Her Obsession (by Sheridan Hartin) novel Chapter 59

7:26 pm D

Her Obsession.

Last.

False dawn turned the yard the color of old bone. The kids lined the concrete edge in their loose gray, eyes too big, too quiet. Handlers smoked and didn’t look bored on purpose. Cameras stared like extra guards.

“Pairs,” the whip crack voice called. They didn’t give me Naomi first. Good. They sent a thick–set ghost with a wrestler’s neck. He grinned like he liked his job. We circled once. I let him see the stiffness in my left like I couldn’t hide it. He went for it the way they always do, heavy on the shoulder line. I went to ground before he got there, a clean breakfall, chin tucked, breath out, forearm smacking the dirt to bleed force. From the wall it read as clumsy. From inside my bones it was arithmetic: keep the arm intact, keep the ribs from singing. He followed with knee to gut. I bit my cheek and let the blood paint my tongue, better they see red and count it than hunt for it. He pressed his forearm across my sternum, performed a win for the cameras. I gave him the seconds he needed, then twisted too late, like a tired ghost who couldn’t find her base.

“Down,” the handler barked, bored. One tally flips somewhere I can’t see.

Second bout. A tall one with reach and a fencer’s patience. He wanted precision, so I gave him opportunities. I overstepped with the right, let him tag my thigh, not my ribs. When he slid inside my guard to hook my ankle, I took the fall, rolled with it, let the pain write itself in my hip where it didn’t matter. He got the mount, performed control. I lay very still, eyes half–lidded, the way the broken look. That’s what they want on these first passes: the shape of defeat. I sold it and kept my shoulder. From the wall: two easy wins. From the floor: not a.scratch I hadn’t chosen.

On the third go they pulled Naomi. She bounced once on the balls of her feet, loose and smiling, eyes flat as a blade.

“No room for feelings,” her body said, shoulders squaring. I know the drill.

“Again,” the handler said, and dropped a hand.

We clashed hard and fast, no pause, no whisper. She went centerline, I angled off, jamming her elbow. My ribs yelled. She drove me, heavy where the wall could see it. I gave her my back for a heartbeat, let her toss me with a clean hip. Dirt in my mouth. I coughed, planted, rose slower than I had to. Her knuckles glanced off my jaw, not the shoulder. Mercy disguised as accuracy. When she dropped me again, it looked definitive. It wasn’t. We both knew it. The handler marked another tally like he was counting cutlery. They ran us into the obstacle barn next, steel frames, rope ascents, crawl tubes slick with oil. Bell every thirty. If you’re still hanging when it hits, they clip a plate to your harness and call it corrective. I hit the ladder wrong on purpose once, to keep the fiction consistent; then I hit everything else right, because Ari’s metric isn’t “win” or “lose.” It’s last. I hooked heel to rung, swung with forearm and hip to keep the shoulder quiet. Naomi moved three stations ahead and then “stumbled” near the camera that always lags by half a second. The guard who hates being flirted with glanced at her and forgot to start the next bell. We bought six clean seconds and no one noticed.

“Interview,” they called it next, the chair, the hood, the water. They didn’t have to tell me; the room smelled like bleach and old fear. I made my breath coins and spent them slowly. Up. One gasped draw. Down. Hood soaked, the world tight and loud. I didn’t thrash. Stillness steals their satisfaction and saves your oxygen. When the hood came off, I looked past the handler’s left shoulder, never at the camera..

Cold box after. Thin locker, steel floor stealing heat through the arches of your feet.I set my jaw loose so my teeth wouldn’t break, breathed like I listened to Conner sleep, slow in, slower out. I remembered I hated it here.

Back to the yard. Sticks now, rattan buzzing like hornets when they cut air. First stick caught my bicep; I turned with it and let the welt bloom where it would look dramatic and hurt less. Naomi cracked one off my ribs where there was already a bruise, consistency for the cameras; I let the sound scuff out of my throat and not my mouth. When I answered, I hit thigh, not knee. We keep each other walking. That’s the work under the work.

By midday they put us on the treadmill room. Barefoot. No incline. No end. The belt changed speed at random because a man who hates himself coded it that way, it took skin the way paper takes ink, thin and permanent. Naomi ran like it was a joke, tossing a glance at the convex mirror to make the guard flush and look away. I stared straight ahead, counted breath, lengthened my stride so the blisters broke where it wouldn’t matter tomorrow. Meal time was a tin of broth and a potato cut in half like generosity. I scraped salt from the rim with a nail, pressed it into the cut across my shoulder to keep the rot off. Pain sang electric up my neck and then dimmed. I drank the broth in three slow pulls. Fed the machine exactly what it expected to see: compliance.

Guard change at sixteen, Cameras stuttered for five, Ari’s fingerprint. No visit, good. Steady. If she stepped into Winter again this soon, it would mean the count was going wrong. I tipped my tin the way the kids do when they want the last drop. A small hand two cells down copied me.

Night came and went. By the time the yard went from bruise–purple to iron–gray again, the numbers on some unseen board said I’d “lost” three bouts and “stumbled” once. The numbers that mattered said I could still raise both hands, still see straight, still carry Naomi on a bad ankle if I had to. I’d spent the first two just like Ari told me. The machine was satisfied enough to keep me; not enough to break me.

Yakov walked the edge near nineteen, coat open to the cold, counting children like inventory. He didn’t look at me. He didn’t have to. He’d see the tallies later. He flicked ash and said without turning his head, “Again. Harder.”

1/2

7:26 pm & D

Last

We went again. Harder Naomi gave the guard who hates it a smile that heated his ears. He forgot the timer Six more seconds. I went to ground early once more, arms curled, shoulder guarded, breath out From the wall, a tired ghost failing the drill From inside, a clock resetting to the only number that mattered tonight

One. Two Three

If the power cuts long. I’ll count to one hundred and move. Until then, 1 do exactly what Ari told me. I last.

Chapter Comments

11