The notebook stayed open between them long after the footsteps faded.
Wisteria had written hallway footsteps: awful exactly the way Juniper requested, and somehow seeing the words on paper made the moment feel less like fear and more like evidence. Not helpful evidence, maybe. Not the kind that opened doors or brought people back. But it was proof that something had happened. Proof that they had noticed.
Juniper sat on the edge of the desk, one foot hooked around the leg of Wisteria’s chair, staring at the list of names like she expected one to vanish if she blinked too slowly.
“We need more details,” she said.
Wisteria looked up from the page. “About what?”
“Everyone.” Juniper tapped the notebook. “If this place is going to start turning people into blank doors and breakfast math, then we need to be aggressively annoying about remembering them.”
Wisteria’s chest tightened.
Aggressively annoying.
It sounded exactly like Juniper. Soft underneath the ridiculousness.
Wisteria lowered the pen. “That’s not a bad idea.”
“It was a great idea, actually, but I’m accepting modest praise because we’re in a crisis.”
Before Wisteria could answer, the chime sounded.
Both of them went still.
It was gentler in the small room. Softer. Almost intimate. The kind of sound that might have meant a reminder in a normal place. A meeting. A meal. A schedule.
Here, it made Wisteria’s fingers tighten around the pen.
The mirror brightened.
Juniper slowly turned her head toward it. “I swear, if it tells us journaling improved our emotional wellness, I’m going to bite the glass.”
Words formed across their reflections.
FIRST COMPATIBILITY PERIOD BEGINNING.
A second line appeared beneath it.
EACH PARTICIPANT MUST COMPLETE THREE MEANINGFUL INTERACTIONS PER CYCLE.
Then:
PLEASE SELECT YOUR INITIAL PARTNER.
Juniper stared at the message.
Then she looked at Wisteria.
“Well,” she said, voice flat. “Nothing says natural human connection like mandatory emotional networking.”
Wisteria shut the notebook carefully.
“We already said we’d choose each other.”
“Yes, and now I hate that it knows that.” Juniper slid off the desk, smoothing her sleeves with nervous, restless hands. “But yes. Obviously. We choose each other. If this place wants meaningful interaction, I’m going to meaningfully complain the entire time.”
The mirror text faded.
Wisteria’s wristband warmed.
INITIAL PARTNER SELECTED: JUNIPER QUINN
Juniper lifted her wrist.
INITIAL PARTNER SELECTED: WISTERIA VALE
For one second, relief moved across Juniper’s face.
Then a new line appeared beneath it.
INTERACTION LOCATION: COMMUNAL SPACE RECOMMENDED.
Juniper groaned. “Of course. No private friendship allowed. We must perform our bonding for the emotional panopticon.”
“The what?”
“The creepy all-seeing prison thing. Don’t ask me why I know that. I’m like a walking google.”
Wisteria almost smiled as she stood, tucking the notebook under her arm.
Juniper pointed at it. “Are we bringing the anti-erasure journal?”
“Yes.”
“Good. If we’re forced into group therapy by a haunted wedding venue, I want documentation.”
They stepped back into the hall.
The Living Quarters were no longer quiet. Doors had opened up and down the corridor, participants emerging with the same stiff reluctance, wristbands glowing with fresh instructions. People looked half-awake, frightened, resentful. Some had already paired off, standing close together with the awkwardness of strangers who had been told proximity might save them.
Theo and Nina stood near the far end of the hall. Nina’s arms were wrapped tightly around herself, but she was angled toward Theo, listening as he spoke softly. Their wristbands gave the faintest matching pulse, and Nina looked at it like someone had handed her a candle in the dark.
Dahlia stood outside her room, brushing her hair over one shoulder with forced casualness. Her eyes scanned the hallway, skipping over Marcus, lingering briefly on Riven, then sharpening the moment Lucien appeared from his room.
Wisteria noticed the change.
So did Juniper.
“Here we go,” Juniper muttered. “Predatory flirting at sunrise. Or whatever fake time this is.”
Lucien stepped into the hall with the same careful calm as always. He hadn’t changed much, but somehow he looked more put together than everyone else. Not polished exactly. Just steady. His gaze moved over the corridor, checking faces, wristbands, distances. When he saw Wisteria, his eyes paused.
Not long.
Long enough.
Then he noticed the notebook under her arm.
His expression changed by almost nothing.
That almost nothing made Wisteria hold it tighter.
Dahlia reached him first.
“Lucien,” she said, voice softer than it had been for anyone else. “Have you chosen a partner yet?”
Juniper whispered, “Subtle as a chandelier falling down stairs.”
Wisteria gave her a look.
Dahlia kept going, apparently determined to pretend no one else existed.
