Page 16 of Heresy (The Lost Gospels #1)
ELEVEN
TESTING THE KING
VERA
I t is Day Eight, or maybe Nine. I no longer measure time in sunrises, but in the shifts of my own internal landscape. My routine has changed. I am no longer just a survivor, enduring. I am a performer on a very small, very cold stage.
The ghost in my head that commands survival has a new mantra: He is watching. Make him see.
I know he is. The small, dark dome in the corner of the ceiling—the zookeeper's eye—is a constant, silent presence. So I give it a show.
I begin with my body, the only territory that is still mine.
Every movement is a message. My muscles scream in protest as I force them into push-ups, the floor a sheet of ice against my palms. The bite mark on my shoulder ignites with a fresh, hot pain with every repetition, a fiery reminder of the stakes.
He wants to see me broken. I will show him the anatomy of a thing that refuses to shatter.
Sit-ups follow until my core is a knot of fire, each contraction a silent "fuck you" aimed at the unblinking lens.
When my body can do no more, I begin the work on my mind.
I sit on the cot, my back ramrod straight, and stare at the blank concrete wall.
But I am not seeing concrete. I am rebuilding my art, a gallery inside my own skull.
I reconstruct a photograph of a rusted ship's chain, focusing on every fleck of oxidation, the way the low sun turned the corrosion into a deep, bloody crimson.
It is a meditation. It is a refusal. I am consciously projecting a strength I'm not sure I possess.
The harsh grate of the metal slot at the bottom of the door announces the morning meal. I expect the usual: a dry sandwich in institutional plastic, a bottle of water. Routine. Sustenance.
But today is different.
The plastic tray slides across the floor. Alongside the familiar bottle is the same sandwich, but next to it sits a single, perfect, red apple. It shines under the dim gray light, a drop of impossible color in my monochrome world.
My first reaction is a jolt of pure, animal surprise. But the ghost is faster. It smothers the feeling with cold, hard analysis.
This is not a kindness. This is a move.
Dmitri used to do this. A small, perfect gift after a night of silent, terrifying punishment.
A gesture designed to confuse, to create a debt, to make the victim grateful for the briefest reprieve.
It is the first step in conditioning an animal: a crumb of reward for still being alive.
He is testing me, trying to see if I am a dog that can be trained with small treats.
My hand is steady as I reach for the tray.
The apple feels heavy, real. A poisoned gift.
I lift it to my lips, my eyes finding the dark, smoked-glass dome in the corner.
I take a slow, deliberate bite. The crunch is loud in the silence.
The juice is sweet on my tongue, a burst of flavor after days of cardboard.
I eat every last piece. Let him see me take the fuel he provides. He thinks he is laying a trap. He doesn't understand. I am gathering my strength. And I will use it against him.
The game has changed.
Hours after the morning tray, long after I've finished my brutal routine, the silence is broken by the harsh scrape of the bolt. It's the wrong time. My body tenses, coiled, but I force myself to remain seated on the cot, a queen on a makeshift throne.
The heavy steel door swings inward. It's not a guard. It's Hex.
He steps inside, his combat boots echoing on the concrete, and the door closes behind him.
The sound of the lock turning is a final, metallic click that seals us in together.
He’s not the enraged animal from the hallway; he's the calculating King, dressed in a clean, dark t-shirt that does nothing to hide the solid muscle of his chest and shoulders.
This version of him is infinitely more terrifying.
In his hand, he holds a book. He moves with a deliberate precision that feels like a performance. He stops before me, close enough that I can smell the faint, clean scent of soap and the ever-present undertones of whiskey and leather.
I watch his hand—a hand capable of such brutal violence, the one that slammed me against the wall—as he runs a thumb over the embossed title on the book's cover. The Americans. Robert Frank. It’s a key to a room in my mind, and his expression says he knows it.
He knows this is the art I love, the kind of brutal, honest beauty I tried to create.
This knowledge is a violation all its own.
He leans down, not looking at me, and places the heavy book on the foot of my cot. The placement is not a gentle offering; it's a strategic move, a claim staked in the center of my territory. Only then do his eyes lift to mine, cold and analytical, gauging my reaction.
