The Supply Chain

The plastic bag was heavier than Iris expected, the weight of thirty years of chemical restraint dragging at her wrist. She sat in her car in the pharmacy parking lot, staring at the amber bottles.

*Clonazepam. 2mg. Take twice daily.*
*Risperidone. 4mg. Take at bedtime.*

The labels were printed yesterday. The prescribing doctor was a Dr. Aris Thorne. Iris googled him. He was a geriatric psychiatrist in the city, specializing in dementia.

Julian wasn't just faking Elias's mental illness; he was using a real doctor to do it. Likely one on the payroll, or one who believed he was treating a recluse.

Iris flipped through the pickup log the pharmacist had let her see after a convincing performance involving "misplaced tax receipts" and "audit panic."

The log went back ten years in the digital system. Every week, like clockwork.

*01/15/2026 - Picked up by J. Vance.*
*01/08/2026 - Picked up by J. Vance.*
*01/01/2026 - Picked up by J. Vance.*

It was a litany of control. A weekly ritual of maintenance for his prisoner.

But then she saw it. A variation in the pattern.

Six months ago. July 2025. The month Julian had been in Europe "on business."

*07/15/2025 - Picked up by S. Vance.*
*07/22/2025 - Picked up by S. Vance.*

Iris stopped breathing. S. Vance.

Sabrina.

She scrolled back further. Two years ago. August 2023.

*08/10/2023 - Picked up by S. Vance.*

Every time Julian was out of town, Sabrina picked up the medication.

Iris dropped the phone. The betrayal was a physical blow, a punch to the gut that left her gasping. Sabrina wasn't just complicit; she was an active participant. She wasn't just a daughter believing her father's lies; she was the relief guard.

"I don't know anything!" Sabrina had cried on the phone. "You're just the cousin who needs money."

Lies. All of it.

Iris looked at the bag of pills. She had the proof. She had the passport. She had the water bills. And now she had the supply chain.

But proof wasn't enough. Not against Julian. Not against a man who could rewrite reality.

She needed a witness. A witness who wasn't drugged into silence.

She looked at the bottle of Risperidone. 4mg. A high dose. Enough to keep a grown man docile. Enough to make him doubt his own memories.

If she wanted Elias to talk, she needed him lucid.

She opened the bottle. The pills were small, blue.

She dumped them into her hand. Then she opened the glove box and took out a bottle of aspirin. She dumped the aspirin out.

She put the aspirin into the Risperidone bottle. They looked different—white vs. blue—but in the dark of a basement cell, would a man who had been drugged for thirty years notice?

Maybe. Maybe not.

But she couldn't give him these.

She put the real antipsychotics in her pocket. She filled the pharmacy bottle with aspirin. Then she put the bottle back in the bag.

She was going to deliver the "medication." But she was going to deliver clarity instead.

She started the car. The drive back to Mercer Hall felt different now. She wasn't driving to a house. She was driving to a extraction point.

But as she pulled onto the main road, a thought struck her.

If Sabrina was picking up the pills... did she also deliver the food?

Iris pulled over. She opened the log photos on her phone again.

*07/15/2025 - Picked up by S. Vance.*

The signature was loopy, rushed. A sharp 'S' that looked like a snake striking.

The signature on the pickup log wasn't Julian's. It was 'S. Vance.' Sabrina.