Her Obsession (by Sheridan Hartin) novel Chapter 61

Her Obsession.

Freedom is Earned.

I wake to the lock turning like a gun being racked. Hands came under my arms. My feet scrape concrete until they set me down on my knees, cold floor, colder air. Naomi’s already there beside me, chin high, eyes empty the way they taught us to make them. Yakov steps into view like the room belongs to him and the air is rented Coat open. Gloves immaculate. He doesn’t raise his voice.

“What are you?”

“Ghosts,” we say together.

“Who do you belong to?”

“You.”

“What were you trained to be?”

“Obedient. Invisible. Precise,” I answer. Naomi adds, flat, “Expendable.”

He watches our mouths, not our faces. “And what did you forget?”

I hold his gaze without holding it. “Nothing.”

He lets the quiet work. “You forgot that you are mine,” he corrects gently, like he’s fixing a child’s posture.

“We are yours,” I repeat. The words taste like rust. Naomi echoes them, perfect cadence, because that’s how you survive the question.

He circles once, slow. “You failed clean lines. You invited noise. One of you left a threat breathing. The other stumbled on an easy mark.” He stops between us. “Retraining is not punishment. It is maintenance. But maintenance must be earned.”

He lifts two fingers. The guards move us to our feet.

“Come.”

The yard is already arranged. Two rows of bodies from door to gate, handlers, ghosts, recruits, kitchen staff, everyone with a stone, brick or shard in hand. Fists closed around weight from pebbles to fist–sized rocks. Eyes forward. No smiles. The gate at the end stands open like a mouth.

“Walk,” Yakov says. “Do not run. Do not shield. Do not speak. Eyes forward. If you fall, you start over.”

A rule meant to break knees and pride in the same breath. the first rock hit before my heel left the line. The opening volley was low, shins, calves, a stinging preview. Then someone got brave. A chunk of concrete caught the hinge of my jaw and snapped my head sideways; my ears popped and the world buzzed white around the edges. Blood flooded my mouth, hot and metallic. I swallowed it and stepped. Left rib, hard. Something cracked; my breath stuttered and wouldn’t seat. Another slammed Naomi just under the collarbone with a hollow thunk that made my stomach roll. She didn’t even grunt. Her fingers brushed mine for a heartbeat, stay level and were gone. The handlers didn’t throw, but they didn’t stop anyone when the headshots started. A flat stone skipped off my temple; light fractured and threaded back together. I felt the wet warmth track hairline to jaw and drip. My shoulder, the bad one, took a hit from close range; pain flared blinding and then narrowed to a blade I could carry. We passed the kids and it got worse. They threw small, but they threw from close, and close hurts. One nailed Naomi just below the eye. Skin burst. Blood ran in a mask and still she walked. Someone on my right had a perfect pitcher’s arm and found the soft space above my hip again and again until my legs juddered and my vision tunneled. Halfway. The gate looked farther than when we started. A brick shard smashed across my knuckles; my fingers went numb and ugly. I wanted to curl them. I didn’t. I let my hand hang and kept my eyes on the seam where iron met sky. Another to the kidney. My knees tried to fold. Training caught me. Chin up. Breath in on three. Out on five. Make oxygen a task, not a plea. A stone clipped the bridge of my nose and the world flashed black. When it cleared, Naomi was a half–step ahead, weaving, blood running into her mouth. She spat pink and kept moving. Closer. The last ten feet turned into a firing line. Someone on the end wound up like a bowler and drove a rock into my sternum so hard I heard it more than felt it. The impact cracked down my spine and stole air. Spots crawled over my vision. Naomi’s shoulder hit mine, deliberate, bracing and we took the last steps like drunks on a narrow curb. We crossed. The gate slammed behind us like a verdict. We didn’t stop. Out of sight is survival. We kept walking, past the camera, past the ditch, into scrub that tore at our ankles and didn’t care. Every step was a negotiation with legs that weren’t listening. My teeth rattled. The cut at my temple kept feeding my eye; the world smeared and sharpened in waves. Naomi leaned left and righted herself on stubbornness alone.

“Count,” she croaked.

1/2

7:26 pm & D

Freedom is Earned.

“One,” I said. It made the ground stay put

We made it to the second bend in the track, far enough that retrieval would be paperwork, not sport. Naomi’s knees went first. She pitched forward and caught herself with her palms; blood smeared rock. She blinked at me through lashes clotted with red and managed a crooked grin that wasn’t a smile at all.

“Dinner,” she said, or maybe I imagined it.

Her eyes rolled white. She went boneless in the weeds. I stood over her because that’s what the body does when the brain is busy dying, one more second of pretending. Then the world tilted at a bad angle and the ground came up like a decision I didn’t get to make. I got an elbow under me, once. Twice. My check found dirt that smelled like rain and iron and old engines. I turned my head just enough to see Naomi’s shoulder rise, fall. Still breathing.

“Out,” I told myself. It sounded like someone else in a tunnel. I counted to three and didn’t make it to four.

Ari

I slipped out on the shift change, the only five minutes this place forgets to breathe. No headlights on the service road, just engine idle and a prayer to whatever gods bother with girls like us. The scrub tore at my calves as I cut across the ditch and followed the spoor of blood and dust a hundred yards past the outer camera. I found them at the second bend, two dark shapes in the weeds, stone–bruised and too still.

“Hey,” I said, low, like I was waking kids from a bad dream. Naomi’s lashes twitched. Sage didn’t move until I thumbed her carotid. Slow, present. Enough. I pulled blankets out of the trunk. Saline amp smashed on gauze to clean what I could see, pressure where I couldn’t. I tucked Sage’s arm tight against her ribs to cage the breathing, rolled Naomi just enough to stop the bleed at her temple, then I hit Matteo’s number before my hands started to shake.

He answered on the first ring. “Matteo”

“They’re out,” I said. “Not in good shape. Your medic skills are going to be useful right about now.”

“How bad?”

“Bad enough, you don’t want to ask me that twice. You’re going to have to meet me halfway.” I gave him the drop: “Old quarry frontage road, mile marker twelve. North gate side.” I looked at the compound lights winking behind the trees. “Don’t be late.”

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