I winced and raised my hands to shield my face from the light creeping in. My head throbbed with a rhythm that matched the slow, punishing pulse behind my temples.
Unease settled in my stomach, heavy as stone, and with it came the slow churn of nausea. Something pressed against my neck. Confused, I found the chain first, then let my fingers trail down to the pendant at the end of it. How did this even get here? Hadn't I given it away?
The memories returned in fragments, disjointed and out of order. As they began to settle into a clearer picture; shame followed. It seeped in as the events of the previous night arranged themselves into something I didn't want to remember.
A moment later, I was on my knees, gripping the trash can as my stomach turned. I retched, but nothing came. The bile stayed where it was, thick and unmoving, a leaden weight in my stomach.
When the nausea finally passed, I slumped back. But the relief was short lived as dread crept in. Maybe I'd missed a dose yesterday. The thought hit hard, cutting through the cotton-wrapped fog that was dulling the edges of everything.
I pushed myself upright and sat on the edge of the cot, steadying myself before dragging the bag closer. My fingers were clumsy, useless things as I fumbled with the zipper.
The pill bottle was where I always kept it, nestle against the spare paperback I'd brought but never found time to read. I shook them out onto my palm, counting each one, but something gave me pause. They were the same size, the same shape, but the color was wrong. Too white. Not the soft ivory I remembered. I turned one over between my fingers. The scoring was gone. No dividing line at all.
The thought came quietly, almost gently. Someone had tampered with my medication. It lodged in my throat like a fish bone, small but impossible to ignore.
Fear crept up my spine. Or maybe they had always looked like this?
I dumped the pills back into the bottle with shaking hands, then gripped a fistful of my hair, tugging hard. The pain was sharp, immediate, something I could focus on. Was this another trick of my mind, a mind I could no longer trust to tell delusion from fact? The question circled like a vulture, picking at the rotted carcass of my certainty until all that remained was doubt and the terrible possibility that I was losing myself again.
I had to leave. Right now.
The realization hit me hard. Whether the pills had been tampered with didn't matter. I couldn't stay here picking at the edges of my mind, hoping for clarity that I knew wasn't going to come.
I tore through my duffel, breath hitching as I shoved clothes and toiletries aside in a blind scramble. My fingers fumbled and slipped, useless from the sweat slicking my palms. I thought I had seen Eldon go through my bag, taking my passport, but I couldn't be sure. Everything from the night before blurred at the edges, like a dream unraveling the moment I tried to hold onto it.
Panic rose sharp and fast when I didn't find it. My wallet was gone too. I ripped the pillow aside, yanked the sheet off the cot. No sign of my phone either.
That could only mean one thing. Eldon had them. My passport, my wallet, everything I needed to leave. He would have stashed them in his tent. I was sure of it. I just had to get them back.
I still had some cash. Maybe enough for a ride into the city. With luck, I could convince the airline to change my flight, and if that failed, I'd go to the embassy. One way or another, I'd make it out.
The camp was oddly quiet as I stepped outside, my duffel gripped tight in one hand. A few laborers lingered near the equipment tent, their eyes fixed on the ground. None of them looked my way. The sun hung high overhead so it had to be midday, hopefully most of the team wouldn't notice me.
I made my way toward Eldon's tent, my feet slowing as I neared it. The necklace tugged at the edge of my thoughts, but I pushed it away. I had given it to that kid. Whatever was happening, it wasn't real. It didn't matter. And it wasn't important. Right now, it barely made the list.
Stopping at the entrance, my heart pounded against my ribs, each beat sharp with rising anxiety. I'll be quick, I told myself. Go in, grab what I needed, and get out. No one would even notice.
The interior was dim and the air held a faint, metallic tang. The thought alone made my head throb. A sharp spike of pain flared behind my eyes, sudden and bright. I dropped my bag and grabbed at my temples as my vision split and swam.
Forcing myself forward, legs heavy beneath me, I stumbled toward the folding table that dominated the center of the tent. It was cluttered with paper, carelessly scattered, some stained with water rings.
