Her Obsession (by Sheridan Hartin) novel Chapter 58

“Sage”

Her eyes opened. Green in the dark, even here. Focused. She didn’t try to sit. Good.

“Don’t.” I set the tray on the floor by her hand. Broth, thick with lentils so it looked like brown water to the cameras, but dense enough to stick in a body. A heel of bread wrapped in napkin. A twist of salt I palmed into the broth while I moved, like I was stirring. Two pills taped under the tray lip, broad–spectrum antibiotic and an ibuprofen, as much as I dared. A grease–stained napkin with a wire–thin shim stitched through its hem. I tore the corner and let it fall onto the slab like trash.

“Two sips,” I said. “Pause between them. Shallow breaths.”

Her mouth flickered like a smile tried to happen and changed its mind. She took the cup, hands steady enough to make me proud. Sipped. Stopped. Counted with her eyes because she knows I count everything. Sipped again.

“How long?” she whispered.

“Forty–two,” I said. “You’ve burned six.”

The breath she let out wasn’t relief. It was calculation.

“Naomi?”

“Hurting. Standing. She’ll be noisy on purpose; it draws heat. Ride her wake, not her fire.” I watched the way her fingers tightened on the cup at Naomi’s name. Loyalty is useful when you know where to place it.

“They’ll push you again tonight.” I kept my voice low and flat. “You’ll want to win. Don’t. Your numbers look better when you survive with a deficit.”

She swallowed, leaned her head back against the wall, and closed her eyes for a beat. “Yakov?”

“Counting you,” I said. “He’ll come look at the tally lights at nineteen and again at three. He’s bored; boredom makes him inventive.” I sighed, “and I called your man. Told him to back off.”

She opened her eyes. “You called them.”

Not a question. She sees edges I don’t bother hiding.

“I bought you forty–eight,” I said. “Use it.”

Her gaze sharpened. “He’ll try to come,” she said, and I didn’t need the name. The Irish boy lived in both our heads for different reasons.

“Maybe,” I said. “If he’s smart, he waits. If he’s loud, he dies.”

I checked my watch. Three minutes.

“Shoulder?” I asked, already assessing the dark shine through the bandage.

“Reopened,” she said. “It’ll hold,”

“It will if you make it.” I slid the napkin closer with my thumb. “You dropped this.”

Her eyes flicked to it, then back to me. “Clumsy,”

“Mm.” I nodded at the tray. “Eat the bread.”

1/2

7:26 pm D

My Mother’s Daughter.

She did, small bites, methodical. The sound of boots moved in the hall. I stepped to block sightline through the slot as a shadow passed and paused. Keys jingled. Kept going.

“Sage.” I kept my eyes on the door. “When the yard comes, spend your first two opponents. Don’t spend your shoulder. Go to ground early; it looks like failure from the wall. It isn’t. It buys you breath.”

A muscle ticked in her jaw. “Naomi?”

“Will perform,” I said. “She knows the theater. If she flirts with the guard who hates it, he’ll get busy proving he’s not affected and forget to count your

falls.”

4

Her mouth did smile then, a small, private thing. “You always did love choreography.”

“It keeps people alive,” I said.

I checked my watch. Ninety seconds.

“I’m not coming back for you,” I said, and I meant it the way we mean things here, promise as protection. “Not unless the count goes wrong. If you see me again before forty–two, it’s because you’re dying or because we’re both dead.”

“Understood,” she said. No drama. Just acceptance of the parameters. This is why she survives. I leaned in like I was fixing the cuff at her wrist and pressed two fingers to her pulse. Fast. Thready. Stronger than it should have been. “He’s idiot enough to try,” I said finally, a concession I hadn’t planned to make.

She didn’t ask who. Another useful thing: she rarely asks questions that don’t change outcomes.

“Don’t make me file your body,” I said, and that was closer to prayer than anything I allow myself.

“Don’t make me file yours,” she answered, and there she was, the girl they failed to break all those years ago, still there under scar and protocol.

Boots again. The shift coming back to themselves. I picked up the empty cup, smoothed the blanket, set the tray by the door like I’d been doing inventory. I didn’t touch her face. That kind of kindness sets alarms. At the threshold I paused. “If the lights go out for longer than twenty,” I said, “count to a hundred and move. Someone’s pulling the plug. Don’t be in the open when it comes back.”

“Understood,” she said.

I slipped into the hall and pulled the door to. The bolt slid home with a clean sound. I walked the corridor at the same pace I’d walked in, turned left where I’d turned right, passed the showers, and stepped back into the control room with the same bored face and the same clipboard. The monitors blinked from loop to live. Winter filled with little squares of small people enduring.

“Firmware complete,” I said, initialing my own lie. No one glanced up.

On the way out I paused at the yard window. Naomi stood with her hands wrapped in cloth she’d scrounged from somewhere, talking to a guard like she was telling a joke, head tipped, eyes bright. He scowled, as expected. He’ll count wrong in an hour. I kept walking. Forty–two. If the line holds, it will be enough. If it doesn’t, I’ll call the medic again and drop the map I keep in my head on a table I never planned to sit at. Useful things. That’s all I allow myself. But I am my mother’s daughter. I watch the yard and think about the way love can make brave things out of broken ones. And I hope, for exactly five minutes, no more, that the Irish boy is smart enough to wait.

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