Page 3 of Fractured Devotion
She hesitates. “Doctor—”
“Do it.”
Her mouth flattens into a line, and she turns and exits. I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. The spike shouldn’t have happened. Not this deep into calibration.
I tap the stylus against the glass. The image of Subject 43’s neural map flickers, then clears. I force myself to look away.
Today is already cracked.
By 9:15 a.m., I’m back in my office. The vertical blinds slice sunlight like prison bars across the floor, and the scent of bleach clings to everything here, disinfectant over decay. A reminder.
“You always liked sterility,” a voice says.
I freeze.
Alec.
I turn slowly. He’s standing in the doorway, dressed in that clean, field-hardened way—hospital scrubs beneath a civilian jacket, with stubble like he forgot he was coming back. Or maybe hoped he wouldn’t have to.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I say.
“Director Sharpe pulled strings. I’m on provisional clearance for trauma analytics.”
His eyes move to the wall of awards behind me—the degrees, the framed commendations. None of them matter when he looks at me like that. Like I’m still the woman who used to memorize the lines in his palm instead of clinical maps.
“We haven’t spoken in seven years.”
He gives a slow nod. “And you still keep time like a metronome.”
“Why now?”
“Because I saw your name on a classified trial file and didn’t believe it. Because you said you’d never touch human testing. And because… you disappeared.”
I step around my desk with my hands folded. “People change.”
“You didn’t. Not really. You still disappear. Just into data instead of distance.”
I don’t answer. Instead, I walk to the door and place my palm flat against it.
“You’re dismissing me.”
“I’m directing traffic,” I correct.
A flicker of something crosses his face—pain, maybe, or the ghost of contempt. He lingers for a second longer like he wants to say something, maybe even reach for the thread that’s still between us. But he doesn’t. He just nods once, a subtle concession to a war neither of us is ready to name.
When the door hisses shut behind him, I stay frozen for a breath longer. Not because I miss him. Not even because I hate him. But because his presence was the first ripple in a day that already feels like it’s gathering a storm.
And storms, I’ve learned, never announce themselves twice.
It’s nearly noon, though the clinic’s filtered light makes it hard to tell. The morning dissolved into an endless loop of data, clipped conversations, and the little throb of something I can’t quite name.
Now, I’m expected to play politics. The board meeting looms like an obligatory performance—tight smiles, tight suits, and tighter secrets. The hours have slipped past in a sterile blur, my pulse too steady, my mind too sharp.
The clinical white corridors stretch ahead like a maze I’ve memorized and grown tired of escaping. Each turn leads to another glossy reflection of myself in glass—unbothered, unreadable. A lie I’m used to wearing.
My heels echo off polished tiles like a metronome, the only sound that reminds me I’m still grounded. I pass Mara on my way, but she doesn’t meet my eyes. The tension from earlier still clings to her shoulders, tucked beneath a professionalism that she doesn’t quite wear as tightly as I do.
Outside the boardroom, I pause, and my hand hovers over the biometric panel. Then, I steel my breath, smooth my expression, and step inside.
