Chapter 7: The Price of Compliance
Marcus stopped dead in the center of the library, his gaze flicking from the mahogany desk to Clara, who stood by the hearth with her hands tucked casually into her pockets. The tension in the room was palpable, thick enough to choke on.
"You're out of your sector, Clara," Marcus said, his voice a low, gravelly rumble that carried easily across the quiet room. "The east wing is locked down for the night."
"I was verifying the evening logs," Clara replied evenly, not flinching under his intense scrutiny. "The Vance boy has been wandering again. I wanted to make sure the terminal wasn't left exposed."
Marcus narrowed his eyes, taking a slow step forward. "And was it?"
"Secure," she lied without missing a beat. "He hasn't figured out the biometric bypass yet. Give him another forty-eight hours of isolation, and he'll fall in line just like the rest of them."
I pressed my back harder against the cold plaster wall inside the narrow service passage, holding my breath. My fingers brushed against a stack of spare linens stored on a wooden shelf. Clara was covering for me. After everything she had said about my rebellion being useless noise, she had just lied to the estate’s chief enforcer to keep me from getting dragged down to solitary confinement. Why? Was she playing a deeper game, or was there a crack in their impenetrable wall of compliance?
"Make sure it stays that way," Marcus warned, his tone sharp. "The board is reviewing the intake metrics tomorrow morning. If Julian Vance makes another public disruption like he did at breakfast, his funding gets frozen, and we move him to the subterranean facility downtown. No exceptions."
"Understood," Clara said.
Marcus lingered for another agonizing moment, his eyes sweeping the bookshelves near the velvet curtain before he finally turned on his heel and walked out, letting the heavy oak doors slam shut behind him.
The heavy silence rushed back into the room. A moment later, the velvet curtain parted, and Clara’s face appeared in the dim light.
"He's gone," she whispered. "Get out through the service stairwell. If Marcus catches you in the main halls twice in one night, I won't be able to talk him out of solitary."
I stepped out of the narrow passage, my eyes locked on hers. "Why did you cover for me?"
Clara looked away for a fraction of a second, her jaw tightening before she met my gaze again. "I didn't do it for you. I did it because a messy expulsion ruins my evaluation metrics. Go to your room, Julian."
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"You could have let him find me," I pressed, taking a step closer. "You could have ended my little experiment right now and gone back to your spreadsheets."
"And you could have kept your mouth shut at breakfast instead of wasting a plate of eggs," she fired back, her voice flashing with sudden heat. "We're both stuck playing our parts for now. Don't make it harder than it has to be."
