The Black Dot
1349 Words
The red dot on the screen didn't blink. It didn't move. It just sat there, black and cold, against the digital map of the city. Maren felt the air leave her lungs. The silence in the secret room was heavy. It felt like the walls were leaning in, pressing the blue light of the monitors against her skin.
"What did you do?" Maren asked. Her voice was a dry scratch. It sounded like someone else’s voice, someone older and more broken.
Alaric stood next to her. He didn't look at the screen. He didn't look at the map or the vanished signal. He looked at her. His eyes were calm, like a lake with no wind. He tucked his hands into the pockets of his dark trousers. He looked like a man admiring a painting he had just finished.
"The signal is gone," he said.
"Gone? People don't just disappear, Alaric. That’s my mother." Maren stepped toward the monitors. The hum of the computer fans felt like a swarm of bees in her ears. She wanted to touch the screen. She wanted to shake the glass until the red light came back, until the map made sense again. "You can’t just turn her off."
"The nursing home had a small fire," Alaric said. He spoke as if he were reading a weather report or a grocery list. "Electrical. Very sudden. The fire department was efficient, but the building is no longer habitable. Everyone was moved."
Maren’s heart stopped. She turned to him, the silk of her dress rustling in the quiet room. Her hands were curled into tight balls at her sides. "Is she okay? Tell me she’s okay. Tell me you didn't let anything happen to her."
Alaric stepped closer. He was so tall he blocked out the blue light of the monitors, casting a long shadow over Maren. He reached out. His thumb brushed her cheek, tracing the line of her jaw. It was cold. It felt like a warning, a physical reminder of who held the power in the room.
"She is in a new place. A better place. One that I own." He leaned down. His breath was warm against her ear, a sharp contrast to his cold touch. "She is safe, Maren. As long as you are."
Maren felt a chill go down her spine. It wasn't just fear. It was a sick kind of weight, a realization that the cage had grown overnight. He had her mother. He had her bank account. He had her career. There was nothing left of her that he didn't touch, nothing left that wasn't monitored by a sensor or a line of code.
"You’re a monster," she whispered.
Alaric didn't flinch. He didn't look hurt or insulted. He just tilted his head, studying her face as if she were a curious puzzle. "I am the only one who cares enough to watch you this closely. Everyone else let you go. Your friends, your old life. They moved on. I kept you."
He walked over to a small table near the server rack. He picked up a thin, silver band. It was minimalist and sleek. It looked like a high-end watch, but there was no face. No numbers. No hands to tell the time.
"Rule number one," Alaric said. He held the band out. "You wear this. Always."
Maren looked at the silver. It caught the flickering light from the screens. It looked beautiful and terrifying at the same time. "And if I don't?"
"Then the signal at the new nursing home stays black. No doctors. No medicine. No one to hold her hand when she gets confused in the middle of the night."
Maren felt a sob rise in her throat. It was hot and jagged. She pushed it down. She wouldn't cry. Not in front of him. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of seeing her break in the blue light of his control room. She reached out and took the band. It was heavier than it looked, solid and unyielding. She snapped it onto her left wrist.
It clicked. A soft, mechanical sound that felt final. The metal grew warm against her skin, a strange, artificial heat. A tiny green light flashed once on the underside of the band, then stayed on, a steady, unblinking eye against her pulse.
"What does it do?" she asked. She rubbed the metal. It felt seamless.
"It tells me where you are. It tells me how fast your heart is beating. It tells me if you are afraid." Alaric walked to the door of the secret room. The steel panel slid back with a hum. He held it open, waiting. "It tells me when you are lying."
Maren walked out of the dark room and back into the library. The normal world felt strange now. The leather-bound books looked like props. The mahogany furniture felt fake, like a movie set. She looked at her wrist. The silver band felt like a shackle. She could feel her pulse thudding against the metal. Thump. Thump. Thump. It was a rhythm Alaric could now see on a graph.
Alaric followed her out, the steel door sliding shut behind him. He stopped at the library door, his silhouette framed by the warm yellow light of the hallway.
"Go to bed, Maren. Tomorrow is a busy day. We have a gala to attend. Draken Industries is celebrating a new merger."
Maren stopped. She didn't turn around. She kept her eyes on a painting of a storm at sea. "A gala? I’m an assistant, Alaric. Not a guest. People will ask questions."
"You are whatever I say you are," he said. His voice was final.
Maren went to her room. She shut the door. She didn't lock it. There was no point in locking a door when the person you were hiding from owned the walls and the floor. She sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the silver band. It felt like it was tightening, though it hadn't moved.
She thought about her mother. She thought about the fire. Was it really an accident? She knew the answer. Alaric didn't believe in accidents. He didn't believe in chance. He only believed in results and the data required to achieve them.
She lay back on the silk sheets. They were soft. They felt like a trap, a web of fine threads designed to keep her comfortable while she was consumed. She closed her eyes, but she could still see the black dot on the map. She could see the empty space where her mother was supposed to be.
She realized she wasn't just a prisoner in this house. She was a variable in a game she didn't understand yet. And if she moved the wrong way, if her heart beat too fast at the wrong time, the game would crush the only person she had left.
A soft sound came from the hallway. A footstep. It was slow and deliberate. It stopped right outside her door.
Maren held her breath. She didn't move a muscle. She waited for the handle to turn. She waited for him to come in and tell her he had seen her pulse spike on his monitor.
The shadow under the door stayed still for a long time. It was a dark, unmoving shape against the light of the hall. Then, finally, it moved away.
Maren turned on her side. She touched the silver band with her right hand. It was warm. It felt like a hand wrapped tightly around her wrist. It felt like him, even when he wasn't in the room.
She fell asleep to the sound of her own heart. It was a loud, frantic sound. She knew he was listening to it, too, somewhere in the dark of the penthouse, watching the red lines of her life move across his screens
- Writer
