"It was James McCain." The lie rolled off my tongue smoothly, but I could feel the weight of it settle in my chest like a stone. I forced a smirk, shrugging as if it were nothing. "We had a nice little chat one day while walking to your lab.

  Turns out, even your most trusted men like to talk."

  Albert's expression didn't change immediately.

  For a second, he simply stared, his dark eyes studying me. Then, slowly, his lips twisted into a sneer as if he was able to discern the truth.

  "Bullshit." Albert's voice was soft, almost amused. But his eyes—sharp and dissecting— told a different story. He stepped closer, his breath warm against my face. "James? That man would tear out his own tongue before he spoke a word against me. Try again."

  I tilted my head, feigning nonchalance even as my pulse thundered in my ears. "Then why don't you ask him yourself?"

  His fingers twitched. Just a small movement, but enough to send a ripple of unease through me. Albert snaked his way to me, his small frame blocked out the only light source in the room, his shadow cast over me like a shadowy coffin. His mere proximity added weight to my already exhausted body.

  "Was it Lilith?" he asked, his voice eerily calm now.

  "Nope." I exhaled, making it sound effortless, as if I was bored of this whole exchange. "It was the same guy who escorted me back and forth every day. Said he was one of your personal guards

  He told me about the tunnel on the Fourth Level.

  Even walked me to the entrance."

  Albert cocked his head, his jaw tightening ever so slightly. "I don't believe you," he murmured, his tone almost thoughtful. "You're not stupid enough to spill the truth so easily."

  A slow smile tugged at his lips, but it didn't reach his eyes.

  "But you know what they say." He leaned forward just enough for the dim light to cast jagged shadows across his sharp features. "The truth is always hidden in the lie."

  I smirked. Casually. Effortlessly. Or at least, that's what I told myself. But beneath the table, my fingers curled so tight my nails dug into flesh, grounding me in pain. Because that was the only thing I could control in this moment— myself.

  The urge to yell and attack him was nearly overwhelming. Yet I knew deep down that even if I did try. It would be a repeat of what ended up happening at the gate when I came to after my rampage.

  He was trying to pick apart my words, to twist them until they bled the real answer. He knew just as well as I did, I was lying.

  "Perhaps I should go have a little chat with James," he mused. "See if anyone caught his attention lately. Cross-reference some reports.

  You wouldn't mind, would you?"

  I met his gaze, forcing a smirk. "Go ahead. You'd just be wasting your time."

  His smirk faded, replaced by something colder.

  He was silent for a long moment, the air between us thick with something heavy, suffocating.

  Then, almost lazily, he said, "Now that I think of it... The last report I got now from the network mentioned that James, Lilith, and Robert were found and rescued together." His voice was deceptively casual, but his eyes sharpened, piercing through me like needles. "Perhaps I should start with them. What do you think? Isn’t it strange for them to have met up?"

  A flicker of fear curled in my gut, but I swallowed it down immediately. I couldn't let him see it. I had to protect them just as they protected me.

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  I shrugged. "Knock yourself out."

  He stared at me, his lips pressing into a thin line.

  Then, finally, he exhaled, running a hand through his dark hair before stepping back.

  "Just know this." His voice dropped, each word carrying the weight of a promise. "I will root out every last traitor in this facility."

  The air seemed to grow heavier around us, his shadow and the atmosphere pressed against my ribs.

  "And as for you..." His gaze darkened, a cruel amusement flickering behind his eyes. "You're not going anywhere. Consider this your permanent home. For now."

  A slow, mocking smile curled at the edges of his lips.

  "You know," Albert mused, adjusting the cuff of his pristine sleeve, "I always found gardening relaxing. Cutting away the weak, the diseased, the ones that don't belong. It keeps everything... orderly. Functioning." He glanced at me, his smile slow, deliberate. "You understand, don't you?"

  And with that, he strode toward the wall, leaving me trapped in the cold, stale air of my cell, the weight of his words lingering like a noose around my throat.