“I thought maybe we could do the first interaction together,” she said. “Since you’re… good at keeping things from getting worse.”
There it was again.
The offering of fear dressed as flattery.
Lucien’s gaze flicked once to Dahlia’s wristband, then back to her face. “I haven’t chosen yet.”
Dahlia’s mouth curved, relieved too quickly.
Then a voice from behind them said, “Careful. Sounds like a proposal.”
Riven leaned in his doorway, one shoulder against the frame, arms crossed loosely. His wristband glowed against his skin, but he didn’t look at it. He looked at Dahlia instead, faintly amused.
Dahlia’s smile vanished. “Are you bored, or do you just need attention that badly?”
Riven tilted his head. “Both can be true.”
“Shocking.”
“You’d know.”
Her eyes narrowed.
Lucien stepped in before the exchange could sharpen. “Dahlia, I can speak with you later. Nina asked earlier, and I think she’s still shaken.”
Dahlia went still.
It lasted only a second, but Wisteria saw it clearly: the hurt before the anger. The quick, humiliated flash of being passed over.
Then Dahlia smiled.
“Of course,” she said. “Go save everyone.”
The words were sweet enough to rot.
Lucien didn’t reprimand her. He only looked at her for a moment, calm and faintly disappointed, and somehow that seemed to bother her more than if he had snapped.
Riven laughed under his breath.
Dahlia turned on him. “You know what? Fine. You.”
Riven blinked. “Me?”
“Yes.” She lifted her wrist slightly. “You need an interaction partner. I need one. Apparently we’re all doing emotional chores now.”
Riven’s smile returned slowly. “You want to have a meaningful interaction with me?”
“I want to get it over with.”
“Romantic.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
His gaze dropped to her wristband, then rose again. “Careful, Dahlia. The walls might think you mean it.”
For a second, she looked like she wanted to slap him.
Instead, her wristband pulsed.
Once.
Riven’s answered.
Dahlia stared down at it in horror.
Juniper made a tiny choking sound beside Wisteria. “Oh, that is unfortunate.”
Riven looked delighted.
Dahlia looked like she had personally been betrayed by science.
The hallway message updated above them, glowing along the wall in neat lines.
PAIR SELECTION REGISTERED: DAHLIA PIERCE / RIVEN CROSS.
Dahlia’s face turned pink.
“This is temporary,” she snapped at the wall.
Riven pushed off the doorframe. “Everything is.”
Juniper leaned closer to Wisteria. “I hate that he occasionally says cool things. It’s very inconvenient.”
Wisteria didn’t answer because Lucien was looking at her again.
This time, his gaze was clearer.
A question, maybe.
Not asking to be chosen. Not exactly.
But aware that she had already chosen someone else.
Wisteria lifted her wrist slightly, showing Juniper’s name on the display.
Lucien’s expression softened.
“Good,” he said.
The word should have been simple.
It wasn’t.
Juniper glanced between them, then looped her arm through Wisteria’s with deliberate cheer.
“Yes, good. Excellent. Wisteria and I will now go be emotionally meaningful in a public place where nothing terrible has ever happened.”
“Dining Hall?” Wisteria asked.
“Absolutely not. Too many breakfast crimes.” Juniper looked down the corridor. “Maybe the main sitting area? Do we have one of those? This place has everything except freedom, so probably.”
As if answering her, a label illuminated along the wall ahead.
COMMUNAL LOUNGE
Juniper froze.
Then slowly looked upward.
“I was joking.”
The door opened.
Soft light spilled out.
Warmer than the corridor, cooler than the Dining Hall. The space beyond held low couches, chairs arranged in small clusters, shelves with blank-spined books, and a wall of fake windows showing a pale, unmoving morning.
Juniper stared. “Oh, this place is way too eager.”
Wisteria tightened her grip on the notebook.
Around them, other pairs began drifting toward the newly revealed room. Theo guided Nina gently. Lucien followed at a respectful distance, not crowding them. Dahlia stalked after Riven with murder in her posture and embarrassment in her cheeks. Marcus remained near the end of the hall, alone, refusing to move.
His wristband flashed once.
Amber.
Wisteria saw it.
So did Lucien.
Marcus looked down at the warning light, then back up at the nearest wall with a smile that held no humor.
“Advised,” he muttered.
Then he turned and walked the opposite way.
Toward the Restricted Wing.
Wisteria’s stomach dropped.
Juniper’s arm tightened through hers.
“Please tell me we are not following the angry man into the bad idea hallway.”
Wisteria watched Marcus disappear around the corner.
Lucien did too.
For a moment, no one moved.
Then the facility chimed.
