I woke up in a bed that felt like a cloud and a cage all at once. Soft silk sheets tangled around my naked body, but heavy cuffs locked my wrists to the headboard above my head. The room was dark except for a sliver of morning light slipping through floor-to-ceiling blackout curtains. My collar was still there, thicker now, with a new weight dangling from the front ring. Their shared symbol, I realized when I twisted my neck. Six interlocking lines forming a stylized B.
The hidden recorder was gone. I knew it the second consciousness returned. The faint vibration against my throat had stopped sometime in the night.
The door opened silently. Damien entered first, shirtless in low-slung black pants, coffee in one hand like this was a normal morning. The others followed in a loose semicircl
