Chapter 33

Chapter 33
Nyra 
They make it official the three days later. No trial badge, no red stripe. This one is permanent—black ink on the laminate, my photo slightly too pale under the harsh print light, my clearance stamped in block letters. 

Sublevel 3: FULL ACCESS. 

Teyla hands it over without ceremony. “You’ll keep your old shifts until the end of the week. But your primary station is here now.” She tips her chin toward the glass-paneled console, the bank of monitors, the wide doors that lead to the corridor I’ve memorized in my bones. “Start with sedative checks. No mistakes. They’ll notice.” 

She doesn’t have to tell me they means more than the handlers. I log the dose reports, cross-check vial numbers against the digital register, note any residue in the tubing. I’ve done this before—just not down here. On Sublevel 3, the syringes are heavier, the seal tags coded in darker colors. The system hums with redundancy: check after check after check, until the idea of human error feels like an insult to the place. I work slowly, writing down more detail than anyone asks for. The tiny shiver of air that escapes the fridge seal. The way the light in this hall makes the sedative fluid look like molten glass. The sound of the needle caps, soft and final, when they lock back into place. 

The omega in cell four won’t make eye contact. The beta in six eats like a man starved, even sedated. The gamma barely glances up when I set the tray inside his door, but I still feel his gaze trail after me until I’m gone. I don’t linger anywhere, but I take in everything. Who swallows quickly, who chews too long, whose eyes are still alert even under the drug’s weight. The clipboard fills with numbers, but behind every number is a pattern I’m starting to see. 

Showers are on strict timers—fifteen minutes, sedatives active, two handlers present. I note the temperature readings, the pressure logs, the post-clean water analysis. The smell of the steam lingers on my clothes long after I’ve moved on, faintly animal and sharp. The work is clinical. Efficient. Everything in me is pulling toward one door, but the day moves me in small circles around it. Until it doesn’t. 

One handler doesn’t show for his shift—fever, they say, and send him home. There’s a hygiene check in Rane’s cell scheduled. Sedation window is active. They need another body to step in. 

Teyla looks at me. “You’re clear.” 

It’s nothing—just an assignment. I nod like it’s nothing. But my pulse starts in my teeth. The door opens with a hydraulic sigh, heavy enough to make the air shift against my face. The first thing I notice is the cold—colder than the hallway. The second is the quiet. Even the hum of the vents sounds distant in here. And then—Him. Laid out under sedation on the reinforced cot, restraints locked but loose enough to suggest they don’t expect him to move. His hair spills dark against the pillow, longer than I’d imagined. His chest rises slow, measured by the drug, the muscle beneath his skin heavy with stillness. 

The angles of his face are harder up close—knife edges and shadow, as if the light itself refuses to soften him. Even sedated, there’s a tension in the way he holds the air in his lungs, like some part of him is still braced for impact. I don’t touch him. I don’t move closer than I have to. But I look. Every line, every scar, every mark the walls could never tell me about. It’s less than two minutes before the second handler finishes the check and signals to leave. But it’s enough. 

That night, I go to the hallway, but I don’t speak through the door. I lean my forehead to the steel, close my eyes, and let the weight of the day settle between us. The steel is cool against my skin. I stay there, eyes closed, like maybe if I’m still enough, I can hear the pulse of him through it. I breathe in—slow, quiet—and in the silence, I almost convince myself he’s not on the other side. That maybe today burned the last thread between us. 

Then I hear it. 
Not the scrape of movement. Not the rattle of chains. 
Just breath—low, measured, and closer than I expect. 

I press my palm flat to the door. It’s stupid. Childish. Dangerous. But I do it anyway. There’s a pause, and for a moment I think I’ve imagined all of it—the breath, the closeness, the idea that he could be standing there just as I am. 
And then— “Nyra.” 

My name. It's not the first time he said it but this time isn’t like before. The first time, in the hallway, it had been a knife sliding into my ribs—quick, shocking, lethal in its precision. This time, it’s slower. Drawn out. Like the weight of it could pin me in place if I let it. My eyes burn. I bite the inside of my cheek until I taste blood, because I can’t—I can’t let my voice shake when I answer. 

“I saw you today,” I whisper, so softly the words barely survive leaving my mouth. “They had me come inside. You were—” I stop, because sleeping is too small a word for the stillness I saw. “—quiet.” 

He doesn’t speak again. But the silence feels fuller now, thicker. My hand stays against the door until my arm aches. I don’t move until the sound of his breathing eases into the slow rhythm I’ve learned means he’s stepping back. Only then do I take my hand away. I leave without looking over my shoulder, but the echo of my name follows me all the way to my room.