The feral subject responds to the healer’s voice.
They won’t write the real word.
Mate.
The word rises from somewhere older than memory, older than language, and this time I don’t push it away.
Let them note whatever they want.
For once, the file can tell part of the truth.
I know what it is.
My hand stays on the glass. Her breathing stays in the room.
And for now—not enough, not close to enough, but for now—that’s what keeps the white walls from winning.
Chapter 20
Sable
Nadia met me at six, and I thought it would be early enough.
“Difficult night,” she’d said as we descended. “He surfaced at midnight, so they gave him another sedative. It looks like his metabolism is burning through everything.”
If only I’d known how bad it was. Because what I’m looking at now makes me want to burst into tears. There’s blood smeared on the glass between us, and the man behind it looks like he’s living in his own private hell.
“I wish you hadn’t hurt yourself,” I tell him.
“Couldn’t find you.”
My throat tightens. “I know. They wouldn’t let me come down last night. I tried.”
His breathing through the speaker is harsh. I sense the wolf fighting to surface—I can hear it in the way his voice catches,the slight distortion when his jaw pushes toward wolf and then recedes.
“The room,” he says. “It’s the same.”
“I know it is.”
“White. Locked. The smell.” A pause. His hand presses harder against the glass. “I keep waking up thinking I’m back. Then I remember, and it’s…still white. Still the same.”
“I’m going to get you out of there.”
“Don’t—” He stops. Breathes. “Don’t promise what you can’t control.”
He’s right.
The honesty stings because I’ve already done this once. I promised him safety in a hallway before a dart dropped him to the floor. I promised myself I could keep him from waking alone, and then I slept eight floors above him while he tore his hands open against the glass.
“Okay,” I say, swallowing around the ache in my throat. “You’re right. I can’t promise that.”
His hand stays against the glass.
“But I can promise I’m not leaving this building without you.”
His breathing slows. Just slightly. On the monitors behind me, his heart rate ticks down…a hundred and two, ninety-nine, ninety-six.
“Tell me something,” he says. “Something from outside.”
