Chapter 7 Masks and terms

Emily had started counting shadows.

She didn't know how many hours had passed since she'd been brought to the room. There was no clock. No phone. No windows that opened. Just smooth walls, a white bed, and the low mechanical hum of something always running just behind the walls - a life support system for the house, maybe.

Or her.

She was beginning to understand: this place wasn't just silent.

It was watching.

She'd tried the door once. It didn't budge. She hadn't tried again.

So she waited.

She counted shadows on the ceiling as the lights slowly dimmed and brightened on their own cycle. She tapped her fingers in rhythm to distract herself from the gnawing silence. She ran her thumb along the metal bracelet on her wrist - the only thing on her body that didn't belong to her.

Then the door opened.

No sound. Just a slow, deliberate motion.

And him.

He stepped inside like he'd always owned the air around him. Tall. Precise. Masked - a sleek, black covering that veiled the top half of his face, not theatrical, but clinical. His mouth and jaw visible: clean-shaven, unreadable.

Emily stood.

Her throat was dry. Her spine tensed like it knew something her brain couldn't yet name.

His body was calm and collected, like a man who knew his worth and the power he held.

And yet, there was intensity behind it. Not lust.

Intent.

"You're the only one," he said finally.

His voice was low. Smooth like old marble.

Emily blinked. "What?"

"There are no other subjects. You're the last. The only one selected for Phase Two. You won't see anyone else here unless I allow it."

She felt the words press against her ribcage like bricks.

"You told me I was Subject Thirty."

"You are. But one through twenty-nine failed."

He said it so flatly, so without emotion, that it chilled her more than any threat could have. As if those others weren't people at all - just prototypes that hadn't held.

"And now?" she asked.

"Now we begin."

Christian stepped forward, slow but deliberate. He didn't touch her. Didn't even gesture toward her. Yet his presence crowded the room like smoke.

"I will lay out the terms," he said. "You will listen. You will not interrupt. You may speak when I've finished."

Emily gave the smallest nod. A muscle twitched in her jaw, but she kept her expression neutral.

He continued.

"I chose surrogacy as a framework because it legalizes control. What I require is not just a child - but precision. My child must be conceived under specific physical and psychological conditions. I am not interested in accidental nature. I am interested in engineered potential."

Emily didn't move. She didn't understand all of it. Not yet.

"I've studied bloodlines," he said. "Resilience. Trauma history. Adaptive intelligence. Your file stood out - not because of what you had, but what you survived. I want that coded into my heir."

She felt cold spread up her spine.

"So this isn't about - fertility," she said carefully.

"It's about design," he replied.

There was no triumph in his voice. No madness. Just brutal, robotic certainty.

"The child must be conceived during a controlled sequence - physically, hormonally, emotionally. You will undergo conditioning. Not drugs. Environment. Stimulation. Controlled deprivation. Mental response tracking."

Emily felt her breath catch. "So I'm a lab rat."

"You're the most important variable in a decade-long investment," he said.

His gaze - the part of it visible - didn't waver. He was watching her for data, not empathy.

"And what if I say no?" she asked. Quiet. Firm.

He tilted his head slightly. "You won't."

The audacity stung her. "You think I'm afraid of you?"

"I think," he said slowly, "you've already gambled everything to stand here. I think the moment you stepped into the car, you decided something in yourself was worth selling - for escape. Or survival. Or control. Doesn't matter. You chose."

The words hit harder than she expected.

Not because they were cruel. But because they were almost true.

She looked down at the bracelet. The faint glow still pulsed: Subject 30 – Active.

Christian turned and walked toward the wall. A hidden panel slid open silently, revealing a glass screen. It showed no images, just a faint, pulsing grid.

"This room will change. Light. Sound. Scent. It will adapt to what your body reacts to. You'll be monitored at all times - not for discipline. For results."

Emily stepped back. Just once.

He noticed.

"I'm not a machine," she said quietly.

"No," he agreed. "But you agreed to help build one. My legacy."

He turned back to her then - slow, deliberate - and for the first time, she thought she saw something human flicker behind the mask. Not kindness. Not cruelty.

Loneliness.

Or perhaps obsession.

"I don't want to control you, Emily. I want to redefine control through you."

Silence hung in the air between them. Not awkward. Just heavy - like stormclouds with nowhere to fall.

He walked to the door but didn't exit yet.

"You'll begin tests tomorrow. For now, eat. Rest. Process."

He paused.

"You're allowed to fear this," he said. "But do not pretend it isn't real."

The door shut behind him.

Emily stood still in the center of the room, the faint hum returning.

And only now, alone again, did her knees buckle - not from terror.

But from the sudden, awful clarity that this wasn't a game, and there was no going back.