Page 7 of Shadow Waltz
“No,” she kept saying, the word sharp and desperate. “No, no, no, I won't do this. I won't fucking do this.”
Her lot sticker read “LOT 12” in the same stark black letters that branded the rest of us, but someone had tried to scratch it off. Raw skin showed underneath where she'd clawed at it, leaving streaks of dried blood across her collarbone. Her prep suit was wrinkled and torn at the shoulder, like she'd been dragged here kicking and screaming.
The photographer sighed and lowered her camera. “I can't work with an uncooperative subject.”
“You don't have to work with anything,” the taller guard said. His voice was flat, bored, like he'd had this conversation a hundred times before. “Management wants this one processed anyway.”
The girl's head snapped up, wild eyes darting between the guards and the photographer and the backdrop where I was still standing. When her gaze met mine, I saw something break behind her expression. The moment when she realized that no one was coming to save her, that the cavalry wasn't riding over the hill, that this was just how her story ended.
“Please,” she whispered, and the word came out broken. “I have a little sister. She's only twelve. She doesn't know where I am. She's waiting for me to come home.”
The guard pulled out his sidearm with the same casual efficiency as someone checking their phone. No drama, no hesitation. Just a tool being deployed for its intended purpose.
“Lot 12 has been deemed non-compliant,” he announced to no one in particular. “Liquidating defective merchandise.”
The gunshot was deafeningly loud in the confined space, echoing off the concrete walls like thunder. The girl crumpled to the floor in a heap of torn fabric and ruined dreams, blood spreading underneath her in a dark pool that reflected the harsh fluorescent lights.
My ears rang, but I forced myself not to flinch. Not to show any reaction at all. The photographer had dropped her camera, her hands shaking as she stared at the body. The attendant was already reaching for her phone, probably calling cleanup.
“Lot 17,” the shorter guard said, turning his attention to me like nothing had happened. “Back to position.”
I moved to the backdrop, stepping carefully around the spreading pool of blood. The girl's eyes were still open, staring at nothing. She looked surprised, like she'd been in the middle of a sentence when the world suddenly stopped making sense.
“This is why we have protocols,” the guard explained to the photographer, who was still frozen in place. “Damaged goods don't improve with time. Better to cut losses early than waste resources on rehabilitation.”
Rehabilitation. Like she was a house that needed new plumbing instead of a human being who'd just been murdered for the crime of saying no.
The camera flash went off again, capturing my image against the white backdrop. But all I could see was the girl's face, the way hope had died in her eyes before the bullet finished the job. All I could smell was gunpowder and blood and the chemical tang of floor cleaner that someone would use to scrub away the evidence.
“Perfect,” the photographer said, but her voice was hollow. “Next pose.”
She tried to adjust my position, to make me turn my head just so, but I jerked away when her fingers brushed my shoulder. “Don't touch me.”
The words came out sharper than I'd intended, loaded with enough venom to kill a horse. For a second, the room went dead quiet, and I could feel everyone watching me, waiting to see if I'd just signed my own death warrant.
But the photographer just nodded and stepped back, her hands raised in surrender. “Okay. That's fine. We can work with natural poses.”
Natural. As if there was anything natural about being photographed like a prize bull before the slaughter.
She took a few more shots, each flash feeling like another nail in the coffin of my freedom.
I gave them rage instead, defiance, the promise of violence wrapped up in an expensive suit. Let them see what they were really buying.
After the photographer finished, they led us back to our cells. The corridor was narrow and poorly lit, lined with doors that looked like they belonged in a prison. Which, I guess, they did. Each one had a small window at eye level and a slot for food trays, like something out of a medieval dungeon given a modern makeover.
It was all exactly the same as it had been eight years ago. Same layout, same smell, same fucking classical music playing on repeat. The only thing that had changed was me.
My cell was maybe eight feet by ten feet, with a cot bolted to the wall, a metal toilet that barely qualified as functional, and a sink that dripped constantly. No windows, no natural light, just the harsh buzz of fluorescent bulbs that never turned off completely. The walls were concrete painted institutional white, and someone had scratched marks into one corner like they were counting days.
I'd sat in cells just like this one three times before, but I'd never really looked at them. Never paid attention to the details that might matter if you were planning to do more than just survive. This time, I catalogued everything. The distance between the door and the bed, the height of the ceiling, the way the ventilation system connected to other parts of the building.
Eight years ago, I'd been a scared kid who thought rescue was coming. Now I was a man who knew that if anyone was going to save me, it would have to be me.
The hours crawledby like wounded animals. Guards brought food that tasted like cardboard and water that smelled like chlorine. The fluorescent lights flickered constantly, creating a strobe effect that made my head ache. Somewhere down thecorridor, someone was crying, soft sobs that echoed off the concrete walls.
It was the crying that got to me most. I'd cried for Cass, for the life we'd planned together, for the innocence I'd lost in a single night on a subway platform. I'd cried until I didn't have any tears left, and then I'd cried some more.
But crying didn't change anything. Crying didn't bring back the people you'd lost or undo the things that had been done to you. All crying did was let your captors know they'd broken you, and broken merchandise didn't fetch the same prices as defiant stock.