Page 46 of Fractured Devotion
But I always look.
Because there’s a moment, just after she exhales, where she lets go. Her mask thins, and her guard drops.
And it feels like something real is bleeding through the silence.
My chest aches with something sharp and ugly.
I could watch her forever.
“Excuse me?”
I jolt. Not visibly, but it’s close. The waitress, maybe nineteen, stares at me with a polite smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes.
“Would you like anything?”
I clear my throat. “Coffee. Black.”
She nods and walks away. I catch the smell of steeped tea from the next table and nearly grimace.
The tea here tastes like floral regret. But the coffee… well, at least it’s not lying about what it is.
I glance back at the screen.
Celeste is asleep now, with one hand curled near her cheek. The book she’d pulled from the shelf earlier has slipped from her fingers and is now resting against her thigh, the pages fanned open like it’s still trying to be read. The flash drive she always keeps close rests on the end table, untouched.
I stare at it, at her.
She doesn’t know how exposed she is.
And I don’t know how much longer I can keep watching without touching the edges that she doesn’t show anyone.
Eventually, I kill the feed.
Outside, the van is still parked at the same spot. But there’s movement inside now, just a flicker behind the glass.
I step out of the bakery with my coffee and cross to the alley beside the van. There are no alarms, no second ping.
But there’s a camera rig wired into the headrest, and it’s civilian-grade, not clinic-issued.
Interesting.
I walk away like I never stopped, my steps even, my pulse steady.
Tomorrow, I’ll have that plate number traced. Whoever’s watching her has no idea what she’s capable of.
But I do.
And if they miscalculate…
They’ll break themselves on her long before they break her.
Chapter 16 – Celeste - The Shape of Her Silence
It’s 6:13 a.m. when I wake up, not from sleep, but from a too-stillness that feels wrong. It’s the kind of stillness that hovers, presses, and waits. I’m on the couch, half-blanketed, with the same book lying open on my thigh, the spine arched like it’s exhaling with me. The lamp is still on.
The flash drive is exactly where I left it. I don’t remember falling asleep, and I don’t remember dreaming either.
But I feel watched.
