospects are engaged in a half-hearted game of pool, the clack of the balls echoing unnaturally in the quiet room.
They brought me down from my cell to be among people, but the people are gone. The roaring chaos I had begun to map has been replaced by a hollow, unnerving silence. Before, I was a ghost because I was forbidden to interact. Now, I am a ghost because there is no one left to haunt.
He took the book. He took my secrets. And then he left.
The punishment, I realize with a chilling certainty, wasn't just the deconstruction in my cell. It is this. The utter, absolute dismissal. He solved the puzzle of me, and then, like a child with a new toy he has already broken, he simply got bored and walked away. The silence he has left in his wake is a far more profound prison than the one with the steel door.
I sitfor what feels like an hour, a statue in the corner, my glass of water untouched. The silence is a different kind of torture from the cell. It’s a hollow, empty thing, filled with the ghosts of the men who are absent. I am a prisoner in a castle with no king.
Then, a subtle shift. A shadow falls over my table. I don't look up, my muscles automatically tensing for a confrontation I don't have the energy for.
"Tough day at the office?"
The voice is female. Soft, with a cynical edge. I slowly lift my head. It's one of the club girls, the blonde they call Angel. She’s holding an empty tray, her hip cocked, a look on her face that is a practiced mixture of boredom and pity. Her eyes flick nervouslytoward the empty corners of the room before landing back on me. She is breaking a very serious rule.
I don't respond. My mind is a flurry of calculations. Is this a test? Is she a pawn sent by Hex to gauge my state of mind? Kindness in a cage is always a weapon.
She seems to read my suspicion. She gives a small, humorless laugh. "Relax, honey. The cat's away. The mice are just trying not to get stepped on." She gestures with her head toward the prospects at the pool table. "He's gone. They all are. Something big is happening with the Santos."
I remain silent, my face a mask. I will give her nothing.
She sighs, leaning closer, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Look, I just... I saw what happened in the hallway the other night. We all did." A flicker of genuine sympathy crosses her face. "That was rough. Even for him."
