The facility felt colder the next day.
Not physically — the heaters still hummed through the vents — but deeper, like the walls themselves had caught the chill of Asher Beaumont’s mind games and were pressing it in on me.
Every time I turned a corner, I expected to see him. Even though I knew he was locked in that glass and steel cage two floors below, it didn’t matter. He was everywhere now.
In the shadows that stretched too long.
In the murmurs that rippled through staff who thought I couldn’t hear them.
In the pounding headache that hadn’t left me since yesterday.
I barely remembered getting to my office. One minute I was in the hallway, and the next I was gripping the edge of my desk so tightly my knuckles had gone white.
The girl — the junior staffer — had been found. Safe, the
