Page 17 of Fractured Devotion
She moves through the west wing hall with her usual grace, clinical in pace but frayed around the edges.
I wait, curious and alert.
She passes the elevator without hesitation. She doesn’t pause and doesn’t swipe her badge for the third floor.
She doesn’t return to her backup apartment.
A subtle pivot. Intentional. My pulse responds.
I shift gears, rising from my seat with practiced calm and pulling on a jacket thick enough to blend into the night’s chill. Tonight’s forecast is overcast with brief pockets of moonlight, just enough to hide behind.
If she’s not sleeping here, then she’s going to the other place. The one that’s five minutes down the mountain path. The one with no cameras, no nodes, and no access.
At least not yet.
I follow her from a distance, far enough not to cast a shadow beside hers. The sky’s grown a dull charcoal, with fognesting over the mountain ridges. She walks with her shoulders squared, brisk and determined. She’s heading for her primary apartment—the one outside the clinic bounds.
I keep to the trees as the path curves. She lives five minutes out, and I have already memorized the floor layout of her apartment. Tonight, I will study it in real time.
Once I’m certain she’s home, I wait.
An hour passes, and lights flicker behind drawn blinds. There are no signs of movement. I return to the clinic and head straight for the administrative floor. The air feels sharper now, colder. My steps echo in the long hallway.
Inside her office, I disable the silent sensor and slip in. It smells faintly like lavender and ink. Then, I install a new surveillance node beneath her desk and another behind the vent plate. It’s small, flawless, and impossible to notice.
Then, I head upstairs to the third floor above the clinic. Her secondary apartment.
I unlock the lock using a magnetic override and let myself in.
It’s spartan and organized, with everything in grayscale. It feels like a place where someone hides from the world.
I place the last two nodes—one in the bookshelf and the other inside the wall fixture above her bed.
Now, I’ll see more. Hear more.
Understand more.
And when the moment comes, when the truth surfaces, I’ll be the only one prepared.
Because what haunts her is mine to hold.
And I’m already beneath her skin.
Chapter 8 – Kade - Hush of the Hunter
Morning sneaks in with no fanfare. Just gray light through grid windows and the mechanical hum of unseen machines. I’m back at my console before six, already wired with black coffee and obsession.
Celeste didn’t return to the clinic last night. I tracked her path to the edge of the woods, waited until her apartment lights glowed faint behind curtained glass, then returned here to finish what I started. The nodes are in place in her office, lab, and backup apartment. Her world is mapped now, mostly.
But mostly still isn’t enough.
She still eludes full capture. Even with every angle monitored, she leaves me guessing. It’s intentional… that calculated calmness. That mournful, unfocused stare she wears when she thinks she’s alone. The girl’s not just haunted. She’s hexed. And I’ve never been more drawn to anything in my life.
I don’t have direct access to her main apartment. Not yet. But what I do have is grainy exterior surveillance from nearby traffic cams and a secondary hallway feed that catches shadows through her curtain gap. It’s just enough to make out shapes, enough to guess.
Behind the soft curtain glow, her silhouette moves in restless loops—pacing and pausing. At times, her shadow bends forward as if seated, possibly journaling again, but it’s impossible to tell from this distance. Around three a.m., the lights dim, and her form sinks out of view, suggesting she’s collapsed on the couch. The window holds nothing but shadows now, vague and distant. But I watch all the same.
I record every frame. And then I watch again.
