I wake before the house does.
That, too, is deliberate.
The systems are still cycling through their night pattern, security relaxed just enough to breathe. The city outside the windows hasn’t decided what kind of day it’s going to be yet. Neither has Alexander.
I lie still for a moment, listening.
The house hums softly around me, obedient and blind in all the ways that matter. He thinks it belongs to him. He thinks he knows every corridor, every override, every fail-safe.
He never asked who taught me to build exits.
I sit up and swing my legs over the side of the bed. The floor is cold beneath my feet. Grounding. Real.
Today is Day Thirty-One.
I don’t rush.
Rushing is for people who are afraid they’ll be stopped.
I shower, dress, move through the room with the same unhurried prec
