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Helper 99

S he doesn’t cry.

That’s the first thing I notice.

She doesn’t cry when he tells her she doesn’t deserve the bed. Doesn’t cry when she folds herself to the floor like it was her idea. When he takes her hard and fast with her knees scraping against polished wood, she doesn’t cry then either.

She never does.

It used to make her admirable.

Now it makes her insufferable.

I watch it on loop. Not because I need to. Because I want to see if she ever flinches for the right reason. If she ever once looks like she regrets letting it get this far.

She doesn’t.

She moans. She obeys. She says his name when told.

And then—she lies there. Like wreckage. Like art.

The camera overhead catches everything. One of the wall units flickers from low lighting to full spectrum, which means someone logged in before me. Probably Ellis. He likes to review his own work.

I wonder what he sees when he watches her.

What he thinks she’s for.

She’s not his. She just forgets that sometimes.

My hands hover over the keyboard. I should flag the footage. Log the file. Compress the timestamp. But I don’t move. I rewind instead. Thirty seconds. Then again.

This time, I watch her face.

She’s on her back now, breathing through her teeth. There’s blood near her mouth—she bit her lip again. The robe someone left for her is still untouched.

She hasn’t reached for it.

Like maybe she thinks she hasn’t earned it yet.

The thought makes something sharp settle in my chest.

She’s good at this. Too good.

It would be easier if she broke wrong. If she cried at the wrong moment. Screamed. Made it ugly. But she never does. She makes it look like poetry. Like devotion.

And that’s the problem, isn’t it?

That’s what makes people want to save her.

She does this thing with her hands after—fingers curled, palms flat to the floor like she’s grounding herself. Some muscle memory from a life she doesn’t get to live anymore.

I want to break that habit.

She should’ve broken already.

I pause the video. Zoom in.

Her pupils are dilated. But not from fear.

Excitement, maybe. Or submission. Or that awful middle place where the body confuses survival with need.

I wonder if she even knows the difference anymore.

I’ve been watching her for months. Longer, maybe. I’ve seen every file, every interview, every time she reset and said “thank you” like it was a gift to be hollowed out and rebuilt.

But this? This was different.

He said her name. Then he said mine.

Not aloud, of course. Not directly.

But it was there. In the way he said she’s not ready yet . In the way he kept looking at the camera like he knew I was logged in.

I almost smiled.

Because Gillian is mine to manage. Mine to monitor. He gets to ruin her, but I get to clean up after.

And I know her better than he ever will.

He doesn’t know how she wakes up sometimes still smiling, like a reflex she forgot to kill. Doesn’t know how she whispers someone’s name in her sleep—but it’s never his.

He doesn’t know she’s still trying to fight.

She is. Even now. There’s a look in her eyes when she thinks no one’s watching. I’ve studied it. It’s not resistance.

It’s hope.

It’s pathetic.

I press play again. Fast-forward.

The robe gets draped. The clothes folded. The routine completed like clockwork. Her wrists flex slightly as she reaches for the doorframe, like they ache from being used.

When she leaves, she doesn’t look back.

And I hate her for that.

For how cleanly she carries her damage.

For how he keeps calling her back, like he can’t find anything that bleeds the same way.

For how close she’s come to mattering.

The log flashes. Another viewer is waiting.

I encrypt the file before they can load it.

Then I sit there in the dark, watching nothing at all, fingers twitching over keys I don’t press.

And I think:

Next time, I want to be there.

Not watching.

Not waiting.

There.

She wouldn’t see it coming.

They never do.

But I’d make sure she remembered.