Good. She should be.
I keep my distance. Predators don’t rush—that’s the first thing they taught me, back when I was still small enough to fit in a training pen. Rushing alerts prey. Patience is what separates a successful kill from a wasted effort.
The harvester quarters occupy a mid-level section of the Sanctum, better than the stock pens but nothing compared to the ritualists’ chambers. Narrow corridors. Low ceilings. Everything sized for humans, which means I have to duck through doorways and angle my shoulders to avoid scraping the walls.
I hate these passages. They make me feel contained. Controlled.
Her door. Third from the end of a dead-end corridor. No lock—harvesters aren’t trusted with privacy. I could break through it in a heartbeat, snap the hinges and confront her in her own space.
Instead, I wait.
The wall beside her door has a service alcove—a recessed space where maintenance supplies gather dust. I fold myself into the shadows, a seven-foot monster somehow invisible in plain sight. Another skill they taught me. Stillness. Silence. The art of becoming nothing until it’s time to become violence.
Through the thin walls, I hear her.
Water splashing. Harsh breathing. The sound of hands scrubbing against skin with frantic force.
I tilt my head. Listen closer.
She’s washing. Not bathing—washing. Scrubbing at her hands with the kind of force that leaves raw skin behind. I’ve heard that sound before, from fresh stock who haven’t yet learned that the blood never comes off. The ones who still think they can be clean.
She’s been here ten years. She should know better by now.
But she doesn’t. And recognition in that futile gesture—the desperate attempt to remove stains that have soaked too deep to ever wash away—makes me pause.
I know that gesture.
Not the washing itself. I don’t bother trying to clean off blood; it’s part of me now. But the futility—the need to take action, anything, even when you know it won’t help. I’ve felt that. In the hours after a hunt, when the killing fury fades and I’m left with nothing but silence and the echo of screams I can’t unhear.
The scrubbing stops. Her breathing steadies. I hear fabric rustling—changing clothes, probably. Then footsteps, light and careful, moving toward her door.
She’s coming out.
I could let her pass. Watch her longer. Learn her patterns, her routines, her weaknesses. That would be the smart approach—the tactical approach.
I’ve never been smart.
The door opens. She steps into the corridor.
I move.
One hand closesaround her arm. The other covers her mouth before she can scream. I lift her off her feet and carry her backward, into the storage alcove, into the darkness where no one will see.
She doesn’t struggle.
That surprises me. Most people struggle—instinct, even when they know it’s pointless. But the harvester goes limp in my grip, not in surrender but in calculation. I can feel her pulse racing against my palm, can smell the spike of adrenaline flooding her system. She’s terrified.
And she’s not fighting.
I press her against the alcove’s back wall. My body blocks the entrance, fills the space until there’s nowhere for her to go. The top of her head barely reaches my chest. Her dark red hairhas come loose from its braids, falling around her pale face in tangles.
“I’m going to remove my hand.” My voice comes out rough. Rusty from disuse. “If you scream, I’ll kill you. Understand?”
She nods.
I lower my hand from her mouth. Keep the other one on her arm—not squeezing, just holding. Reminding her that I could crush her bones without effort.
I lean closer, letting her feel my breath on her skin, letting her understand exactly how close to death she’s standing. “You lied to the Matron. For me. I want to know why. The real reason.”