PARTICIPATION IS ADVISED.
The words glowed above the open lounge door.
Not near Marcus.
Near everyone else.
A reminder.
A threat with manners.
Juniper tugged lightly on Wisteria’s arm. “Come on. Meaningful interaction first. Heroics later. Preferably never.”
Wisteria let herself be pulled toward the lounge, but her eyes stayed on the corner where Marcus had vanished.
The facility wanted them to connect.
Marcus wanted to fight.
The lounge accepted them too easily.
That was the first thing Wisteria hated about it.
The door opened before they reached it, the soft light inside warming by a fraction as if the room were pleased to have guests. Low couches sat in careful clusters. Rounded chairs faced each other at gentle angles. Small tables waited between them, polished clean and empty, as if designed for folded hands, lowered voices, and confessions people had not agreed to give.
Along the far wall, windows looked out onto morning.
Fake morning.
Wisteria knew it before she stepped fully inside. The sky beyond the glass held too still, blue fading into gray without clouds, birds, wind, or the slow shifting brightness of a real world. It looked like outside painted by someone who had only been told about it.
Juniper stopped just past the threshold and pointed at the windows.
“No,” she said. “Absolutely not.”
Wisteria glanced over. “The windows?”
“The lying windows.” Juniper narrowed her eyes at them. “I refuse to emotionally bond in front of dishonest architecture.”
Despite herself, Wisteria’s mouth curved.
Juniper saw it and seemed to relax by one fragile thread.
“Good,” she said. “Tiny smile. One percent friendship is thriving.”
Wisteria looked down at her wristband.
BONDING INDEX: 1%
The number was still there.
Small. Cold. Uninvited.
Juniper followed her gaze and immediately made a face. “Don’t look at it. It gets attention when you look at it.”
“It’s not alive.”
“That is exactly what it wants you to think.”
They chose two chairs near the back of the lounge, angled toward each other but not too close. Wisteria was certain the facility had arranged them that way on purpose. Every seat in the room seemed made for eye contact. Every table seemed placed to encourage leaning in. Even the lighting felt too intimate, soft enough to make secrets sound natural.
Other pairs filtered in around them.
Theo and Nina sat near the fake windows. Nina kept glancing outside with a kind of aching hope, even though there was nothing real to see. Theo spoke to her quietly, careful not to crowd her, but close enough that she wouldn’t feel abandoned.
Dahlia and Riven took a couch across the room.
Or rather, Dahlia sat at one end like the couch had personally offended her, and Riven dropped onto the other with lazy amusement, one arm stretched across the back cushions.
“You could sit farther away,” Dahlia said.
Riven looked around. “From you or from the emotional assignment?”
“Both.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Dahlia gave him a look sharp enough to cut glass.
Lucien lingered near the entrance, speaking softly to Nina for a moment before she joined Theo. Wisteria couldn’t hear what he said, only saw the way Nina nodded, the way Theo looked grateful, the way Lucien managed to make himself useful without ever seeming to demand gratitude for it.
Then Lucien’s gaze moved across the room.
To Wisteria.
To Juniper.
To the notebook resting in Wisteria’s lap.
He looked away before it became staring.
Juniper noticed anyway.
“Okay,” she said, leaning closer. “Meaningful interaction topic one: why does everyone in this place have unsettling eye contact?”
Wisteria lowered her gaze to the notebook to hide a smile. “Everyone?”
“Mostly the murder-coded ones.”
“We don’t know anyone is murder-coded.”
Juniper stared at her.
Wisteria sighed. “Riven is a little murder-coded.”
“A little?” Juniper whispered. “He looks like he was assembled from red flags and bad decisions.”
Across the room, Riven looked over.
Juniper immediately straightened and smiled brightly. “Hi.”
Riven’s mouth curved.
Dahlia rolled her eyes. “Subtle.”
Juniper leaned toward Wisteria again. “See? Murder-coded.”
Before Wisteria could answer, a soft chime rang through the lounge.
The blank book spines on the shelves brightened one by one, light running across them like fingers over piano keys. Then the wall above the fake windows lit with clean white text.
MEANINGFUL INTERACTION ONE:
DISCUSS ONE THING YOU FEAR LOSING.
Juniper’s smile vanished.
For a moment, the lounge became painfully quiet.
Not silent. Too many people were breathing for silence. But quiet in the way a room gets when everyone reads the same sentence and wishes they had not.
Juniper stared at the prompt.
“Nope,” she said.
Wisteria looked at her.
“Nope,” Juniper repeated, quieter. “Absolutely not. That is way too on the nose after Jonas. Whoever wrote these prompts has the emotional tact of a haunted HR department.”
Wisteria’s fingers tightened around the notebook.
