Page 40 of Somno Slave

Sean swears under his breath and digs coins from his pocket. “I said she’d quit. Not oversleep.”

The words hit before I can brace for them.

Quit.

Oversleep.

Like they’d already discussed me, turned me into something small enough to bet on.

“Late is late,” Mike says, pocketing them. “And I said she’d come back.”

My mouth parts, but nothing useful comes out.

I can feel all of them now. Their attention drags over my red cheeks.

I lower myself into my chair because standing suddenly feels worse. My fingers tighten around the cup until the plastic bends.

Peter looks at me properly now. His eyes flick over my face, my soaked coat, my breathing. Annoyance sharpens, then settles into assessment. “You alright?”

“Fine,” I breathe. “My alarm didn’t go off.”

It sounds wrong the moment it leaves me—too thin, too easy—and I feel it sit there between us.

He doesn’t respond straight away. He just looks at me. “Don’t make being late a thing, Miss Ainsley.”

I swallow, and it catches again.

“Sorry, Peter.” I manage.

He dips his head, twisting back to the others.

“We’ve given him the opportunity to respond,” he says to the guards, switching so fast it makes my mouth dry. “We start introducing variables. See if anything changes.”

It settles badly in my stomach the second he says it. It’s cold. Clinical. Variables. It leaves too much room for my imagination to crawl into instead.

Pain.

Isolation.

Worse.

He leans back slightly and brings the radio up to his mouth. “We’re ready for him.”

The sound comes before the movement. It bleeds in under everything else, low and wrong, like the building is clearing itsthroat somewhere deep in its bones. A distant buzzer followed by the slow, dragging protest of metal against concrete. It doesn’t snap open, itgrinds, like it resents being made to move.

Peter’s voice cuts across it, too calm.

“Don’t freak out today, Ainsley.”

I don’t look at him immediately. My fingers have already tightened around the edge of the table, nails pressing into the cheap laminate hard enough that it stings. I ease them back, slow, careful.

He’s watching me.

I turn, finally.

There’s something almost amused in his expression. The kind of look you give before something proves your point for you.

“I need you to observe,” he adds, softer now, like that makes it reasonable. “Without emotion.”