I start walking, but I don't know where I am going. I find myself in an alleyway, staring at my reflection in a grime-streaked window. My eyes are bloodshot, my skin sallow. I start to laugh. A low, jagged sound that scrapes my throat.
Is this the design? Is the masterpiece not some grand plan for Lucy, but the slow-motion demolition of me? He is watching me fall apart in real-time. He is probably sitting in his dark room right now, sipping something expensive, enjoying the way I claw at the air he’s taken away.
I pull out my phone again, my thumb hovering over the screen. I want to call the police. But what would I say? That a man who still doesn't officially exist took a girl who doesn't want to be found?
"You win," I whisper to the brick wall, to the void in my head.
"You win, Deimos. Just show me where she is."
As if on cue, a notification finally lights up the screen. Not from Deimos. Not from Lucy. It is an automated alert from the morgue’s security system. Motion detected in Lab B. My lab. My heart does a sickening roll. He isn't at some distant coordinates. He is in my sanctuary. He is playing with the dead.
The drive to the morgue is a blurred streak of gray and neon. I push my car far beyond its limits. Lab B. Motion detected. It has to be him. It has to be the end of this agonizing week of silence.
I don't even wait for the elevator. I take the stairs two at a time, the echo of my boots sounding like a frantic heartbeat. I swipe my card at the reader, beep-click, and throw open the heavy double doors of the morgue.
"Deimos!"
I scream, my voice raw and desperate.
"I’m here! End this! Just end it!"
Silence.
The cold, clinical air of the building hits me, smelling of formaldehyde and ozone. I stand in the center of the room, my chest heaving, waiting for a shadow to move. But the morgue is empty. The stainless steel tables glint under the harsh fluorescent lights. The cabinets are closed. Everything is perfectly organized, perfectly still.
"Deimos?"
I whisper, my voice small and trembling now.
I walk toward Lab B, my eyes darting to every corner. The motion sensor light is on, its pale glow illuminating myworkstation. There is no one there. Just a single object sitting in the center of my desk.
There lies a small, black velvet box. My hands shake so violently I nearly knock it over. I open it with a clumsy flick of my thumb. Inside is a single, silver-plated key and a slip of paper with a handwritten note:
“You looked for a monster in a laboratory, Madeline. But the real design is never under a microscope. It’s in the basement. Go home. Wait for the bell.”
I let out a choked, hysterical sob. He isn't here. He has hacked the security system just to trigger the alarm, just to watch me sprint across the city like a panicked animal. He is playing with my heart rate, mapping my desperation.
I have been tricked. That snaps the last thread of my professional composure. I sink to the cold tile floor, clutching the silver key to my chest.
The drive home is like a fever dream. The silver key burns in my palm like a hot coal. I lock myself in my apartment, engaging every bolt and latch, but I know it is a futile gesture. There is no privacy in this flat. Every corner belongs to him.
I immediately lunge for my laptop. My fingers tangle as I try to log into every database I can access. I am hunting for Lucy.
"Please, Lucy, just one signal," I whisper, slamming my fist onto the desk.
Everything is dead.
Her phone signal vanished the exact moment she ran out of that café. I try calling her again. Once. A second time. The tenth attempt ends with the same mechanical voice of the operator.
"You coward!"
I scream into the empty living room, toward the hidden camera.
"Show yourself! Stop playing with your keys and your codes!”
I collapse into my armchair. I am beginning to doubt everything. But then, I look at that silver key on the table. Deimos doesn't do anything by accident. Every move of his is part of a construction.
I am unraveling. I scatter papers across the entire apartment, searching for any note. But there is nothing. Only silence and the feeling that the walls are slowly closing in on me.