The facility had chosen the question carefully. It had watched them find Jonas’s blank room. It had watched Juniper ask not to be erased. It had watched Wisteria write his name down.
Now it wanted the wound open wider.
Across the room, Nina had started crying again. Theo shifted closer, but did not touch her until she reached for him first. Dahlia folded her arms and stared at the opposite wall like refusing to read the prompt might make it less real. Riven leaned his head back against the couch and laughed once, but the sound had no humor in it.
Juniper stood abruptly.
Wisteria looked up. “June?”
“I need a second.”
“Okay.”
“No, like—I need a second where the walls are not asking me to hand them my internal organs.” Juniper took two steps away, then stopped, pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes. “Sorry. I’m not mad at you.”
“I know.”
Juniper dropped her hands and looked back at her.
Her eyes were bright, but she wasn’t crying yet. She looked like someone holding a door shut from the inside, shoulders tight, mouth trembling with the effort of staying herself.
“I hate that I’m scared of answering wrong,” she said.
Wisteria’s chest tightened.
“There’s no wrong answer.”
Juniper gave her a look.
Wisteria glanced at the glowing prompt. “Okay. There might be a wrong answer.”
“Thank you.”
Wisteria stood too, leaving the notebook on the chair. She didn’t move closer yet. Juniper looked like she might bolt if anyone came at her too quickly, and Wisteria understood that feeling too well to corner her with comfort.
“We don’t have to make it big,” Wisteria said. “We can answer small.”
Juniper laughed weakly. “I fear losing my patience.”
“That counts.”
“I fear losing my mind.”
“Also counts.”
“I fear losing the ability to make jokes because then I’ll just be scared and boring, which feels unfair.”
Wisteria softened. “You wouldn’t be boring.”
Juniper looked away quickly.
The wristbands didn’t pulse.
Not yet.
Because the answer hadn’t reached the honest part.
Juniper knew it too. Her shoulders dropped, the fight leaving her in a slow, uneven breath.
“I’m afraid of losing myself,” she said at last.
Wisteria didn’t speak.
Juniper kept her eyes on the fake windows.
“I know that sounds dramatic.”
“It doesn’t.”
“It does.” Juniper rubbed her thumb against the edge of her wristband. “But I mean it. This place keeps turning everything into labels. Participant. Unbonded. Bonding Index. Removed. It takes a whole person and turns them into a status update.”
Her voice wavered.
“And I’m scared that if it keeps doing that, eventually I’ll start thinking that way too. Like maybe Jonas wasn’t Jonas. Maybe he was Participant 08. Maybe I’m not Juniper. Maybe I’m just twelve, unbonded, one percent, three required interactions per cycle.”
Her wristband pulsed.
Once.
Bright.
Wisteria felt the answer rise in her before she had words ready for it.
She looked at Juniper standing there in the false morning, trying so hard to stay funny and whole while a room asked her to fracture neatly, and something in her chest folded in on itself.
“I’m afraid of losing proof,” Wisteria said.
Juniper looked at her.
Wisteria’s voice stayed quiet, but it didn’t shake. “Memories can be changed. Rooms can be reset. Doors can disappear. People can tell themselves whatever hurts less. But proof…” She glanced down at the notebook sitting on the chair. “Proof is something outside of us.”
Juniper’s expression softened painfully.
“I’m afraid of looking at a blank door one day,” Wisteria continued, “and knowing I’m supposed to remember someone, but not being able to.”
Her wristband pulsed.
Juniper’s answered.
The light moved between them like a secret neither of them had agreed to share with the room.
Then both displays updated.
BONDING INDEX: 2%
Juniper looked down.
This time, she didn’t curse.
She just looked tired.
“They keep taking the moment after,” she said.
Wisteria knew exactly what she meant.
The facility let them speak. Let them reach for something human. Then it stamped the result onto their wrists before the feeling could belong only to them.
Wisteria picked up the notebook and opened it.
Juniper blinked. “What are you doing?”
“Taking it back.”
She wrote:
Meaningful Interaction 1 — prompt: one thing you fear losing.
Juniper fears losing herself.
Wisteria fears losing proof.
Bonding Index rose to 2%. Facility turned answer into measurement.
Juniper read over her shoulder.
Then, softly, “Add: facility is a thief.”
Wisteria wrote it.
Facility is a thief.
Juniper smiled faintly.
“That might be my favorite academic note so far.”
The wall prompt faded.
A new message appeared.
INTERACTION ONE COMPLETE.
Around the lounge, several wristbands pulsed at different intervals. Nina’s glowed softly while Theo spoke to her. Dahlia’s did not glow at all, and she looked furious about it. Riven’s band flickered once, but whether it was because of Dahlia or because he had said something honest, Wisteria couldn’t tell.