Where would he have hidden them? My passport. My wallet. I needed both if I was to have any chance of leaving this place. My breath came quick and shallow as I pawed through the mess, hands fumbling, knocking papers aside. All I had now was urgency, and the thin edge of need that pushed me forward.
I should have looked away. I should have kept searching but my fingers paused on worn leather. A journal lay buried beneath the mess, its cover cracked with age, the spine soft and bent. When I pulled it free, it fell open in my hands, the pages already fanned as if it had been waiting to be read. The paper was thin, yellowed at the edges, and filled with writing I didn't recognize.
The marks twisted and curled across the page. They moved as I stared at them, shifting subtly from one shape to another, as though they were trying to rearrange themselves into something I'd understand.
I blinked hard, but they kept changing.
My stomach turned.
I snapped the journal shut, the sound sharp in the quiet. My hands trembled as I held it, frozen with it pressed to my chest. Then I let it go, as if it had burned me, shaking my head to clear the fog and force myself to focus.
Moving his cot, I continued to rummage through his belongings. I found a stack of letters printed on thick, cream-colored paper.; the kind no one used anymore unless they had money to waste. I didn't recognize the letterhead but it was the name at the bottom that stopped me. It caught at the edges of my memory, a faint flicker of recognition I couldn't place.
Hightower.
I pulled one of the papers from the stack. It looked like a list of some kind but I couldn't be sure. One entry near the bottom had been underlined in red ink. My eyes lingered on it, but the words slipped past me, too strange or too familiar to make sense.
I searched every corner. But my things were gone. No passport. No wallet. No phone.
Then I noticed, tucked beneath Eldon's cot was a small metal box, dull with age and scratched at the corners. It had to be in there.
I dragged it out and set it on the floor. The lid held fast when I tried to lift it, unmoving under my grip. There was a keyhole, but I hadn't seen a key in my search so far. I didn't have time to search, I was sure I could pry it open.
On the table lay a chisel. I seized it and wedged the tip into the seam of the box. My hands slipped twice before I found the right angle and braced my weight against it. It groaned beneath the pressure, but held.
Then I heard it. A faint rustle, from somewhere behind me.
Freezing, the chisel remained in my grip as I slowly turned.
I found myself face to face with a man I'd never seen before. He was lean, dressed in dark clothing. Sharp features that would have been devastatingly handsome if not for their complete lack of warmth. His eyes were a pale blue, cold, utterly without warmth.
My gaze was drawn to the thick white scar that curved beneath his Adam's apple and reached from one side of his neck to the other. It looked intentional, too clean to be chance.
A bolt of pain lanced through my skull, sharp and sudden, stopping me where I stood. Dropping the chisel, I clutched my head, fingers digging into my scalp as the world bleached white at the edges.
My vision swam. My knees buckled.
Through the static of that agony, something slipped in. Words, shaped in silence, forming inside my mind. Impossible to ignore.
RELAX
The words came in Eldon's voice. They slid into my thoughts as if they belonged there. I felt something press against the edges of my mind, not harshly, but with quiet insistence. Like it was trying to help. Trying to calm me.
Something tightened around my throat, sudden and unrelenting. I couldn't breathe. I gasped, choking on nothing, and my hands flew to the chain at my neck, clawing at it with frantic, shaking fingers. "No—no, get it off, get it off." The words tore from my mouth.
The clasp was slick with sweat, and my fingers couldn't find any purchase. I fumbled blindly at my throat, heart pounding, breath coming too fast. The edges of my vision had started to tunnel again, the light narrowing into a single, suffocating point. I felt like I was being pulled under, dragged into some slow, suffocating dark.
That voice in my head grew stronger, more insistent now, threading through my thoughts. I could feel my will fraying at the edges, unraveling strand by strand.
The man moved too fast to follow. In an instant, his arms wrapped around me from behind, pinning mine tight to my sides. His grip was absolute, effortless. I kicked out, but it did nothing. My head swam, and I sagged back against his chest, trapped.
"Let me go," I said, but I could hear how weak my voice sounded.
"I'm afraid I can't do that."
