I didn't sleep.
I pretended I did. I lay in the dark long enough that the room stopped feeling like a room and started feeling like a holding cell, and I kept my eyes closed because opening them would mean admitting I was awake and awake meant remembering.
The bed smelled clean. The sheets were soft. The temperature was perfect.
It didn't matter.
My body kept replaying the corridor like it was still happening. Not as a story. As flashes.
Metal at my back.
A hand on my mouth.
The sound of my own breath turning into something small and animal because I couldn't get enough air.
My slate shattering on the ground like it was trying to warn me.
I swallowed and pressed the heel of my palm into my forehead like I could physically push the images back into place.
This is Helix.
This is safe.
This doesn't happen here.
Except it did.
It did, and the worst part was how quickly my brain tried to make it logical.
I could feel the part of me that wanted to file it away like a routing error.
If I took the main corridor, it doesn't happen.
If I wasn't tired, it doesn't happen.
If I didn't want quiet, it doesn't happen.
If I hadn't existed in the wrong place for one minute, it doesn't happen.
That last thought made me sit up so fast the sheets twisted around my legs.
No.
No. Don't do that.
I wasn't going to blame myself for wanting to walk down a corridor. I wasn't going to turn the whole thing into a decision tree where my punishment was the result of my own choices.
I pressed my fingers to my throat and tried to slow my breathing, but my pulse kept stuttering. My skin felt wrong, like it couldn't decide if it was cold or overheated.
I swung my legs off the bed and stood up because lying still felt like surrender.
The room was quiet in that way Helix rooms are quiet, insulated, padded, designed to absorb you. There was a glass of water on the small table near the window. There was a folded uniform laid out neatly on a chair like someone had decided I was going to wake up and be normal again.
I stared at the uniform.
I wanted to laugh.
Normal.
I walked to the window and looked out at the estate. It was night, but Helix was never dark. Lights glowed along the paths, soft and controlled, making everything look calm and intentional.
Like nothing messy had ever happened here in its life.
I rested my forehead against the glass.
My hands wouldn't stop shaking. Not visibly, not dramatically. Just a low tremor in my fingers like my body couldn't fully believe the danger had ended.
I tried to think about something else.
Food.
Training modules.
Scheduling.
Anything.
My brain offered me Sentinel instead.
His voice.
Flat. Certain.
You're safe.
Not gentle. Not comforting. Like a statement of fact. Like something he had decided and the world had to rearrange itself accordingly.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
I didn't want to think about him.
That was the problem. I didn't want to, and my body didn't care.
Because the moment he stepped into that corridor, something inside me had done something I couldn't explain.
It wasn't relief exactly.
It was… reorientation.
Like I had been spinning, panicking, trying to find a surface, and then he entered and suddenly there was a wall again. Something solid.
The second I saw him, my brain stopped screaming long enough to breathe.
That scared me now, sitting here safe.
It shouldn't have taken one man's presence for my body to believe I would live.
I was not supposed to be that dependent.
I wasn't supposed to be anyone's anything.
I pressed my hands hard against my cheeks, trying to cool the heat that kept crawling up my face whenever I thought his name.
Not his name. I didn't know his name.
Sentinel.
The title felt safer. The title felt like distance.
I wasn't going to start turning him into a person in my head.
I had already done that with Virex and it had made my skin itch for hours like my body thought it had permission to react.
I crossed the room and grabbed the water, drank too quickly, choked, then laughed once—sharp and stupid.
Perfect.
Mina Lovegood, nearly gets assaulted, almost dies, then chokes on water in her own room like a child.
I set the glass down harder than necessary.
My jacket.
My stomach twisted.
I turned toward the chair where the fresh uniform lay, and my eyes snagged on the folded fabric like it was an accusation.
The corridor scene came back again, but this time it wasn't hands or voices.
It was the rip.
The feel of fabric giving way at my shoulder, the sudden exposure of skin to cold air, the way it made me feel naked even though nothing was truly visible.
I hugged my arms around myself automatically.
Then I froze.
Because I remembered something else.
Not the rip.
Not the fear.
The way Sentinel had stopped himself from touching me the second I flinched.
He had been about to grab my shoulder. He had already decided. And then I jerked away and he paused like I had slapped him.
Okay. No contact.
