(Ava’s POV)
They separated us less than a minute later.
Not violently, and nothing so crude. Just a quiet efficiency that somehow felt worse. Guards unlatched Brian’s gurney and rolled him out without another word, the door sealing between us with a soft hiss that echoed too loudly in my chest.
I sat alone, wrists aching against the cuffs, staring at the place where he’d been.
They thought isolation would break me.
They didn’t understand that fear had already burned itself down to something harder.
Time passed strangely in the white room. No clock. No windows. Just the steady hum of ventilation and the occasional distant footstep, reminding me I was very much not forgotten. My head still throbbed where I’d been hit, but the pain grounded me. Kept me sharp.
I replayed every instructi
