Page 40 of Make Them Cry
“I tell her this might be someone she trusts, I break something I can’t fix.”
Silence sits heavy for a beat.
Arrow says, “We’ll be careful. We’ll be right.”
“Be fast,” I say. “Whoever this is, they’re bold. And bold people escalate when they feel safe.”
On-screen, the HR session logs off Cathedral, wipes cookies, clears history.
They know their way around a machine.
They don’t know they left their scent on my blade.
When the roomempties and the fans are the loudest thing left, I text one person.
MASK:Sleep. Cameras are on. Doors are locked. You’re safe.
Two dots. Then:
RIVER:Promise?
I stare at the word until my vision blurs.
MASK:Promise.
I set the phone face down and scrub both hands over my face.
Behind a wall, the woman I’ve been pretending not to love is dreaming under a blue blanket while somewhere, in a bright office with inspirational quotes on the wall, a familiar pair of hands wipes a keyboard clean.
Static hisses in my ears.
Regent didn’t take the bait.
But someone closer did.
THIRTEEN
RIVER
The safe house is too quiet to sleep.
The fridge hums. Pipes sigh. My body remembers fear even when the room is soft and the locks are new. I flip my pillow. I flip myself. I am a rotisserie of anxiety and stale hope.
Practice, I tell my brain. Do something with the energy before it chews you alive.
I climb out of bed and pad barefoot to the open space we cleared. Hoodie, shorts, hair up. I dust off a cupcake before I set my feet the wayheshowed me—weight low, thumbs outside. My shadow stretches long across the wall.
“Center of gravity,” I whisper, and a phantom touch slides through my memory. A gloved hand guiding my hip, the warm line of a forearm brushing my arm as he corrected my stance. I breathe and move. Jab. Step. Reset. Again.
By the tenth repetition, the fear has melted into heat. Not panic. Different heat. Stubborn, low, coiling through me every time I hear his voice in my head.
Obey me.
God help me, I want to.
I crawl back into bed, muscles loose, pulse not. The sheets are cool. My skin isn’t. I drag the blanket up and let my eyes close. The safe house fades, and the room reshapes itself into something darker, warmer—his presence filling the doorway like it did the other day, only closer.
In the dream, Mask doesn’t speak at first. He stands beside the bed, hood up, the black fabric of the mask turning his eyes into secrets. He reaches for my wrist like he did on the mat, slow, deliberate, and turns my hand palm-up.
