Chapter 11: Just Control

Adrienne

I didn’t get out of bed until nearly noon. Not out of laziness, but out of luxury, the kind you earn by playing god in someone’s mouth the night before.

The sheets still smelled like him. Or rather, like what I let him become: desperate, tethered, and beautiful in his unraveling.

I should have showered. I should have stripped the bed, burned the pillowcase, and opened a window. But I didn’t. Instead, I sat up slowly, pushing the covers down past my hips and letting the cool air tighten across my skin. I was still naked, still warm, and still entirely alone.

014B had cried when I told him to leave. He didn’t say it outright, but I heard it in his breath and in the way he hesitated at the door, as if leaving me was the hardest thing he’d ever done. It probably was. That’s what the formula does: it rewires need and turns absence into starvation.

I touched the inside of my wrist. The scent lingered, subtle now, faded into my skin, but still there, still whispering. I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, letting it settle inside me again. I was reminded of how easy it had been, how human he had become in my hands.

I wrapped a robe around my body, padded into the kitchen, and poured a glass of sparkling water. No coffee. I didn’t want to be awake; I wanted to hover. Today wasn’t for planning or progress. It was for staying just on the edge of indulgence without falling in.

I had no plans to leave the house, but then again, I hadn’t painted my nails in weeks. Maybe I would do something indulgent, something meaningless, something slow. Control didn’t always have to hurt; sometimes it just needed to breathe.

“Dr. Volke,” she said, almost breathlessly. “We have your appointment ready. You can follow me.”

I nodded and followed her past the mirrors and soft lighting. The salon was designed to evoke a sense of calm, with pale wood, white orchids, and a faint cucumber mist in the air, but it only reminded me how calculated relaxation could be. Peace for sale. Calm in thirty-minute increments. She led me to a back corner station, isolated and private, which was good. The nail technician was already waiting. She was pretty, quiet, and smelled of coconut lotion and new tile.

“Same shape?” she asked, glancing at my file.

“Yes,” I replied. “File them down just slightly.”

She nodded and started to work.

I let my hands relax on the towel, not bothering with conversation, as she didn’t expect it. My eyes wandered to the wall of polished bottles, color-coded and neatly arranged. Every shade of red known to capitalism, all slightly off, too pink, too brown, too bright, manufactured passion sold in glass.

I had brought my color. It sat in my purse like a threat: black, matte, quiet, like control sealed in lacquer.

She worked in silence, gently shaping the edges of each nail, unaware of the calculation sitting just inches from her elbow.

I thought about the formula, about 014B. I remembered how he had whispered my name like he was choking on it, how his fingers had clenched in the sheets when I pulled away.

I didn’t feel guilty. I didn’t even feel powerful. I felt focused, like the moment before a needle breaks skin, sharp and exact.

The nail technician held up my hand. “Is this shape okay?”

I glanced at it. Sleek. Understated. Capable of drawing blood.

“Perfect,” I said.

She began painting. I watched the polish glide across each nail like silence being applied, finger by finger.

Tomorrow, I will return to the lab. But today, I would sit here, alone with the scent of obsession curling at my throat, and let someone polish my weapons.

By the time I got home, the sun had shifted. It wasn’t quite golden hour, too pale for that—but the light had begun to soften at the edges, bathing the walls in a calm that felt almost intentional. Outside, the city glowed, as if it wanted to be forgiven.

I didn’t take off my shoes. I liked the way the soles tapped against the marble floor, sharp and hollow. I moved slowly through the penthouse, not with exhaustion, but with presence, the kind that comes from letting the world bend toward you for once.

I poured a glass of chilled white wine and carried it to the terrace. The air was still warm but carried a hint of salt from the bay below. I leaned against the railing and let the scent on my wrist lift in the breeze, light, softened now, but still capable of shifting someone’s thoughts if they got too close.

It didn’t matter that no one was nearby. The power was still mine.

Sometimes, I wondered what would happen if someone else were to wear it, not the watered-down version, but my version. Would they feel what I feel? Would they come apart, or come alive? Would they even understand what they were holding? Most people didn’t recognize power unless it spoke loudly or wore a tailored suit. Mine whispered. It crept. And it left fingerprints no one could trace.

A gull cried somewhere overhead. Cars moved like blood through the city’s arteries. Lights flicked on one by one in the towers beyond mine.

I sipped my wine slowly and deliberately.

Across the terrace, my reflection moved in the glass door: bare ankles, black nails, hair still knotted at my neck. Clean lines. Calm breath.

I looked untouched. I wasn’t.

I’d worn the same formula all day and hadn’t spoken to anyone except the girl who filed my nails. Yet I felt more in control now than I had all week.

Not because of what I’d done, but because of what I hadn’t.

Tomorrow I’ll return to work. I’ll open the file drawers. I’ll make choices. I’ll set things in motion that can’t be undone.

But tonight? Tonight, I would finish this glass of wine and watch the light disappear from other people’s windows, knowing mine was still lit.

I didn’t need company. I didn’t need chaos. I needed silence that bent to my shape.