Page 3 of Fractured Devotion (Tainted Souls #1)

The clinic’s corridors are emptier now. Boardroom conversations have dissolved into whispers behind closed doors, and the sterile hum of Miramont resumes its usual rhythm. But I don’t return upstairs. Instead, I drift downward.

My stride is slow and unhurried, but each step is purposeful.

The walls here are brushed steel, cold to the touch.

Most staff don’t even know this wing exists—buried beneath Diagnostics, below the behavioral archives.

Only those with unrestricted clearance pass through these corridors without question. I’m one of the few.

A courtesy of Dr. Felix Rourke.

Officially, I’m here to modernize Miramont’s surveillance and biometric integration systems. But unofficially? I’m here to retrieve something much older—buried data, hidden research logs, and proof of what they did to her. To others.

Felix made the introduction, and his influence unlocked doors that should’ve remained sealed. He believes Miramont holds what he needs. And I… I believe Celeste Varon is the key.

At the final biometric checkpoint, I press my palm to the sensor. A soft chime sounds, and the steel doors hiss open.

The surveillance chamber welcomes me with silence and frost. Screens line the far wall, still dark. The only illumination comes from the emergency LEDs under the consoles, casting my shadow in long, eerie streaks. It feels like slipping into water—cold, absolute, and clarifying.

I take a seat.

A few keystrokes bring the screens to life. Dozens of empty rooms flicker across the grid—labs, corridors, waiting chambers. The ordinary rhythm of Miramont. I type in my access sequence, a root-level command masked by a dummy upgrade protocol.

This isn’t about routine security.

This is about her.

Celeste Varon.

The day’s feeds begin to load, and I scrub through hours of her movements. Her lab. Her office. The meeting room. Her body language is clinical, tight. Nothing wasted. But there are tells—subtle shifts in her posture and moments when her eyes drift too long. I make notes.

18:32 – Fidgeting with ring finger. Possible anxiety marker. 20:05 – Lingering outside the surveillance server room. Intentional?

I slow down the playback.

She later stands alone in the boardroom, staring at the darkened monitors after the blackout, when everyone has already left. Her expression doesn’t match the others’. She isn’t surprised. She’s hunting.

I lean in closer.

I don’t have a feed inside her apartment. Not yet. And that bothers me more than I expected.

I make a note. Find insertion points, wiring schematics, and something subtle, organic.

She’s not someone you observe in pieces. You have to watch her whole.

Two hours later, I meet with Dr. Felix Rourke in the sublevel greenhouse—one of the few places where sound doesn’t travel. He’s already seated on a bench, pruning a cluster of invasive orchids with surgical precision.

“You’re late,” he says without looking up.

“You knew I would be,” I reply, folding my arms.

His eyes cut to mine, sharp behind wire-rimmed glasses. “You understand the risk I took in bringing you in. The board thinks you’re here for biometric compliance. You don’t get to improvise.”

“I don’t improvise,” I say. “I adapt.”

Felix stands, brushing his gloves clean. “Celeste cannot know. Not ever. She’s… foundational. Too valuable. If she senses surveillance beyond the norm, she’ll vanish behind protocol so deep that even I won’t find her.”

“I don’t need her permission,” I answer, my voice low. “I need proximity. And answers.”

He studies me. “Then get them quietly. And for God’s sake, don’t underestimate her. She’s more observant than you think.”

“I’m more careful than she can catch,” I mutter as I walk away.

Minutes later, I’m deep inside the archival server access tunnel. This place isn’t meant for surveillance work. It’s a digital graveyard of old footage and discarded trial sessions. But I know what I’m looking for.

Celeste. Seven years ago.

Her tribunal hearing file is buried under layers of classified locks, but I have the keys. I always do.

The footage loads.

She’s younger, yes, but not soft. Even then, she wore her logic like armor. Her voice is steady as she rebuts accusations of ethical violations in neural redirection. The panelists fidget, but she doesn’t. Her confidence slices through the room like a scalpel.

I pause the footage at the seventeen-minute mark. Her mouth is still, but her eyes… her eyes betray something. A flash of doubt, guilt maybe. But it’s gone in an instant.

I reach out and touch the screen.

“You knew the cost,” I murmur.

I save the footage under a new folder. And I name it Fractured Devotion .

It’s not because I think she’s broken.

But because I want to be the only one who sees the pieces.

And put them back the way I want.

Back in my suite, lit only by the glow of interface dashboards and the low throb of the server’s heartbeat, I revisit today’s recordings one more time. I linger on a clip of her exiting the elevator, her shoulders rigid, her gaze unreadable.

Soon.

Soon, I’ll have every angle.

Not just to watch. But to understand.

To unravel.

To rebuild.

The next morning arrives in shades of dull gray, thick with mist and unspoken tension.

I step into the west hallway under the pretense of inspecting motion sensor alignments.

My security badge grants me passage into technical service corridors, unlit and narrow, running like veins beneath the skin of Miramont.

A janitorial drone passes me without pausing. I blend in with my hood low and gloved hands tucked behind my back. Every movement is measured. Every breath is calibrated.

What I’m about to do won’t show up in any internal audits.

The first camera node is nestled into a vent casing outside Celeste’s lab. It’s a temporary fix—thin, disguised as a dust filter, and no larger than a thumb drive. From there, it’ll relay footage to my proxy server, which is untraceable.

I pull up the live feed through a handheld console. She’s inside, arguing with a nurse over patient records. Her tone is sharp, unyielding. I watch her hands as much as her face. She touches her temple when she lies and crosses her arms when she doubts. Even her fury is elegant.

I install two more units before noon: one under the ceiling trim of the neural archive hallway, another discreetly embedded into the corner of a nameplate outside her office. Close, but still not close enough.

Her apartment remains a fortress.

I need more than schematics. I need timing, patterns, maintenance logs, and anything that tells me when her space is vulnerable. No one watches her like I do. No one should. Not even Felix.

Later, in the server monitoring hub, I sift through fragments of the past two weeks. Celeste’s patterns are careful, but not flawless. Three days ago, she paused too long at a junction near the restricted elevator, like she sensed something out of sync.

She’s testing the walls.

I smile.

It’s only fair. So am I.

A flicker on one of the feeds from earlier in the day catches my eye. She’s exiting the boardroom. But something is off. Her hand lingers on the biometric panel longer than necessary. Almost with calculated care.

I rewind, play it again, and zoom in.

Her fingers tap twice after the system clears. It’s not part of the access code. Not necessary.

Was it muscle memory… or a signal?

I lean back, considering.

She’s laying down her own threads.

Good.

Let her spin. I’ll follow every strand until I’m inside the web with her.

And once I am?

There’s only one way it ends.