Dahlia stood suddenly.
“This is stupid,” she said.
Riven looked up at her. “You say that when you’re losing.”
“I am not losing.”
“Your wrist says otherwise.”
Dahlia’s face flushed. “You don’t know anything about me.”
Riven’s expression shifted, amusement thinning into something sharper. “I know you’d rather be wanted than safe.”
The lounge seemed to still around them.
Dahlia’s lips parted.
For the first time since Wisteria had met her, Dahlia had no immediate response.
Then her wristband pulsed.
Once.
Riven’s followed.
Dahlia stared down at it, horrified.
Riven’s smile faded completely.
Juniper whispered, “Oh, that was… unfortunately accurate.”
Wisteria watched Riven look at his wristband, then at Dahlia, and for the first time, he seemed almost angry that the facility had heard him correctly.
The wall brightened again.
INITIAL INTERACTION PERIOD COMPLETE.
PARTICIPANTS MAY PROCEED TO NEXT PARTNER OR TEMPORARY REST.
No one moved right away.
The prompt had ended, but the damage it had done remained scattered around the lounge in lowered eyes, tightened hands, and glowing numbers.
Juniper sat back down beside Wisteria and exhaled.
“Well,” she said, voice thin. “That was horrible.”
Wisteria closed the notebook carefully.
“Yes.”
Juniper leaned back in the chair, staring at the fake morning beyond the windows.
“Productive, apparently.”
Wisteria looked down at the number on her wrist.
2%
Then at the notebook in her hands.
For the first time, the paper felt heavier than the band.
“Not all of it,” she said.
Juniper glanced at her.
Wisteria held up the notebook slightly.
“Some of it is ours.”
Juniper’s expression softened.
Then she reached over and tapped the cover once.
“Fine,” she said. “But if this becomes a cursed diary situation, I’m blaming you.”
Wisteria almost smiled.
Across the room, Lucien looked over again.
Not at her wristband.
At the notebook.
And this time, when he noticed Wisteria noticing, he did not look away fast enough
The moment was small. It should have been easy to dismiss. Everyone was looking at everyone in this place. Everyone was studying wristbands, faces, reactions, numbers. Suspicion had become another kind of breathing.
But Lucien’s attention felt different.
Too careful.
Too aware.
Wisteria closed the notebook on instinct.
Juniper noticed immediately.
“What?” she whispered.
“Nothing.”
Juniper followed her gaze across the lounge.
Lucien had already turned slightly, saying something quiet to Nina while Theo sat beside her. He looked exactly as he always did—calm, helpful, gentle in a way that made people soften around him before they remembered to be afraid.
Juniper narrowed her eyes.
“Mm.”
Wisteria looked at her. “Mm?”
“That was a suspicious mm.”
“You’re suspicious of everyone.”
“Yes, and honestly, I’ve been thriving with that method so far.”
Before Wisteria could answer, Lucien stood.
He spoke briefly to Theo, who nodded, then crossed the lounge with unhurried steps. Dahlia watched him come, her expression sharpening when she realized he wasn’t heading toward her. Riven watched too, though his face gave away less.
Juniper straightened in her chair.
“Oh good,” she murmured. “Emotional support blond approaches.”
“June.”
“What? I’m being welcoming.”
“You look like you’re preparing to bite him.”
“I can multitask.”
Lucien stopped a few feet away from them, not close enough to crowd, not far enough to seem uncertain. His gaze moved from Juniper’s guarded expression to Wisteria’s hands folded over the notebook.
“Are you both alright?” he asked.
Juniper blinked at him. “Do people usually say yes when you ask that in here?”
“Not usually.”
“Then no.”
Lucien accepted that with a small nod. “Fair.”
Wisteria studied him quietly. “Is Nina okay?”
His expression softened a little. “Shaken. But Theo’s helping.”
Juniper glanced toward Nina, who sat with her shoulders hunched, Theo speaking to her in a low voice near the fake windows. “Theo seems nice.”
“He does.”
“That’s ominous.”
Lucien’s mouth almost curved. “Niceness?”
“In here? Yes.”
For a second, there was something close to humor between them. Then Lucien’s gaze dropped again, brief but unmistakable, to the notebook.
Wisteria’s fingers tightened over the cover.
Lucien noticed.
“I’m not asking to read it,” he said.
That made Juniper go still.
Wisteria looked up at him sharply.
Lucien held her gaze. “I only wondered if you were keeping record.”
Juniper’s voice cooled. “Why?”
Lucien turned his attention to her without defensiveness. “Because if I were trying to survive a place that erases evidence, I would.”
