Page 6 of Heresy (The Lost Gospels #1)

My captor marches me to the very last door at the dead end of the corridor.

Like walking a plank. Like approaching gallows constructed specifically for the ceremony of my transformation from person to possession. Each step down this hallway represents a mile traveled away from the universe where I had rights and choices and agency over my own existence.

He turns the knob and shoves the door open, then shoves me forward into darkness.

I stumble, catching myself against a rough wall that scrapes my palm and reminds me that pain is still possible, that sensation continues even after everything else has been stripped away.

The concrete is cold enough to burn, a temperature that penetrates skin and settles into bones like winter made permanent.

The door stays open.

The angry one—Fuse, I think I heard someone call him—leans against the frame with arms crossed, blocking the only exit with considerable bulk.

He says nothing. Just watches me with the intensity of a guard dog evaluating a prisoner, measuring distance and calculating how quickly he could cover space between us if violence becomes necessary.

My eyes slowly adjust to gloom that seems designed to disorient.

And understanding crashes over me like ice water, freezing every molecule of hope I'd been harboring without conscious permission.

It's not a bedroom. It's a cell.

The walls are bare, unpainted concrete—industrial surfaces that have never known warmth, never been touched by a decorator's hand or a resident's attempt to create a home.

Raw gray surfaces that weep moisture in patterns that speak to poor ventilation and deliberate neglect, a dampness that carries the smell of mold and despair.

A single metal-frame cot huddles against a far wall like abandoned furniture.

The mattress is no thicker than my hand, covered with a thin gray blanket from a military surplus or prison commissary—designed to prevent death from exposure rather than provide rest. The metal frame shows rust stains that could be oxidation or something else entirely.

High on the opposite wall, a small, square window offers a view of a deep gray sky, crisscrossed by thick iron bars like a metallic web.

Even if I could reach it, even if I could break the glass, escape would remain a theoretical concept.

The window doesn't offer hope; it offers just enough light to see how completely trapped I am.

There's nothing else. No table, no chair, no rug. The absence is more devastating than restraints would be. This isn't a prison cell; it's a storage unit for human-shaped objects that no longer qualify for basic considerations like dignity.

I turn back to the door, my heart sinking. There's no handle on this side. No knob. Nothing but a flat steel plate. This isn't a space designed for occupation—it's a container.

The understanding settles into my bones with the weight of absolute truth.

Someone planned this room. Every detail represents a deliberate choice made by people who have thought carefully about how to break human spirits.

The height of the window, the absence of a handle, the cold.

My eyes scan every surface, every corner, hunting for the final detail of the design.

Concrete, steel, bars, a door without a handle.

And there it is. Tucked into the high corner where the wall meets the ceiling is a small, dark dome of smoked glass.

Unobtrusive. Nearly invisible in the gloom. An eye that never blinks.

The cage comes with a zookeeper.

A shadow falls over the doorway, eclipsing the hulking form of my guard.

The President stands there, filling the entire frame with a presence that transforms oxygen into a scarce commodity.

He doesn't enter the room—doesn't need to.

His authority extends into every corner, a psychological gravity that bends reality around his will.

He just looks at me.

His gaze sweeps over my face, my torn shirt, my trembling hands with clinical detachment that carries more menace than anger ever could.

Not rage. Not desire. Just a cold, methodical assessment that catalogs every detail for future reference.

He's memorizing my face, my fear, my diminished state.

Gauging my strength, looking for cracks in foundation that he can exploit when circumstances require a different approach.

It's the look of someone deciding whether I'm worth keeping alive.

The examination continues for a long, silent moment that stretches my nerves to breaking point.

Each second feels like tiny eternity, measured in heartbeats and gradual erosion of whatever dignity I have left.

His eyes are unreadable pools that reflect nothing back—no compassion, no cruelty, just calculation proceeding according to algorithms I'll never understand.

After what feels like geological time, he gives a slight, almost imperceptible nod.

Not to me. Not acknowledgment of my humanity or recognition of my terror.

Just professional assessment complete, data gathered, decision reached according to criteria that exist entirely outside my comprehension or influence.

I am now categorized, filed, assigned value according to a system that operates beyond my ability to appeal or negotiate.

He steps back.

The heavy door slams shut with sound like cannon fire, like tectonic plates shifting, like the universe folding in on itself and taking everything I used to be along for gravitational collapse.

Then I hear it—deafening, metallic THUD as a heavy bolt slides into place on the outside, mechanical punctuation that ends sentences I never wanted to start.

The sound of my old life ending.

The sound of my new cage being locked.

The finality of that mechanical click echoes in the concrete tomb. How many women have stood where I’m standing, listening to that sound, understanding their story as a free human has ended? But my story has ended before. I have been a ghost before. This is just a new kind of cage.

I press my back against the cold wall and slide down to the concrete floor. The dampness seeps through my jeans, but I don't care. Comfort is a luxury for people with choices.

I wrap my arms around my knees and let the reality wash over me.

I am no longer Vera Ivanov. That name was a shield, a passport to a life of quiet anonymity I built from the ashes of another. She was a photographer. A survivor. Now, that version of me is gone, too, locked away with the life she fought for.

I am property again. Owned by new monsters. These ones smell of leather and gasoline instead of expensive cologne and silent, gilded rooms, but the math of ownership is the same. They decide if I breathe based on calculations I’ll never understand.

In the distance, I can hear the life of the clubhouse continuing as normal.

But in this concrete tomb, in this manufactured silence, I understand my real story is just beginning.

The woman who ran through shipping containers, the one who called herself Vera—she died when that door slammed.

She was the second version of me, a creature of hope and shadow.

The first version died years ago in a different cage, a prettier one with no visible bars.

Death by revelation is a familiar friend.

What remains is something else entirely. Something harder. Something that will have to remember the old rules, the first mathematics of survival I thought I’d escaped for good. I will have to discover what exists beyond hope, what grows in soil where dreams have been systematically killed.

I close my eyes and let the darkness teach me its oldest lesson: Hope is a weapon they can take away. But they can’t stop you from forging new ones from the rage that remains. And I have so much more rage than they could ever imagine.