My voice is a dry rasp, but I force the words out. "What is this?"
He turns his head slightly, his gaze unblinking. "Sustenance," he says, the word a low rumble.
"I don't want anything from you." The lie feels thin, brittle, and we both know it.
A slow, cold smile touches his lips. He reaches out, not to me, but to the thin gold chain around my neck—a cheap thing I bought for myself eight months ago, a small symbol of the new life I was starting.
His fingers brush against my skin, a touch as cold as his smile, and with a single, sharp tug, he snaps the delicate chain.
He doesn't look at the small pendant as it falls into his palm. He closes his fist around it.
"You already have it," he says, his voice flat.
The words are a chilling clarification; he's not talking about the book. He means his attention, the full, suffocating weight of his obsession. It’s not a gift I can refuse, but a sentence I am already serving.
Without waiting for my reaction, he turns and heads for the door, swinging it open. He unlocks it, steps through, and closes it without a backward glance.
The bolt slides home with a deafening THUD.
He has made his move. He has taken a piece of my new life and replaced it with a piece of my old one, and I am left alone, trembling, with the weight of his declaration.
The heavy THUD of the bolt echoes in the silence he leaves behind.
I stay frozen, listening to the sound of his heavy boots fading down the hallway until they disappear completely.
The silence that rushes back in to fill the void is different now.
It's tainted, charged with the residue of his presence.
My hand instinctively goes to my throat, my fingers finding the bare, cold skin where my cheap gold chain used to be.
He took it. A small, physical trophy of his victory.
A tremor runs through me, but it's not from fear of violence.
It's from the sheer, soul-deep violation of being so completely seen, so expertly and intimately manipulated.
The assault in the hallway was an attack on my body, a fortress I have learned to defend.
But this... this was an infiltration. He bypassed the walls and went straight for the command center, for my mind, my art, the very core of who I am.
My eyes are drawn to the book on the cot. The poisoned gift.
The survivor in me, the ghost that has kept me breathing for two years on a steady diet of suspicion and paranoia, screams at me. It’s a trap. It’s a weapon. Don't touch it. Don't acknowledge it. To ignore it is to resist.
But the other part of me, the photographer, the artist who has been starved of beauty and inspiration for what feels like an eternity, whispers a different, more seductive command.
Beauty. Connection. Art. The temptation to hold something beautiful, to connect with the work that is my entire world, is an overwhelming, physical ache.
I now understand the true, terrifying nature of his siege. He won't just punish me with things I fear. He will tempt me with the things I love most.
The battle rages inside me for what feels like hours, a war between the survivor and the artist. In the end, as always, the artist wins.
My movements are slow, hesitant, as if approaching a sleeping predator.
My shaking fingers reach out and trace the embossed letters of Robert Frank’s name on the heavy cover.
The texture of the high-quality paper is a shock, a memory of a world I no longer belong to.
I pick it up. It feels substantial in my hands, a weight of history, of beauty, of menace.
I open it to a random page. Tucked inside, lying against a stark black-and-white photo of a lonely diner, is another photograph. A single, high-quality, glossy print that doesn't belong.
It’s a picture he took.
My photographer's eye takes over before my mind can process the horror.
The composition is stark, brutally beautiful.
A masterclass in shadow and light. It's an image of a heavy ball-peen hammer resting on a scarred, dark wood table.
Beside it sits a single, empty whiskey glass.
And beneath the hammerhead, a dark, almost imperceptible stain mars the wood.
My breath catches in my throat. I don't know the specific story behind this image.
I don't know whose blood that is, or what skull this hammer might have crushed. But I know this is not a picture of a tool. It’s a portrait of a weapon after it has been used.
It's a still life composed of violence and finality.
It’s a confession. A threat.
And he took this picture. He arranged this scene of brutal consequence and captured it with an artist's eye. He is showing me his work.
I stare at the photograph, my mind reeling. He is speaking to me in the only language he knows I will truly understand. He has taken his world of violent, absolute power and framed it. He is showing me his monstrosity and, with his technical skill, daring me to appreciate its terrible beauty.
He is not just a monster. He is a photographer. And he is showing me his art. The game has changed. This is his first move in a war I don't know how to fight.