The answer landed too neatly.
Not rehearsed, exactly.
But right.
That was the thing about Lucien. He found the right shape of words so quickly it was hard not to step inside them.
Juniper didn’t soften. “And if the place gave her the notebook?”
Lucien’s eyes returned to Wisteria.
“Then I’d assume it has a reason.”
Wisteria’s stomach tightened.
“That’s comforting,” Juniper said flatly.
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
“No, I’m noticing that about a lot of your sentences.”
This time, Lucien did smile faintly.
Not enough to disarm the moment.
Just enough to make him seem human inside it.
Wisteria looked down at the notebook.
“It appeared after we talked about remembering Jonas,” she said.
Juniper gave her a quick look, but didn’t stop her.
Lucien’s expression shifted.
Only slightly.
“May I ask what you wrote about him?”
Wisteria hesitated.
The answer should have been no. It belonged to her and Juniper. To Jonas, maybe, if he still existed somewhere to belong to. It did not belong to the facility, or the lounge, or the soft false light.
But Lucien hadn’t asked for everything.
Only Jonas.
So Wisteria opened the notebook to the first page and angled it enough for him to see, keeping her hand across the lower notes.
Jonas Pike. Participant 08.
Saw a door in the Garden. His wristband flickered amber. Went back during rest period. Door appeared. He stepped through. Facility announced he was removed from the process. His room reset.
He was scared. He went anyway.
Lucien read it silently.
For once, he didn’t speak right away.
His face remained composed, but his eyes changed. The calm did not leave, exactly. It deepened. Became heavier.
When he finally looked back at Wisteria, his voice was quiet.
“Thank you.”
The simplicity of it caught her off guard.
“For what?”
“For making sure he’s more than what the announcement called him.”
Juniper looked away first.
Wisteria looked down at the page.
The words were still there.
Jonas Pike.
Participant 08.
Scared.
Went anyway.
A person, not a status.
Lucien’s attention shifted to the next page before Wisteria could close the notebook. Not long enough to read everything, but long enough for his gaze to catch on one line near the top.
Facility is a thief.
His brow lifted faintly.
Juniper noticed.
“That was my contribution.”
Lucien looked at her. “It’s difficult to argue with.”
Juniper seemed deeply annoyed that she liked that response.
Wisteria closed the notebook more firmly this time.
Lucien stepped back half a pace, respecting the boundary without being asked. That helped. Wisteria wished it didn’t.
“You should keep it close,” he said.
“I planned to.”
“And maybe don’t write anything in it you wouldn’t want the facility to know.”
Juniper stiffened. “So you do think it’s watching.”
“I think everything here is watching.”
The fake windows glowed softly behind him. Beyond them, the painted morning remained unchanged.
Wisteria glanced at the mirror-like shine of the blank book spines, at the corners where walls met ceiling without shadow, at every polite surface pretending not to listen.
“Then why give it to me?” she asked.
Lucien’s gaze settled on her again.
“Maybe it wants you to feel in control.”
The words moved through Wisteria slowly.
Maybe it wants you to feel in control.
Not be in control.
Feel.
Juniper muttered, “I hate that that sounds right.”
Lucien’s expression stayed gentle, but there was something tired beneath it now. “This place doesn’t seem to rely only on force. It offers people what they need, then measures what they do with it.”
Wisteria thought of bread after fear. Rooms after panic. A garden after questions. A notebook after erasure.
“And what do you need?” she asked.
The question left her before she could decide whether it was safe.
Lucien went very still.
Not visibly to anyone else, maybe. But Wisteria saw it. The slight pause in his breathing. The quiet way his expression closed around itself.
Juniper noticed too.
For the first time since he approached, Lucien looked like someone had found a seam in him.
Then he smiled faintly.
Not falsely.
Not fully.
“I’m still figuring that out,” he said.
It was a good answer.
Too good, maybe.
But before Wisteria could decide what to make of it, a sharp voice cut across the lounge.
“Are we finished pretending this is normal?”
Marcus stood near the doorway.
Wisteria hadn’t seen him enter.
His hand was still bandaged, red showing through the fabric across his knuckles. His wristband glowed with the dull amber warning that had not quite left him since Jonas disappeared.
Several people turned toward him.
Riven, still on the couch with Dahlia, tilted his head.
“Depends,” he said. “Which part are we pretending about?”
Marcus’s gaze locked on him.
The lounge went quiet in a different way.
Lucien turned.
Juniper’s hand found Wisteria’s sleeve.
“Oh,” she whispered. “There’s the bad idea.”
Marcus stepped fully into the room, eyes fixed on Riven.
“You knew something last night.”
