Page 26 of Somno Slave

They move, and for a brief moment, I shift as if I’m joining them, automation working through me. But my brain kicks in a moment later and I drop back into the chair quickly. My cheeks burn. The chair suddenly feels a couple degrees too cold. I readjust like that might help, fingers already grabbing for my notebook. A distraction.

The page from yesterday stares back at me, half-formed notes that don’t quite connect to anything. I read the same line twice and still don’t take it in.

My stomach twists with anticipation.

This time will be different.

It has to be.

Peter reaches over and clicks a button. The shutter on the one-way glass suddenly peels back, and the interrogation roomhums to life. It’s empty for now. Three chairs and a bolted table. It shouldn’t feel different, but something about it feels...used.

He opens the door and steps through first. The corridor beyond is brighter, colder. He doesn’t open the second door straight away. His hand rests on the handle for a second, just long enough for the silence to thicken again, for everything to draw in tight.

“In,” Peter says, already pushing the door open.

They move into place quietly.

Peter pulls a radio from his pocket and speaks against the metal grille. “Bring him in.”

A buzz slips through the speakers a minute later.

The door opens. I find him immediately. Everything else drops away too easily. Guards, hands, the movement around him—it all blurs at the edges while he stays sharp, fixed in the centre of it.

He walks like the room has already settled for him. Just a steady, unbroken pace that touches the inside of my skull.

The guards bring him down into the chair. I follow the shift of his weight, the slow roll of his shoulders as he lowers, the way his head comes up just enough to expose the line of his throat.

It catches the light.

It shouldn’t matter... but it does.

My fingers press harder into the table. It doesn’t stop the way my breath shortens, the way something low in my body tightens in response like it recognises him before I do.

Beautiful.

It lands violently. I try to shove the thought away, but it drags in a way I can feel more than explain.

He breathes and his lips part minimally.

Look away.I tell myself.Look at something else.

But my eyes keep catching on his mouth.

The dark flush along his lower lip almost looks like bruising. Uneven. Violated. My attention drags over the split at the centre before I can stop it, over the slow parting of his lips each time he breathes.

Heat twists low in my stomach so sharply it makes panic flare immediately afterwards.

My thumb presses hard against the edge of my badge.

DOCTOR.

I hold the word like it can steady me.

“Let’s not waste the morning,” Peter says eventually. He glances briefly at the restraints, then back at him. “Comfortable?”

It drags like a taunt.

The silence holds.