Page 10 of Somno Slave

“What are you like under pressure?”

“I never crack.” I answer quickly. “I can handle anything.”

The words hang between us. The silence that follows has a pulse to it. I hold my breath.

He doesn’t answer immediately. His gaze drifts, unfocused, as though something in his thoughts has snagged on a doubt he hasn’t planned to examine so closely.

The lines in his face pull taut.

“Miss Ainsley,” he says finally. “This is an incredibly dangerous patient. Once you start working with us, there is no stepping away, no reassignments. You don’t get to decide halfway through that it’s too much.” He watches my face closelyas he speaks, searching for hesitation. “You will see this case through to the very end.”

I nod once, slowly, the movement measured. “I understand.”

His eyes stay on mine a moment too long, and then he looks down. He pulls a pen from his pocket and reaches for a scrap of paper in the other one. He writes, the scratch of ink loud in the quiet room. When he finishes, he slides the paper across the table toward me without comment.

I pick it up.

A cell number. A block designation. A time.

I close my fingers around the paper, feeling its edges bite faintly into my palm.

“Grab a coffee or some food. Meet us there in an hour,” he says. “And don’t discuss this case with anyone other than me.”

I nod again.

He turns to leave without a word. The door closes behind them with a solid thud.

The room finally breathes again.

I tighten my grip on the paper and press it to my chest, holding it there as my pulse kicks, quick and uneven, like it can’t settle.

Class M.

Finally.

Chapter Four

Rheda

The corridor changes the moment I turn into it, and my body knows it before my mind catches up. The air is cooler here, but heavier, like it’s been sealed too long. My heels strike the floor, and the sound carries further than it should.

I know the left side of the prison: it’s rhythms and blind spots, but this corridor feels withheld. Hidden until now.

Two large doors loom ahead, reinforced steel sunk deep into the walls. No windows. No visible handles. Just a narrow scanner set into the frame, it’s red light pulsing faintly.

I slow as I approach, heart beginning to thud with a little more insistence.

My ID card hangs against my chest, cool against my blouse. I lift it, watching the plastic sway once before I press it to the scanner. There is a brief pause, long enough for doubt to creep in. Then, the scanner beeps. The door buzzes and unlocks with a sound that feels final.

The corridor beyond is narrower, longer, lined with identical doors spaced at even intervals. It resembles prison cells more than interrogation rooms. Each one bears a number in stark black font. No indicators of who, or what, might be behind them. Just numbers, marching forward in orderly silence.

I glance down at my watch as I walk.

06:10 a.m.

Twenty minutes early.

The second-hand creeps forward, inch by inch, as if reluctant to move.