The blindfold smelled like industrial bleach and stale sweat.
That was the first thing Jane noticed. Not the thick plastic zip-ties cutting off the circulation in her wrists. Not the dull, throbbing ache at the base of her skull where the mercenary’s rifle butt had connected.
The bleach. It was cheap. The Elder Council spent tens of millions of dollars a year on their private security forces, but they bought cheap bleach.
It was the kind of useless, hyper-specific detail her brain latched onto when it was trying to build a wall. For twenty-two years, that was how Jane survived. She took the terror, folded it into neat little squares, and locked it in a white room in her mind.
She tried to find that room now. She tried to go numb.
She couldn't.
The room was gone. It had burned to the
