Page 154 of Somno Slave

His body gives the smallest shudder, a brief, involuntary tremor that runs through him before he drags in one slow breath and forces himself still again.

I watch it happen, inch by inch, like he’s shutting parts of himself off manually, pulling the plug on every nerve.

Mike stumbles back into his chair, all awkward limbs and bad coordination. The metal legs drag against the floor with a soft, ugly screech, but he barely seems to hear it. His eyes stay fixed on the glass.

“I—” His breath catches sharply. He swallows like it hurts. “I don’t like that.”

“Sit down,” I say quietly.

It comes out far steadier than I feel, like I’m not sitting here with my own pulse hammering against my ribs hard enough to bruise.

He listens without argument, dropping back into the chair like gravity has suddenly doubled. His fingers shake where they grip the armrests, knuckles whitening, like holding onto something solid might stop whatever this feeling is from getting worse.

The monitor starts beeping louder. A few sharp clicks fill the silence, numbers shifting, and suddenly even I’m leaning forward, caught on the edge of my seat like my body knows before my mind does that something is wrong.

“Why is he doing that?” Mike whispers.

I part my lips to answer, but he beats me to it.

“It feels like...” He trails off, breath uneven, like he’s embarrassed to even say it. Then he lets out a strained huff. “Like he knows me.”

“That’s not possible,” I say quickly.

I yank my notebook open, too fast, desperate for something practical. But when I press pen to paper, my hand stalls at the top of the page. I can’t make it move.

Mike looks like he might be sick. His face has gone pale and thin, all the colour drained from it, his expression stretched with something close to horror. He shakes his head once, like he’s trying to physically reject the feeling.

And suddenly the guilt arrives. It hits hard and ugly, wrapping itself around my ribs like something alive. Because this is my fault. Every second of this. I pulled him into it. I created this.

And now I can’t tell if I’ve made a stupid mistake—or if I’ve handed Mike to something dangerous.

I push forward in front of him without thinking like I can sever their connection, but regret stabs me sharp in the chest. Because when our gazes meet, his black eyes wrap their fingers around my throat. I know I’ve made it worse.

His eyes darken, if that’s even possible, something colder settling there. Harder. There is no mistaking it now—no room left for logic or one-way glass or professional distance.

There is a warning in him. Something sick and intimate and deeply wrong, burning behind the emptiness of those pupils. His face doesn’t change. It doesn’t have to. I feel the displeasure as though he’s carving the words deep into my skull.

You’re mine.

I pull away from Mike so quickly it almost looks violent. And across the glass, I see it—the smallest shift. His jaw tightens once, controlled, and the corner of his mouth twitches so faintly I almost convince myself I imagined it. Almost.

Time stretches strangely. It feels like being held underwater.

He watches me absorb it. Watches me understand. And when he’s satisfied—when I’ve pulled back, when the message haslanded exactly where he wanted it—his gaze drops back to the table, like he’s dismissing me.

Just like that.

The tension drains from his body, and the monitors hush their screaming. His shoulders loosen. His hands rest flat against his thighs, passivity taking hold of him again. As if nothing happened. As if he hadn’t just reached through the glass and wrapped his attention around our throats.

Mike exhales sharply. “Jesus.”

I force my pen to move again, to distract the way the blood races through my ears. Pretend to be clinical, invested in test results rather than my emotions.

Subject lifted head. Looked through the glass. No vocalisation.

The words don’t feel right. They feel sanitised. A lie dressed up as protocol.

Mike scrubs his damp palms against his trousers like he can wipe the feeling off his skin.