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“Your pain is not a hobby you get to keep. It’s mine. I decide when you hurt. I decide how much. You’ve been carving up my property and calling it a coping mechanism.” I swing into his hip. “If you damage my things like that, I’ll break every goddamn finger on your hands.”

“I’m not a thing.” He spits it at my shoes.

“Oh, Simon. You’re whatever I say you are.”

“Don’t fucking call me that.”

“You’re still confused.” I hit his side again.

He tries to roll toward the baton. I put it against his shoulder and give him a short burst, enough to stop the idea.

Simon slams back to the floor, shaking, furious, still talking because he hasn’t learned the other option yet. “You fucking lunatic. You’re threatening to break my fucking fingers because I’m not allowed to hurt myself.”

I let the baton talk until his next breath has to fight for space. Then I put my knee in his stomach and the baton across his throat. “Rule one. You do what you’re told the first time. Rule two. You don’t damage my things. You’re one of them. Say it.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

I let his head drop. I hit his hip again, then his thigh, then I stop because I want him conscious. I press the live baton to the floor beside his ear so he hears it, then I put the cold end under his chin.

“We can do this until Jamie hears you stop sounding brave. Say it.”

His mouth shakes around the hate. “I’m not…”

I tap his ribs with the dead baton. “You are. Say it.”

His jaw tightens. I waited too long to fill the red room for this motherfucker to ruin the set on his first night.

“On your hands and knees.”

Simon looks at me like he might spit again. I lift the baton. He gets up slowly. His ribs make it honest. The drug makes it sloppy. I point at the wreckage with the dead end of the baton.

“Every piece. You will crawl it to me and you will put it in a pile at my feet.”

“You’re out of your…”

“If you finish that sentence, I’ll put you on your side again and we’ll start the rules over. Crawl.”

He crawls. I watch him reach for the mushroom body first. He drags it and drops it against my shoe.

“The rest.”

He turns back on his hands and knees, one arm trying to protect his ribs without disobeying me. He gathers the base, then the smaller wreckage, then a piece he has to chase under the chair. Each trip ends at my feet. The pile grows.

When he brings the last plastic shard I stop him with the baton across his path.

He stares at the pile, and his mouth can’t decide what it wants to do. His arms shake, but he stays on his knees.

“Do you understand me now, or do you need the live end again?”

His voice comes out scraped. “I understand you think I belong on the floor.”

I tap the pile with my shoe. “Say what this is.”

He stares at my feet. “Trash.”

“Try again.”

“Your lamp.”