Page 205 of Somno Slave

I find Peter’s shape behind the window. Mike beside him. Sean half-hidden by the monitors.

Everything is where it should be.

Except me.

The realisation lands slowly at first, then all at once, like a sickness turning over inside me.

I am not behind the glass.

I am in the chair.

Deogal’s chair.

My gaze drops.

Orange clings to my skin like shame, and for a few long seconds I can only stare at it, because my brain refuses to catch up, refuses to make sense of what my eyes are seeing.

These aren’t my clothes.

Wait—my badge is gone.

I reach for it anyway and something catches my attention.

There’s dried blood beneath one of my fingernails.

I stare at it stupidly.

A tiny dark crescent trapped against skin.

My chest tightens so violently I stop breathing for a second because I don’t know whose blood it is.

Harris.

My brain supplies the name immediately and my body reacts before thought catches up, pulse kicking violently, heat crawling under my skin so fast it feels like panic trying to become sickness.

I scrub my thumb against the stain instinctively, frantic, but the restraints jerk me short before I can reach it properly.

Behind the glass, Peter moves forward. I tear my gaze upward. I realise suddenly that I can see himbehindthe glass.

That the glass is transparent.

Not one-way.

What?

My stomach heaves.

“Rheda,” Peter says through the speaker. My name sounds wrong coming from above me.

“Peter, get me out of here,” I say, my voice coming out too thin, too hoarse. I pull at the restraints again like they might finally give way.

He doesn’t answer straight away and that silence does more damage than anything else could have. I watch him glance once toward Mike, then back to me, and something in my chest starts to fold in on itself.

“You need to stay calm,” he says.

“No.” My throat tightens instantly. “No, don’t do that. Don’t speak to me like that.”

“Like what?”