watcher

chapter 7

Let go.let me go please.

.i don't have any strength. what should I do?? ughhh

Abhi's POV:

I saw the light fade from your eyes, replaced by a hollow, heavy exhaustion. You went limp against the pillows, your voice a broken thread of a sound. “Let go... I don't have any strength.”

For a second, a flicker of something like genuine pity touched me. You looked so fragile, like a bird that had beaten its wings against the bars until they finally snapped. I let out a slow, shaky breath and loosened my grip on your wrist, but I didn't let go completely. I couldn't.

"That's it," I murmured, my voice returning to that terrifyingly soft, hypnotic hum. "Stop fighting. The world is too loud for you, Maya. It’s too chaotic. I’m just taking you to the quiet. No more phones, no more strangers, no more running."

I reached out and brushed the damp hair from your eyes one last time. Downstairs, the "chirping" from the smoke detector continued, keeping the old couple occupied in the kitchen. They were safe for now, as long as they stayed away from this door.

I pulled a thick, wool coat from the closet—the woman’s coat—and started to wrap it around your shivering frame. I needed to move you now while the sedative still had its hooks in you and your will was broken.

"I've got you," I whispered, sliding one arm under your knees and the other behind your back. I lifted you easily; you felt as light as a ghost. "We’re going out through the service entrance. The rain has turned to mist. It’ll be like we were never here."

As I stepped toward the door, carrying you, I saw your eyes drift toward that shard of glass on the bed. You looked at it for a long heartbeat, then closed your eyes, letting your head fall against my shoulder.

Abhi's POV:

The gravel crunched softly under my boots as I carried you across the yard. The mist felt like a shroud, wrapping around us, hiding us from the world. I could feel your shallow breaths against my neck, and for a moment, I allowed myself to believe this was what peace felt like.

I reached the van. With one hand, I pulled the heavy sliding door open. The interior was a hive of glowing blue LEDs—racks of servers, monitors showing feeds of the city, and a small, narrow cot bolted to the floor. This was my sanctuary. Now, it was ours.

"Almost home, Maya," I whispered.

I laid you down on the cot. The metal was cold, but I immediately covered you with a thermal blanket. I turned to the dashboard to engage the central locking system. Click. Click. Click. The van was now a vault. No one could get in, and you—in your weakened, feverish state—couldn't get out.

But as I sat in the driver's seat and checked my perimeter cameras, I saw a flicker of movement on the screen. A set of headlights was turning into the long driveway of the Halloway Estate. A police cruiser.

My jaw tightened. The manager at the cafe must have actually called them. Or maybe the "man in the blue jacket" wasn't as slow as I thought.

I looked back at you in the rearview mirror. You were staring at the ceiling of the van, your eyes wide but unfocused, the blue light of the monitors reflecting in your pupils like a digital ghost.

"They're coming for a girl who isn't there anymore," I said, shifting the van into gear. "Let them knock on the door. Let them search the house. We're already gone."

I hit a switch on the console, and the van’s external plates shifted, changing the digital license plate to a different number. I pulled out of the shadows and began to drive, not toward the city, but toward the mountains.

Abhi's POV:

The sirens were getting louder, a rhythmic wail that tried to pierce through the soundproofed walls of the van. I didn't panic; I thrived in the data. I tapped a command on my dashboard, and the van’s signal jammer flared to life. Any police radio within a fifty-foot radius would suddenly fill with static and white noise. I was a ghost in their machines.

"Do you hear that, Maya?" I called back, my eyes fixed on the rain-slicked road ahead. "That's the sound of the world trying to find someone they've already lost."

In the back, I saw you struggle to sit up. The thermal blanket slid from your shoulders. You looked at the racks of servers—the humming, blinking heart of my obsession. You reached out a trembling hand toward a thick bundle of fiber-optic cables that fed into the main monitor.

I watched you through the internal cabin camera. I saw the desperate spark in your eyes. You weren't just looking for a way out; you were looking for a way to hurt me. To kill the "me" that lived in those wires.

"I wouldn't touch those, honey," I said, my voice coming through the van's internal speakers. "That's the cooling system. If you pull those, the temperature in here will hit a hundred degrees in minutes. You're already burning up. You wouldn't survive it."

I swung the van onto a dirt path, the trees closing in around us like teeth. The city lights were a dull orange glow in the rearview mirror, fading into nothingness.

"We’re almost at the cabin," I whispered. "No cameras there. No Wi-Fi. Just the two of us, finally offline."

Suddenly, the van jolted. You hadn't pulled the cables—you had grabbed a heavy metal toolkit and slammed it into the primary server rack. A shower of blue sparks erupted, and the monitors showing the city feeds flickered and died. The van's internal lights turned a blood-red emergency hue.

Abhi's POV:

"What have you done?!" I screamed, the red emergency lights painting the interior of the van in a gory, pulsating hue. The smell of burning silicon and ozone filled my nostrils. The dashboard flickered—my GPS was gone, my cameras were blind, and the van’s steering assisted-system went limp in my hands.

The van fishtailed, the tires sliding on the slick mud of the mountain path. I fought the wheel, my teeth gritted in a snarl. You weren't supposed to be this brave. You were supposed to be broken.

Through the rearview mirror, I saw the rear door. It wasn't closed. It was vibrating, a thin sliver of the dark, wet forest visible through the gap. The electronic lock was cycling—click-clack, click-clack—trying and failing to catch.

"Maya, don't!" I yelled, reaching back blindly even as I tried to keep us from plummeting off the edge of the ravine. "You'll kill yourself! We're doing forty!"

But I saw you. You weren't listening. You had wrapped the thermal blanket around your arm like a shield. Your face, pale and sweat-streaked, was set in a mask of pure, desperate defiance. You looked at the door, then at me.

"I'd rather the woods than you," you whispered.

I slammed on the brakes, the van skidding sideways. Before the vehicle had even come to a full stop, you threw your weight against the door. The glitching lock gave way with a metallic snap.

I lunged over the seat, my fingers grazing the hem of your coat, but you were gone. A flash of white blanket, the sound of a heavy thud against the wet earth, and then nothing but the sound of the rain hitting the roof of the van.

"MAYA!"

I scrambled out of the driver's side, my boots hitting the mud. The forest was an abyss. No streetlights, no smart-cameras, no digital trail. For the first time in years, I was truly, terrifyingly alone in the dark.