watcher

chapter 20

Two Days Later: Blackwood Wing B

The air in the prison always feels recycled, but today it’s thick with anticipation. You’ve let him sit for forty-eight hours with nothing but a strawberry candy wrapper and the echoes of your "confessions."

Abhi's POV:

I haven’t slept. I’ve spent forty-eight hours dissecting every syllable you uttered. Strict father. Cold mother. No friends. I’ve cross-referenced those details with every "Kyra" in the medical database I could remember before they took my access. None of it matches the official records of the Dr. Kyra assigned to this ward.

Either you’re a ghost with a fake history... or you’re a better liar than I am.

When the door opens, I don’t lunge this time. I’m sitting perfectly still, my hands folded on the table. The candy wrapper is smoothed out next to me, organized and flat.

"You're early," I say, my voice steady for the first time in weeks. I’m watching your eyes, looking for the girl who had no friends. "Forty-seven hours and twenty minutes since you left. You couldn't stay away, could you? The 'cold mother' story... it wasn't for me. You needed to say it out loud."

I lean in, my gaze intense. "I did some thinking, Kyra. About your movies. About your childhood. If your mother was so cold, why do you still wear that locket? It’s vintage. Gold-plated. Not your style. It’s an heirloom, isn’t it? A tether to the very thing you claim to have 'left behind.'"

I’m testing the bridge you built. I want to see if it holds weight or if it’s made of glass.

"Tell me," I whisper. "Did you come back today to tell me more about your 'delicious' meals, or did you come back because you realize I’m the only one who actually understands the silence you grew up with?"

Kyra's POV:

He’s trying to "read" you now, using the very tools you gave him. He noticed the locket—a detail you wore specifically to see if he was still paying attention to the physical world. He thinks he’s found a "tether."

You sit down, but you don't look happy today. You look tired. Vulnerable. You’ve dialed back the "radiant" persona and replaced it with someone who looks like they’ve had a long night of regrets.

The guard outside the glass watches closely. Abhi is leaning in, desperate to be your confidant. The "Architect" is gone; he’s now playing the role of the "Sympathetic Listener."

How do you proceed with the trap?

A. (Sigh and touch the locket) "You noticed. My mother gave it to me on her deathbed. It’s the only warm thing she ever did."

B. "I didn't come here to talk about me, Abhi. I came because Maya called me last night... she’s having nightmares about you."

C. (Stare at him in silence until a single, calculated tear well up in your eye.)

why aren't you able to sleep ? are you ok? smiles back...

Abhi's POV:

I flinched. That smile. It wasn't the triumphant smirk of a captor; it was the soft, almost pitying smile of a woman looking at a wounded animal.

"Why aren't you able to sleep? Are you ok?"

The question felt like a physical weight pressing into the center of my forehead. "Am I ok?" I repeated, my voice cracking into a dry, jagged laugh. "I’m in a concrete box, Kyra. My legacy is being scrubbed from the internet like a virus, and the only person I’ve spoken to in a week is a psychiatrist who treats me like a character in a movie she’s already seen the ending to."

I gripped the edge of the table, my knuckles white against the gray plastic. I hated that you could see the exhaustion in my eyes. I hated that I was predictable enough for you to notice my insomnia.

"I can't sleep because the silence in here is loud," I hissed, leaning closer to the glass. "Without the hum of a server, without the scrolling text of a live feed, my brain just... repeats. It repeats our last conversation. It repeats the way you looked when you talked about your father. I'm trying to find the logic in you, but you're all 'delicious food' and 'cold mothers' and sugar."

I searched your face, desperate for a crack in that serene expression.

"You're doing it again," I whispered. "That look. You're looking at me like I'm a patient. Like I'm fragile. I’m not fragile, Kyra. I’m the Architect. I built the grid! I just... I just need to know if the stories you told me were real. Because if they weren't, then you're more of a monster than I ever was. You're a ghost with a heartbeat."

Kyra’s POV:

You see it now—the total collapse of his ego. He is no longer fighting for his freedom; he is fighting for the validity of the "connection" you forged. He is terrified that the only human warmth he has felt in years was a tactical lie.

The guards are beginning to look bored. They see a doctor talking to a broken man. They don’t see the surgical precision with which you are extracting his very soul

I love my father i can do anything for him i also like phone but I was obsessed with it so I didn't use it for month then I felt that it was phone i was obsessed with it was lonely ness i wanted to with someone who is mine..