I swallowed hard.
That wasn't normal.
Most men didn't stop.
They pushed. They insisted. They told you it was fine. They told you you were overreacting.
He stopped.
Immediately.
Like my reaction mattered more than his impulse.
The thought made something in my chest tighten in a way that felt too close to gratitude and too close to something else.
I hated that.
Gratitude was a leash if you weren't careful.
And the other thing—whatever it was—was worse.
Because it wasn't clean.
It didn't fit into any category I liked.
I paced. The room wasn't large enough for pacing, but I did it anyway.
I tried to replay the moment I screamed.
The first scream that barely made it out.
The second scream that carried.
I remembered biting someone's hand. The taste of blood. The way it made my stomach flip even now.
I had hurt someone.
Not enough.
But I had.
My hands clenched at my sides as if they wanted to do it again.
That was new.
I wasn't a violent person.
I wasn't. I didn't want to be.
But when I remembered his hand over my mouth, my body didn't go soft. It didn't collapse.
It went sharp.
It wanted to survive.
I stopped pacing and stared at the wall.
So that's who I am under pressure.
Not graceful. Not noble. Not a tragic heroine.
A cornered animal.
The thought should have embarrassed me.
Instead it made me furious.
At them.
At myself for ever thinking Helix couldn't be breached.
At the staff who had looked at my body lately like it was their entertainment.
At the way the world kept acting like my existence was an invitation to try something.
I pressed my fingers into my scalp and breathed slowly until my vision cleared.
Okay.
What now?
They gave me time off. They told me to rest. They told me medical would check me even though I didn't want anyone touching me at all.
They told me it would be "handled."
That word felt like oil on my skin.
Handled.
By who?
By Sentinel.
My stomach flipped again.
I didn't want him handling anything about me.
I didn't want him having a file with my name on it.
I didn't want the knowledge that if something happened again, he would be the one who decided what consequences looked like.
And yet…
I leaned back against the wall and slid down until I was sitting on the floor.
And yet the moment I think of him, my body unclenches.
Like a traitor.
Like a part of me has already decided who power belongs to.
I pressed my fists into my thighs.
This was the part I didn't want to admit.
There was a split second, right after he arrived, when the terror cracked—and something else slipped through.
Not desire like romance. Not softness. Not a crush.
Something darker.
Something physical.
The awareness of him as a man who could end someone with his hands and chose restraint anyway.
The memory of his voice, close enough to cut through everything.
The way his eyes looked when he was locking something down behind them.
It made my skin heat.
It made me want to be closer and farther away at the same time.
What kind of idiot response is that?
I turned my head and knocked it lightly against the wall once. Twice.
Stop.
Stop it.
He saved you. That's all.
He's dangerous. That's the point.
He is not for you. Nothing about this world is for you.
I sat there until my breathing normalized.
Somewhere outside my room, Helix kept humming. People kept moving. Systems kept running. The estate kept pretending it was unbreakable.
I was the only thing in this place that felt cracked.
I stood up slowly.
My hands were steadier now. Not calm. Just controlled enough to function.
I walked to the bed and sat on the edge, staring at the smooth sheets.
I thought about calling Cora.
Then I imagined saying the words out loud and my throat closed.
I thought about telling Nessa.
Then I remembered how she would look at me like it was data.
No. Not her.
I wanted… I didn't know what I wanted.
Something normal.
Something stupid.
Something that reminded me I was eighteen and not just a body in a corridor.
I looked at the notebook Tomas had given me for my birthday, the one sitting on the table where I'd left it.
The cover was plain. The pages thick.
A stupid gift that had felt enormous.
I picked it up and opened it.
The first page was blank.
Of course it was.
I stared at it until my eyes burned.
Then I wrote the only honest sentence I could form.
I am not okay.
I stared at the words.
Then I wrote another.
But I am alive.
My hand stopped shaking.
Not because I felt better.
Because I had told the truth in a place no one could interrupt.
I closed the notebook and held it against my chest like it could keep me from floating apart.
Then I lay down again.
This time, when I closed my eyes, I didn't try to force the images away.
I let them come.
I let my body remember.
And I let myself hate them for it.
Because hate was easier than fear.
And right now, I needed something solid to hold onto.
Even if it was ugly.
Even if it was mine.