  With a flicker of movement, Albert reached for the wall, his fingers brushing against something unseen in the dim light. And then-he was gone.

  Not through a door. Not through any means I could comprehend. Just... gone. The space where he had stood was now empty, save for the ghost of his laughter, curling through the air like smoke, seeping into the cracks of my mind.

  I stared, my breath shallow, my chest tightening.

  "What the hell was that?" My voice was hoarse, raw with confusion and the simmering heat of something deeper-something sharp, bitter.

  Anger.

  "Was he even real? How did we go from the gate to... wherever the fuck this is?"

  Silence.

  A suffocating, deafening silence.

  I forced myself to move to the wall, every movement sluggish, my body still rattled from whatever had just happened. The cold concrete pressed against my skin, leeching the warmth from my bones. I took in my surroundings-one bleak, empty detail at a time.

  A single room. No windows. No way to gauge the passage of time. The walls- sterile, lifeless cement-stretched endlessly in every direction, pressing in, crushing. A thin mattress sat abandoned in the corner, more like an afterthought than an actual bed. A sink-old, rusted-dripped a slow, deliberate stream of cold water, its rhythmic patter the only sound in this tomb of a room. A fridge hummed softly in the silence, hollow and useless, the stale scent of its emptiness settling thick in my throat.

  Even the air vents-too small, too perfectly placed-mocked the very idea of escape.

  Everything here had been designed with precision. With purpose. With Albert's suffocating sense of control.

  I clenched my fists, my nails biting into my palms.

  This must be my new cell.

  I pushed off the wall, my muscles burning, my head still reeling from the lingering haze of displacement. I ran my hands along the walls, searching for anything-a seam, a hinge, a hidden mechanism that explained how he had slipped away so easily. But there was nothing.

  Only cold, unyielding stone, indifferent to my existence.

  "This is hell," I whispered. My voice cracked against the stillness, swallowed whole by the walls. "It's him... torturing me... or maybe just isolating me forever."

  I turned in slow circles, the room somehow shrinking with every breath I took.

  "The silence was thick, viscous-like tar coating my lungs. I could hear the creak of my own joints, the rasp of my breath dragging through my throat. Even the air carried weight, stale with the scent of stone, smoke and blood.

  Then—

  A hum.

  Faint at first.

  Like the whisper of air through a vent. Like the distant murmur of voices just beyond reach. But it grew. It swelled. The steady, pulsing rhythm of blood in my ears twisted, distorted, until it became something louder. A roar. A maddening, all-consuming roar that clawed at the edges of my sanity.

  "All I have is a bed, a sink, and an empty fridge." My voice was barely more than a breath now.

  The words felt distant, detached, like they belonged to someone else.

  I pressed my hands against my head.

  I needed to focus. I needed to think.

  But the room was closing in, each second stretching longer than the last.

  I sucked in a sharp breath-too fast, too shallow.

  My pulse spiked, erratic, matching the fevered drumming in my skull. My hands trembled at my sides.

  No. No, I can’t lose control. Not here. Not now.

  First, it was a soft press of my forehead against the wall. Just to feel something solid. Real. Then harder. And harder. The dull ache spread, a welcome distraction from the void clawing at the edges of my mind. Somewhere, a drop of something warm trickled down my temple. I didn't care.

  Again.

  A sharp, blinding jolt of pain shot through my skull momentarily relieving me of the piercing pounding in my ears.

  Good.

  Again.

  The impact sent a fresh ripple of agony through my nerves that continued to drown out the thundering ringing in my ears.

  It felt even better.

  Again.

  A coppery taste bloomed in my mouth, my breaths ragged, uneven.

  The pain grounded me. The pain reminded me.

  I wasn't gone. Not yet.

  But the nothingness was still there, waiting.

  Watching. Patient.

  And if I stayed here long enough, I knew-it would swallow me whole.