Chapter 6 Corner of no return

The streetlights buzzed overhead, painting everything in a sickly orange glow. Emily stood at the corner of West 9th and Carrow, her hands buried in the pockets of her jacket, the fabric too thin against the dawn chill. The city was quiet in that dead space between night and morning, where everything feels paused, like the world is holding its breath.

She checked the time on her phone.

5:58 a.m.

Almost.

There was nothing remarkable about the corner. A boarded-up deli on one side. A rusted chain-link fence on the other. A busted traffic light swung lazily in the breeze, blinking yellow into an empty intersection. And there she was, a girl with tired eyes and a knot in her stomach, waiting for her life to change.

She hadn't slept. Not really. After Lena left, she had just sat on the floor of her apartment with the lights off, staring at nothing and trying to feel something solid. She'd wanted to cry, but even her tears had run out. What was left was the hollow, stretched feeling of resignation.

This was happening.

She had walked herself to the edge, and now there was no backing away.

Emily looked down at her shoes. Worn. Scuffed. She had almost cleaned them last night, as if somehow it mattered what they looked like to the people who were about to own her time, her body, maybe even her name. But in the end, she hadn't. Let them see the truth.

Let them see the girl who walked here with nothing.

Another gust of wind slipped under her coat, and she hugged herself tighter. Her mind was full of thoughts, yet none of them settled. Just flashes - her old apartment, her mother's hands shelling peas at the kitchen table, Lena's laugh, the sound of her father's boots on the porch before he disappeared for good.

And over all of it, his voice, calm and cruel.

"You are not a person here. You are a subject. A vessel."

She hadn't been able to shake that sentence since he said it. It clung to her, threaded into every breath. That's what she was now. Not Emily, not even "the girl with the rent due"-just a number with a womb and a silence to keep.

She shifted on her feet, her legs already sore from standing. Every passing car made her flinch. She kept imagining the black vehicle they'd promised. Unmarked. Quiet. Efficient. A machine sent to scoop her off the sidewalk like trash being tidied up.

The sky was turning pale.

A delivery truck rumbled past without slowing, and Emily's breath caught for a second before she realized it wasn't for her. She bit the inside of her cheek until the taste of blood bloomed. Just to feel something.

6:03 a.m.

Late.

Or maybe they weren't coming. Maybe this was all some elaborate trap, some cruel test of loyalty. Maybe they were watching her from somewhere right now, recording how she stood, how she waited, whether she looked scared.

She was scared.

Not of pain, exactly. That was something she understood. But of disappearing. Of waking up weeks from now and not recognizing the sound of her own name.

She thought of Lena. The way she'd held her face last night, eyes shining, voice fierce and trembling. "You matter."

Did she?

Would she still, after today?

Another car approached-sleek, black, its windows tinted like obsidian. It slowed as it reached the corner. Her heart thudded once, hard, and then went very still.

The car rolled to a stop.

The rear door opened without a sound.

No one got out.

No voice called her name.

Just a gaping, dark space waiting.

Emily stared at it, unmoving. Her legs wouldn't lift. Her breath stayed locked in her throat.

This was it.

This was the moment everything fractured.

She could still walk away. Turn and vanish into the early morning, run until her lungs gave out. She imagined it-feet pounding pavement, heart racing, the wind screaming freedom in her ears.

But where would she go?

There was no home left. No job. No coin under the couch cushion or miracle around the corner.

There was only this.

The car. The tests. The masked man who had looked at her like she was inventory.

She stepped forward.

Her legs felt heavy, like they belonged to someone else. She moved in slow motion, one breath at a time. She didn't look at the windows, didn't wonder who was watching from the shadows inside.

She just got in.

The door closed behind her with a whisper.

Inside, the air was cool and dry. The seats were leather, soft and untouched, and the windows didn't show anything. She was encased in silence.

The driver never turned around. Never spoke.

The car pulled away from the curb with the grace of something far too expensive for this part of town. Emily sat still, hands folded in her lap, watching the corner disappear through the tinted glass.

Her throat tightened as the city slid by.

Each block they passed felt like a page being ripped from a book she didn't get to finish. Every light, every old sign, every bit of graffiti - it was all familiar, and it was all slipping away.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket.

She pulled it out slowly.

One new message.

From Lena.

"I'm thinking of you. No matter what they do to you, don't forget you're still Emily. Even if you have to pretend to be someone else for a while. Hold on to her."

