I studied him.
“You believed me immediately.”
He looked surprised.
“At the beginning.”
“I saw your injuries.”
“Plenty of people saw them before.”
His expression changed, not with pity, but with anger carefully folded away.
“My sister had bruises people explained for years,” he said.
I did not ask what happened to her.
His silence told me enough.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“So am I.”
For a while, neither of us spoke.
Then he placed a small paper cup of water on the tray beside me.
“You were very brave,” he said.
“I was very patient.”
“That too.”
After he left, I tried to sleep.
I almost managed it.
Then my old tablet chimed.
It should not have.
The police had taken it as evidence. The cloud account had been locked, mirrored, and transferred. No device in that room should have been connected to my old systems.
Yet the sound was unmistakable.
