Page 46 of Operation: Defiance

Chapter Thirteen

My breathing evens out. The aftershocks take longer to fade. My pulse flutters, then settles. My mouth is sour, the taste clinging to the back of my tongue and teeth.

When I leave, the first thing I’m going to do is brush until my gums bleed. Then sit under my shower head, emptying my hot water heater and scrubbing my skin raw.

The hood is damp with my breath. The stench of old fabric and sweat mixes with a tinge of copper from how often I’ve bitten the inside of my cheek. It smells familiar now. Too familiar.

Relief drains away slowly. When it’s gone, everything underneath is exposed. Raw. Buzzing.

My brain starts assembling fragments into order. It always does.

Cause. Effect. Sequence.

Compliance review complete.

Agreement documented.

Release pending.

I tell myself that’s good. It means I survived.

The cost was high. Too high. But I’ll sleep in my own bed again. I’ll eat real food. I’ll wake sore and shaken, but still myself. Mostly.

I don’t brace when the door opens again. They’ll give me instructions. Get me ready for transport. Return me to something approaching a life.

Instead, hands close on the hood and pull it down hard, drawing the fabric snug against my throat. The knot at the back of my neck is tightened until swallowing turns into effort and every breath rasps faintly through the cloth.

My wrists are hauled up and out.

Pain explodes through my shoulders, sharp enough to empty my head of everything else.

“Wait,” I cry, the word tearing out of me in a harsh, broken sound. “I complied.”

The grip on my arms shifts, fingers hitting multiple pressure points at once.

My heartbeat roars in my ears. My toes scrape along the rough concrete. I can’t get my feet under me. They don’t care. Don’t wait. I’m so confused, I can’t track steps or turns as they drag me…somewhere.

We cross a threshold. It’s cleaner here. The air is filtered, the faint tang of ozone and disinfectant layered over metal and plastic.

The temperature shifts too.

Not the biting cold I’ve learned to endure. It’s controlled. Even. The kind of warmth meant to steady me. To slow breathing. Make resistance inefficient. After everything else, it almost feels like mercy.

That’s what makes it wrong.

Fingers press into the side of my neck. Not painful. Deliberate. The pressure steals a beat of time, a brief hollow where sensation drops away and then snaps back.

“I agreed,” I manage. My body is trembling now—a fine, uncontrollable vibration I can’t stop. “I did what you asked.”

“Yes,” the calm voice says. “You did. This is a correction.”

A correction?

Hands lift me. Someone yanks at the chain between my ankles. Others brace my arms as I’m lowered onto something narrow, but raised off the floor. The surface, something smooth and clean, yields slightly beneath me.

Straps follow. Calves. Thighs. Hips. Chest. Shoulders.

Each one is tightened to the point of pain. By the time they’re done, I can’t move at all.