Page 6 of Ruthless Knot

The world looks different upside down.

Better, maybe. More honest.

Blood rushes to my head in a dizzying spiral, my long bubblegum-pink hair hanging like silk curtains toward the scuffed floor of my room—if you can call this concrete box with rusted pipes and flickering fluorescent lights a room. The aerial ring spins slowly, creaking with each lazy rotation, the metal biting into the backs of my knees where I've hooked myself like some deranged circus performer.

Which, I suppose, is exactly what I am now.

What we all are in this godforsaken sector.

Summer Walker's voice pours from the speakers I jury-rigged to the exposed ceiling beams, that slowed reverb track making every word feel like it's being dragged through honey and broken glass. The bass vibrates through the ring, up through my suspended body, settling somewhere deep in my chest where all the broken things live.

I gave you my all and you played with my heart…

My right hand moves in fluid strokes across the cream-colored paper balanced precariously on my stomach, the fountain pen—black with gold filigree, stolen from the academy's administrative office three months ago—gliding in cursive loops that would make my dead mother proud.

If she were alive to see what her perfect little ballerina has become.

I giggle.

The sound echoes wrong in the small space, bouncing off concrete walls painted in peeling gray that might have been white once, before this place became a graveyard for girls like me. Girls who survived things we shouldn't have. Girls who came out the other side with teeth.

"Ro," I call out, my voice slightly strained from the position but still sing-song sweet, "do you think he's ghosting me?"

A mechanical whir responds before the synthesized feminine voice fills the room—British accent, because I programmed her that way during one of my manic episodes when I couldn't sleep for seventy-two hours straight and rewired half the tech in my cell.

"Analyzing query," Aphrodite—Rofor short, because even virtual assistants deserve nicknames—responds with that perfect AI politeness that somehow sounds judgmental. "Based on previous correspondence patterns with entity designated 'S.W.,' current communication gap of forty-seven days exceeds established baseline by thirty-two days. Probability of intentional cessation: forty-seven percent. Probability of external interference: thirty-eight percent. Probability of?—"

"Okay, okay, I get it." I wave the pen dismissively, nearly dropping it. A droplet of ink falls, landing on my exposed midriff—right over the scar that runs horizontal across my ribs. The one from that night. "You're basically saying you don't knowshit because you're artificial intelligence and human behavior is wildly unpredictable."

"Correct. Though I would phrase it more eloquently."

"You would."

I go back to writing, my penmanship slightly wobbly from the angle but still legible. Still pretty. Stillme—the girl who was raised on perfect posture and prettier lies, who learned that presentation matters even when everything inside is rotting.

Dear S.W.,

It's been 47 days since your last letter. Forty-seven. Not that I'm counting obsessively or anything—except I totally am because my brain won't let me NOT count things. You know how it is. Or maybe you don't. I don't actually know anything about you except that you have terrible handwriting, surprisingly good taste in philosophy, and a habit of going radio silent just when I start to think maybe I'm not entirely alone in this nightmare.

Are you dead? Did you finally piss off the wrong person in whatever fresh hell you're trapped in? Did you just get bored of the crazy Omega who writes letters in blood and talks about murder like other people talk about the weather?

If you're alive, I'd really appreciate some indication. Even just your name would be nice. S.W. is getting old. I've made up approximately thirty-seven different versions of what it could stand for. My current favorite is "Seriously Wounded" because it feels appropriate for anyone who'd willingly correspond with me.

Anyway. I'm going to the post office today. It's a whole production in the Ruthless sector—you know, because breathing is a privilege here, and walking to get your mail is basically a declaration of war. But I've earned my mailbox.Paid for it in ways that still make my hands shake when I think about it too hard.

So I'll send this and hope it reaches you. Hope you're not dead. Hope you haven't forgotten about the girl with pink hair and mismatched eyes who's probably more insane than you realized.

Write back.

Please.

— S.E.

I pause, the pen hovering over the paper. My foot twitches—first position, second position, third position—the ballet positions cycling through muscle memory like a prayer. Like the only religion I have left.

One. Two. Three.

One. Two. Three.