Eldon's voice came from the tent entrance. He stepped inside, hands clasped loosely in front of him, his gaze sweeping over the scene.
"You can't keep me here," I said, clinging to reason, forcing my voice to steady even as a tremor ran through me. "I want my things. You took my passport. I want my wallet and phone. I know you have them."
"I'm afraid that's not possible. You're in no condition to travel."
"You don't get to decide that for me."
"I wish that were true. But your situation leaves me very little choice. I have to admit, I'm concerned." He paused, the silence deliberate. "Certain irregularities have come to light."
"Irregularities?" The word barely left my lips, I was so tired I couldn't even put force behind them.
Eldon moved about the tent with unhurried grace, righting the papers I had riffled through. He didn't seem bothered by the mess I'd made.
"Several valuable artifacts have gone missing from your work area," he said lightly, as he picked up a the journal I had dropped and set it aside. "Small things, easily concealed, and very valuable."
He knelt to retrieve the box I was trying to open, clicking his tongue at the damage. "I'd hate to think that someone I trusted, someone I went out of my way to help, might have betrayed that trust."
The accusation hit me like a slap. "I didn't take anything. I would never —"
"Of course you wouldn't. Not intentionally. But with your episodes recently. It would be so easy for someone to take advantage of that, to use your condition as cover for their own crimes."
I stare at him numbly, the necklace around my neck growing warmer as I winced, the pain returning.
"You see the problem, don't you?," Eldon said, his voice almost apologetic. "If word of this were to reach the Egyptian authorities, I doubt they would show the same understanding I have. Prison conditions here can be difficult, especially for women."
He gave a small shrug, as if he was the helpless one in this situation. "And then there is the university. They tend to take a stern view of students caught up in theft. Your scholarship, your future; those things are fragile, Harper. One phone call is all it would take."
"Of course," Eldon went on, his tone never wavering, "there's always the concern that your condition might deteriorate. That you could become a danger to yourself. Or to others." He tilted his head slightly, as if weighing the thought. "In those cases, it's not uncommon for arrangements to be made. A facility, somewhere quiet. Somewhere safe. For your own protection, of course."
I swallowed, but the tightness in my throat didn't ease. "I didn't take anything," I said, my voice barely audible. "I don't even know why I'm here." The words spilled out before I could stop them. "What do you want from me?"
Eldon's expression softened, almost paternal. "What I want is to help you, Harper. You're in pain, aren't you? Confused? It's fighting you because you're fighting it."
My hand instinctively went to my throat, fingers brushing against the warm metal.
"The struggle is what hurts," he continued gently. "Accept what's already yours, and the pain will stop. I promise you that."
Something pressed at the edge of my thoughts; gentle, steady, impossible to ignore. The necklace pulsed with a slow warmth, almost like a second heartbeat against my skin. It wasn't unpleasant. My mind blurred, softened. Maybe this wasn't so bad.
The necklace pulsed once. Warm. Final.
Eldon smiled. "It's finally taken root," he murmured, giving the chain a light tug. It bit into the skin behind my neck, making me flinch.
He looked at me, and for an instant, something slipped. His pupils narrowed into thin slits, eyes that were no longer human. I recoiled, but the man behind me held fast. His grip tightened just enough to remind me I would not be going anywhere.
Eldon laughed, low and quiet, the sound thick with satisfaction. He gripped my chin and tilted my face toward him, his touch deceptively gentle.
"You know," he murmured, eyes scanning mine, "when I first saw you all those years ago, I assumed you were a plant. Sent by one of the greater Houses to sniff out what I was doing."
A pause.
His thumb traced the edge of my jaw as his smile thinned. "It's a shame, really. But your blood is worth more than anything you could have grown into."
He addressed the man behind me. "Put her with the others. We'll begin after sunset."
Then came the word. Soft. Absolute.
SLEEP
I closed my eyes.
There was no choice in it, no decision left to make. I simply let them fall shut. The last thread of strength inside me folded in on itself like wet paper in the rain.
And there was comfort in that. The comfort of surrender.
No more resistance. No more questions. No more fear.