The Voice in the Nursery

Portland. The name landed in the velvet silence of my soundproofed box like a stone hitting glass. I pressed my back against the cold, seamless drywall, my fingers trembling as they reached for the high shelf where the monitor’s blue LED pulsed like a taunting heartbeat.

"Portland is a ghost, Elena," Chloe’s voice drifted through the speaker, her tone a mixture of irritation and sharp, metallic fear. "I scrubbed that trail years ago. Sarah Vance is buried in a blog post and a forgotten obituary. The lawyer is fishing because he wants a larger settlement."

"He mentioned the trust," Mark replied. The sound of a chair scraping across the floor below me—or was it in the room next door?—vibrated through my feet. "The one Sarah opened for the Rostova girl. He has a copy of the signature card."

"Then he has a copy of a dead woman's hand," Chloe hissed.

I sat on the floor, the darkness of my new cage pressing against my chest until I felt like I was drowning. Total isolation. That’s what she had promised. They had stripped the room of everything—my books, my phone, the very handle to the door. I was a non-person, a body being stored until the paperwork caught up with the crime.

But they had forgotten the monitor. A high-tech oversight that allowed me to hear the gears of my own erasure turning in real-time.

I heard the rhythmic *creak-creak-creak* of a rocking chair. It was coming from the nursery. Chloe was with Lily. My hands balled into fists, my nails drawing blood from my palms. The chemical sludge in my veins was thinning, replaced by a cold, incandescent rage that burned hotter than the liquid sedative.

"Hush now, Lily," Chloe crooned into the speaker. The sound was a grotesque parody of the lullabies I used to sing. "Don't listen to the noise outside. It's just a bad dream. That other lady... she's going away soon. She was just a temporary bridge to bring you to me."

"I'm your mama, Lily," she whispered, her voice a chilling, possessive purr. "The only one you'll ever need. The other one was just a vessel, a shell we used until we were ready."

I lunged for the wall, my shoulder slamming into the soundproofed barrier with a dull, muffled thud. I wanted to scream, to tear the drywall down with my bare teeth, but the room swallowed my fury.

"She has to be moved tonight," Mark’s voice returned, closer now, as if he were standing right outside the hidden port. "The neighbors are talking about the accident. Mrs. Gable is asking why the 'ambulance' didn't have sirens. If we don't get her to the facility before dawn, the whole thing unspools."

"The van is in the back," Chloe said. I heard her stand up, the rocking chair letting out one final, haunting groan. "Prepare the injection. I want her completely compliant when they load the gurney."

Compliance. compliancy was a death sentence.

I scrambled to the corner, my eyes searching the blackness for anything—a loose screw, a forgotten toy, a shard of the porcelain lid I’d lost in the crash. My hand brushed against the high shelf, the monitor unit teetering on the edge.

As I gripped the plastic casing, Mark’s voice drifted up one last time, hushed and hurried.

"The facility isn't in Oregon, Elena. I lied to the lawyer. She's going to the basement in Portland."

The monitor hissed, a burst of static cutting through the air before falling silent.

My phone showed 'No Service'. But the monitor had given me a destination.

The door to my cage vibrated. The lock was disengaging.

Mark was standing there, the silhouette of a syringe glinting in the hallway light.