Page 96 of The Secretary Volume II

Standing in the doorway like you still think this is reversible.Like you haven’t already answered the note.Like you still have time.

You don’t.You never did.

You move past me, escorted by attendants.Your eyes flicker across the walls, the floor, the mirrored glass—but not toward me.Not yet.You don’t see me, but you sense something’s off.

They lead you into the room.

White sheets.A gurney.Instruments lined up like promises of pain.

You hesitate at the threshold.Still thinking it’s a test.An evaluation.Still thinking there’s a version of this where you walk out the same.

There isn’t.

They touch you gently.Stethoscope to your chest.Blood-pressure cuff around your arm.A prick to your finger.All the usual things.Harmless, until they aren’t.

Then the door opens again.

He enters.You recognize him.Of course you do.

“Welcome,” he says.“We’ve been expecting you.”

Your breath catches.You don’t look at him directly.Instead, your gaze shifts toward the mirrored glass—and then to me.

“Try to relax,” he says.“You’ll feel a little pressure at first.Then nothing at all.”

It’s the same line he used on me.In a bedroom.In a boardroom.Here.Doesn’t matter where.The method changes.The outcome doesn’t.

The tablet appears in your lap.You sign.Most people do.

Then the hiss.

Then the click.

Then the needle in your vein.

Your pupils go wide.You ask for your mother.

And just before it takes you, you look in my direction.Despite the double mirror, our eyes meet.And that’s when I know you understand.

The monitor spikes.

The room shifts.

So does something else—in you, in me, in the air.

I was wrong.

We all were.

55

Gillian

The second the monitor spikes, I move.

Not later.Not after.Now.

I stand.Not fast—fast draws attention.I move like I’ve been instructed to.Like I’ve done it before.Because I have.