Page 27 of Somno Slave

“We identified your third victim early this morning,” Peter continues. “Male. Twenty-six.”

He turns a page in the file.

“Every opening sewn shut with blue thread.”

My stomach drops so violently I almost miss the next breath.

Sewn shut.

The words hit my body before my brain fully catches them.

I picture swollen skin splitting around tight stitches. Blood caught black beneath thread. Somebody alive long enough to feel fingers forcing a needle through flesh that was never meant to close.

My pulse stumbles hard.

Peter’s voice never changes.

“Interesting colour choice,” he says mildly. “Why blue?”

Nothing. Deogal doesn’t move.

Peter flips another page.

“We found him face down in a shallow bucket.” His eyes stay fixed on him. “Did you stay with him while he suffocated?”

Something cold slides down my spine. My fingers tighten painfully around my pen. And somehow—somehow—he still doesn’t react.

The silence feels different now like something huge pressing slowly against the back of my teeth.

“My team are building a timeline as we speak,” Peter says calmly. “It’s not complicated. These kind of decisions will reveal a motive soon enough.”

He leans back slightly. “We’ll find the others.”

Still nothing.

“Don’t forget, Deogal. You’re on all of them. Your DNA is everywhere.”

Something inside me jerks violently.

Wrong.

The thought lands so fast it feels instinctive.

It’s a lie.

I don’t know how I know that.

I just do.

The feeling slides coldly down my spine, deep and immediate, like my body has recognised something before my mind has been allowed to catch up.

“You’re optional in this.” His fingers rest flat against the table. “We will not wait forever. You can speak and tell us your version, or we dispose of you.”

Somewhere along the way, I stop trying to analyse him. My notes sit abandoned beneath my hand. I’m just watching now. The loose way his hands rest in his lap despite the restraints. The complete absence of movement in his face. Even his breathing feels wrong from this distance, too slow, like his body exists on a rhythm separate from everyone else’s in the room.

Peter’s fingers tap once against the table. A single, soft contact, then still again. “Look at me.”

Deogal doesn’t even blink.