Please don’t leave me.
Because if The Collective wants to break me, they haven’t met the part of me that refuses to give up.
The part Seth sharpened.
The part Seth loves.
The part of me that will make them pay.
Chapter 8
Brooke
The basement door scrapes open without warning. Light spills down the stairs.
“Brooke,” a voice calls. “Come.”
Miles stiffens. Sarah’s eyes snap open, dread already blooming there.
Knox appears behind the man in the white coat. “Get up.”
I don’t move fast enough. My body isn’t really here. Knox grabs me anyway, yanking me upright. My wrist screams. My pulse skitters painfully in my throat.
The physician turns and walks, expecting me to follow. My feet follow out of instinct while my mind floats somewhere else. It feels like moving through a nightmare I can’t wake from.
The hallway is too clean, too sterile for a place like this. My vision shimmers, as if my eyes can’t decide what is real. Images flicker behind my eyelids:
Seth falling. Seth bleeding. Seth not getting up.
And this time the ache doesn’t spike, it sinks. A hollow carves out inside my chest where warmth used to be.
The physician leads me into his quarters. A stripped-down infirmary with a cot, a tray of metal tools, shelves of supplies that feel more threatening than helpful. The door clicks shut behind us.
“Sit.”
I sit because my body understands obedience better than my mind right now.
He takes my arm without asking and examines it with quiet focus.
“Clean break,” he says. “Nasty, though.”
“No shit,” I rasp.
He barely looks at me. “Swelling’s manageable. You’ll need it immobilized. It’ll function—assuming you last that long.”
His words feel like they are aimed at a version of me that isn’t in the room.
“How… how long would it take to heal?” My voice feels thin.
“Six to eight weeks. More if it sets badly,” he mutters with a small shrug. “But I doubt you have that kind of time.”
I swallow against the tightness in my throat. “Are they going to kill me?”
“Most likely,” he replies, wrapping my wrist. “Not many survive this place. Not once they outlive their usefulness.”
The hollowness in my chest grows heavier. It is hard to breathe around it.
“Please… help me,” I whisper.
