Ava's POV
The cell walls bled whispers. I wasn't alone. The voice from the vent returned each night, murmuring secrets between sleep and survival. He called himself Echo. Said he'd been here longer than anyone else.
"They don't kill you right away," he'd said. "They break you in layers."
I believed him.
Every time Erik returned, he came with another test. Physical endurance, sensory overload, psychological war games. Some of it was Circle protocol. Some was personal. I saw it in his eyes the way he watched for cracks.
But I didn't break.
Not yet.
By the seventh day, I'd mapped most of the hallway patterns. The guards rotated every six hours. Two cameras blind-spotted the southern corridor. Echo claimed the west wing led to the old armory if it hadn't been purged.
"Why are you helping me?" I asked him through the vent.
"Because you're not like the others. And maybe… just maybe… you'll burn this place to the ground."
Challenge accepted.
Erik returned that evening with a tray of food. He placed it on the floor and sat against the wall opposite my cell. No guards. No restraints. Just us.
"You remember the cabin in Red Pine?" he asked.
I flinched.
Our childhood summers. Fireflies. Mom's cinnamon toast. Dad's broken guitar. It felt like remembering someone else's dream.
"I remember you singing in the rain," I said, barely above a whisper. "You had that ridiculous red umbrella."
He smiled for half a second then it vanished. "They erased that memory from me three times. But it came back last week."
Silence stretched.
"I don't know who I am anymore, Ava," he said. "But I think… I want to find out."
I stared at him, heart tight. "Then let me out. Help me stop them."
He stood. "Soon."
Then he left, leaving the door unlocked for the first time.
I waited until nightfall.
Then I walked out.