Emily stared at the words until her eyes blurred.

She didn't reply.

She just held the phone to her chest and closed her eyes.

The car pulled through tall, wrought-iron gates just as the sun crested over the horizon. Emily leaned closer to the window, squinting past the tinted glass. What she saw made her stomach tighten.

The estate wasn't just large - it was otherworldly. Palatial. The kind of place you only ever saw in glossy magazines or through the windows of a bus, half a second before it vanished behind hedges taller than a man. But now she was in it -driving across the smooth, white stone driveway that curved like a private road.

Marble columns rose like ancient sentinels. Dozens of windows, all closed, glinted back the morning sun. The mansion sat still and perfect in the middle of its own world - so silent it didn't feel lived in.

The car came to a stop.

No one opened the door for her. It clicked open on its own, a soft mechanical sound like the press of a button.

Emily stepped out.

Her shoes touched the stone. Cool air hit her face. And for a moment, she felt painfully small.

The door behind her shut. The car drove away without a sound.

She was alone.

Not for long.

A woman emerged from the grand front doors. Her posture was perfect, face calm, uniform charcoal-gray - like she had stepped straight out of the same world as the estate. She looked Emily over, not cruelly, but without warmth.

"Follow me," the woman said.

Emily obeyed. Her steps echoed as they crossed the wide entry hall - marble floors, vaulted ceilings, not a speck of dust in sight. Everything smelled of polish and money. It felt less like a home and more like a cathedral to silence and control.

They passed down a hallway lined with doors, none open. Finally, the woman stopped and gestured toward one.

"Inside. Strip down to undergarments. Leave everything else."

Emily blinked. "Everything?"

"Yes. Anything brought from the outside is considered contamination."

A thousand things rushed through her at once. Panic. Anger. Shame. But mostly the sharp realization: this is the moment. The line was being drawn - between who she had been and what she would now become.

She stepped inside the room.

It was bright, sterile, almost medical. A small bench sat against the wall. A tray of white garments waited under a harsh light.

She shut the door behind her.

Her hands moved slowly as she unzipped her jacket, took off her jeans, folded the shirt that Lena once gave her - threadbare, soft, and precious in its ordinariness. Her fingers hovered over her phone.

It was still there. Still working. One last object that made her feel like herself.

She turned it over, pressed the lock button.

Lena's message still lingered on the screen:

"Hold on to her."

Emily closed her eyes. For a second, she almost stuffed it into her bra, just to keep it. Just to hold that thread.

But she didn't.

She set it down gently on the bench, next to the rest of her old life.

Then she walked out.

The woman took one look at her and nodded.

"Name?" the woman asked, tapping on a tablet.

"Emily."

"No," she said flatly. "From this point forward, you are Subject Thirty."

Emily flinched.

That word again. Subject.

A number.

"You will respond to that designation during all interactions. Repeated failure to do so will result in program reassessment."

Emily nodded. It was either that or scream. She didn't trust her voice to hold if she opened her mouth.

She was led to another room. This one was quieter, dimmer, and not empty.

Two people waited inside. A man and a woman, both in white coats, both looking at her like she was something that had arrived in a crate.

The woman gestured for her to stand on a platform. Emily obeyed.

The inspection was clinical. No touch, no invasion - just scanning devices, questions asked in monotone, measurements of posture, pulse, blood oxygen. They made notes. Whispered to each other. She stood still and tried to disappear into the silence.

At one point, the man asked, "History of dissociation or psychological instability?"

She shook her head.

The woman leaned closer. "If you lie, they will know."

Emily said nothing.

The process went on.

When it was finally over, someone handed her a small bracelet. Thin, silver, and blank. But as soon as it clasped around her wrist, a soft blue light pulsed once.

Subject 30 – Active

Her heart sank.

They didn't even need her name anymore.

When she was finally escorted to a small room - her "quarters," they called it - she sat down on the edge of the bed and stared at the wall. The window had no latch. The lights dimmed on their own. There were no switches.

She touched the bracelet. It didn't come off.

Her phone was gone. Her clothes, gone. Her name, gone.

And for the first time since she arrived, she allowed herself to cry.

But it wasn't loud.

It wasn't even messy.

It was quiet - like a release valve on a pressure tank. Like a girl letting go of everything she'd ever known, because there was no other way to survive.