Riven leaned back, all lazy posture and sharpened attention. “I know lots of things. You’ll have to narrow it down.”
“Jonas.”
The name hit the room hard.
Riven’s expression did not change.
Marcus took another step closer. “You were there before anyone else. At the Garden. In the hall. After he vanished. You keep showing up where people disappear.”
Dahlia shifted away from Riven by an inch.
Riven noticed.
So did everyone else.
His smile thinned. “Careful, Marcus. That almost sounded like an accusation.”
“It is.”
Lucien moved before Marcus could come any closer.
Not between them yet.
Just forward.
“Marcus,” he said.
Marcus swung his gaze to him.
“No.” His voice was low and shaking. “Don’t do that.”
Lucien stopped.
The whole lounge seemed to hold its breath.
Marcus pointed at him, his injured hand trembling. “That. Exactly that. You step in, and everyone quiets down. Everyone waits for you to tell them how scared they’re allowed to be.”
Lucien said nothing.
Marcus looked around the lounge, wild-eyed and furious. “You’re all doing it. Looking at him like calm means safe. Like useful means honest.”
Wisteria’s grip tightened around the notebook.
Riven’s gaze flicked to Lucien.
Just once.
Quick enough that she almost missed it.
Marcus backed toward the doorway, still breathing hard.
“I’m done listening.”
The amber light under his wristband flared.
Juniper whispered, “Marcus…”
He turned and walked out.
Toward the main corridor.
Toward the Restricted Wing.
No one followed for the first second.
Then the facility chimed.
Soft.
Pleasant.
Horrible.
PARTICIPATION IS ADVISED.
The words appeared above the lounge door.
Not near Marcus.
Near them.
As if the facility wasn’t warning him.
It was warning everyone else to stay where they had been placed.
Wisteria looked at Lucien.
For the first time, he didn’t look calm.
Not completely.
And that frightened her more than the chime.
For a long moment after Marcus disappeared into the corridor, no one in the lounge moved.
The room itself seemed to have forgotten how.
The soft light still poured through the false windows. The books with their blank spines remained perfectly arranged on the shelves. Somewhere behind Wisteria, the quiet hum of the ventilation continued exactly as it had before Marcus raised his voice.
Everything looked normal.
That was becoming the most frightening thing about this place.
It never reflected what the people inside it were feeling.
Juniper slowly released Wisteria's sleeve.
"Well," she said after several seconds, her voice much quieter than before, "that feels like it's going to end terribly."
No one disagreed.
Across the room, Nina had gone pale again. She stood halfway behind Theo now, almost unconsciously using him as a shield while she stared toward the open lounge doorway.
"He shouldn't be alone," she whispered.
Theo nodded immediately.
"I know."
"He'll get himself hurt."
"I know."
His voice remained calm, but Wisteria noticed the way his hands kept opening and closing at his sides, as though he were arguing with himself. Every instinct he had seemed to be pulling him after Marcus, but something else—fear, uncertainty, maybe the memory of Jonas—kept his feet planted where they were.
Dahlia let out a slow breath through her nose.
"He made his choice."
Juniper looked at her.
"What?"
Dahlia folded her arms more tightly across her chest, refusing to meet anyone's eyes.
"He walked out."
"He stormed out," Juniper corrected.
"Same difference."
"No."
Dahlia finally looked up.
"There is a difference."
Juniper took a step forward.
"When someone's scared enough to stop thinking, you don't just shrug and let them disappear."
Something flickered across Dahlia's face.
Not anger.
Recognition.
It vanished almost immediately.
"You don't know that he'll disappear."
The words came out too quickly.
Too defensive.
Juniper tilted her head.
"You don't actually believe that."
Dahlia's jaw tightened.
"I believe that chasing him isn't going to fix anything."
"Maybe not."
"But?"
Juniper looked toward the hallway.
"But neither is pretending he'll calm down on his own."
Silence settled over the room again.
Riven finally stood from the couch.
He stretched lazily, rolling one shoulder as though they had just finished an ordinary conversation instead of watching someone unravel.
"You know," he said, "for someone who claims not to like people very much..."
Everyone looked at him.
"...Marcus certainly expects everyone to follow him."
Dahlia scoffed.
"That is your contribution?"
Riven glanced at her.
"No."
He looked back toward the doorway.
"My contribution is that he's not thinking anymore."
The amusement had disappeared from his voice.
Entirely.
Wisteria noticed before anyone else seemed to.
"So why aren't you stopping him?" she asked quietly.
Riven looked at her.
For the first time since she'd met him, he seemed genuinely caught off guard by a question.
After a moment, he answered honestly.
"Because I don't think he'd let me."
