Page 87 of Fractured Devotion
I adjusted the volume and looped the bedroom cam footage. Every flicker of her hand and every lean of his body, I dissected it and cataloged it. My chest ached, and my head pounded, but I couldn’t look away. I didn’t want to. I couldn’t. Not when he was there, in my space, with her.
I imagined what she looked like beneath the sheets, if she leaned into him in the dark, and if he whispered anything that made her laugh. Rage scraped me raw inside my ribs.
Not because she betrayed me.
But because she didn’t know yet.
She didn’t know that it’s me who watches over her, who’s seen the parts she hides from everyone, and who would burn this entire place to the ground before I let it swallow her again.
They left around nine. They didn’t leave together, but close enough to raise questions. He left first, not rushed, but not exactly calm either. He looked over his shoulder once before he stepped into the hallway, and even though the cams caught only a slice of his face, it was enough to see his tight jaw and his eyes, which were like a man walking out of a confession booth.
She followed three minutes later with no pause and no hesitation. She adjusted her jacket at the door and walked out like she wasn’t carrying the weight of something new. But she didn’t check her phone and didn’t glance at the cams the way she usually does when she’s on edge. That calm and absence of her usual paranoia wasn’t relief. It was distance.
I watched the footage again. And again. I watched how Alec stood just inside the door before he left, pinching the bridge of his nose, his lips moving like he was muttering something to himself. And then he stepped out.
It was too clean, too careful. And it screamed of something rehearsed, something they didn’t want anyone to notice.
But I notice. I always do.
And what cuts deeper is the silence since. She hasn’t messaged back. Not even a simple reply.
And that tells me everything I need to know.
So when I toggle back to today’s feeds and see him again in Lab C with Reyes, it’s not a surprise. It’s confirmation.
I reach into the bottom drawer, pull out the secure box, and slide it open. The burner is exactly where I left it.
I type a string, a bypass code, into the administrative override. It’s risky, but it gives me a thirty-second window into internal diagnostics—the kind of peek Rourke would crucify me for.
There are new log entries. Alec’s ID pinged three different restricted points in the past 48 hours.
And Reyes? He’s tagged into a dormant sector. One tied to Trial 14’s archival sequences.
I sit back slowly.
So that’s how it’s going to be.
They’re not just talking.
They’re digging.
Well, fine.
Let’s play.
I don’t move from the chair. I just stare at the feed and let the sight smother me. The lights from the monitor cast a dull sheen on my skin, cold and synthetic. The feeling crawls beneath my shirt, down my spine, and into my ribs.
They think I’m not watching.
But I’ve always watched.
I shift, sit forward, and tap into the maintenance logs. It’s not just access this time, but movement. Alec’s pattern has changed. He’s circling higher-level access points, areas he never used to bother with. I trace the logs, slow and steady. Room 9B. Sector F. The old records vault?
Why the hell would Reyes need to be there?
Because that’s where they buried the Trial 14 backup models and behavioral cascade data. The real stuff, not the filtered summaries we’re all fed in board reviews.
I swipe open the system and trigger a silent ping to Rourke’s clearance. Just to see if he knows.