"No," Lucien agreed.
Everyone turned toward him.
Lucien had been standing near the doorway ever since Marcus left. His attention remained fixed on the empty corridor beyond, his shoulders tense in a way Wisteria hadn't seen before.
"He wouldn't."
Theo stepped closer.
"So what do we do?"
Lucien was quiet for a few seconds.
When he finally answered, his voice remained calm, but it carried an exhaustion that hadn't been there before.
"We try anyway."
He started toward the hallway.
Theo immediately fell into step beside him.
"I'm coming."
Lucien stopped.
"Theo..."
"No."
It was the first time Wisteria had heard Theo interrupt anyone.
"If that were me walking away..." Theo swallowed. "I'd want somebody to follow."
Lucien studied him for a moment.
Then he nodded once.
"Stay behind me."
Theo gave a small, relieved nod.
"I can do that."
Nina reached out and caught Theo's wrist before he could leave.
He turned back.
Her eyes were full of tears she hadn't let fall.
"Please come back."
The words were barely louder than a breath.
Theo's expression softened.
"I will."
"You don't know that."
"No."
He managed a small smile.
"I don't."
He gently squeezed her hand once before letting go.
Wisteria watched the exchange with an uncomfortable tightness in her chest.
Theo's wristband pulsed.
A soft white glow.
Nina's answered almost immediately.
Neither of them looked down.
Neither of them acknowledged it.
It somehow felt more genuine because of that.
Juniper noticed too.
"They're ignoring the numbers now."
Wisteria nodded.
"Maybe that's the only way to keep something for yourself."
Lucien glanced back at them.
"You two stay here."
Juniper blinked.
"I'm sorry?"
"If Marcus becomes violent—"
"He won't hurt us."
Lucien hesitated.
"I don't think he wants to."
The distinction mattered.
Wisteria could hear it.
"He isn't angry at us," Lucien continued quietly. "He's angry at the building."
"The building has been asking for it," Juniper muttered.
To Wisteria's surprise, Lucien almost smiled.
"Fair."
Then it disappeared.
He looked toward the hallway once more.
"I'm worried he's going to make the facility answer him."
The words settled over everyone.
Because that...
That was exactly what Marcus was trying to do.
Not escape.
Not hide.
Force this place to stop pretending.
Force it to reveal something.
Wisteria looked down at the notebook in her hands.
She opened it without thinking.
On a fresh page she wrote only one sentence.
Marcus wants the facility to answer.
She stared at the words for a moment.
Then underlined them once.
A sharp metallic chime echoed through the corridor.
Louder than before.
Everyone looked up at once.
The lights outside the lounge shifted.
Not red.
Not amber.
Simply... lower.
As though the hallway itself had taken a slow breath.
Lucien's entire posture changed.
"Theo."
Theo looked at him.
"Now."
The two of them hurried into the corridor.
Their footsteps faded quickly against the polished floor.
The remaining participants drifted instinctively toward the lounge entrance without crossing it.
No one wanted to be alone.
No one wanted to be first.
From somewhere farther down the hall came the unmistakable sound of Marcus shouting.
The words were too distant to understand.
Then—
A heavy impact.
Like a shoulder striking reinforced metal.
Another.
Then another.
Juniper flinched.
"He's hitting the Restricted Wing."
No one answered.
Because everyone already knew.
The facility voice returned, smoother than silk.
"Participant Marcus Hale."
The shouting stopped.
For one hopeful second, Wisteria thought maybe he had listened.
Then Marcus's voice rang clearly through the corridor.
"No."
One word.
Defiant.
Human.
A heartbeat later, every light in the hallway outside the lounge flickered once.
Then a message slowly appeared across the wall opposite the entrance.
Not inside the Restricted Wing.
Not beside Marcus.
Where all of them could see it.
PARTICIPANT MARCUS HALE
The letters remained for several long seconds.
A second line appeared beneath them.
ELEVATED INSTABILITY DETECTED.
Juniper instinctively reached for Wisteria's hand.
Wisteria squeezed back.
The room had gone so quiet that she could hear her own heartbeat.
Then, beneath the warning, one final line materialized.
INTERVENTION MAY BE REQUIRED.
Nobody spoke.
Nobody breathed.
Far down the corridor, something heavy struck the Restricted Wing door one more time.
And somewhere beyond the walls of the facility...
Something answered.
Not with a voice.
With a low, almost imperceptible vibration that rolled through the floor beneath their feet.
It lasted only a second.
But every person in the lounge felt it.
The building had acknowledged Marcus.
For the first time since arriving, Wisteria wasn't sure whether the facility had been asleep before now...
Or simply waiting for someone reckless enough to knock.