Chapter 5: The Facility

The sedan smelled of leather and pine. The kind of air freshener that hung from rearview mirrors in cars driven by men who wanted their vehicles to smell like something other than themselves. I was pressed against the back seat, my hands bound behind me with a zip tie that cut into my wrists every time the car hit a bump. Delgado sat in the passenger seat, a handkerchief pressed to his nose, the blood already slowing to a dark crust on his upper lip.

He hadn’t said a word since we left the drop zone. Neither have I.

The driver was a man I didn’t recognize. Broad shoulders, shaved head, the kind of face that didn’t register emotion. A handler, maybe, or something else. Someone Delgado kept on retainer for moments like this.

I watched the landscape through the window. We were heading east, away from the city, toward the hills that rose from the valley floor. The houses thinned out, replaced by scrubland and the occasional gated drive that disappeared into the distance. This was where the money lived. Behind walls. Behind gates. Behind the kind of privacy that money bought.

I thought about Santa. About the handlers pulling her away from me. About the sound she made when they separated us, that sharp, desperate cry that I could still hear echoing in my skull. I didn’t know where they took her. I didn’t know if she was in another car, another truck, or another cage. I didn’t know if I’d ever see her again.

The thought made something inside me go very still. Not numb. Not calm. Something else. Something that felt like the moment before a storm breaks.

The car turned onto a private road, and the gate swung open before we reached it. The road wound through a grove of olive trees, their leaves gray-green in the afternoon light, and then the house appeared.

It wasn’t a house. It was a compound.

Walls high and white, topped with razor wire that glints in the sun. A main building that looked like a Spanish villa, all red tile and arched windows. Outbuildings scattered behind it, barns, sheds, structures I can’t identify from this distance. A guardhouse at the entrance, where a man in a uniform stepped out to wave us through.

Delgado’s facility. The place he mentioned at the drop zone. The place where he plans to retrain us.

The car stopped in a courtyard. Not the gravel courtyard of the estate, but something more deliberate. Paved stones, fountains, potted plants. The kind of courtyard designed to impress, not to serve. I was pulled out of the car, my bound hands making it difficult to keep my balance. Delgado got out first, straightened his shirt, and checked his face in the reflection of the window. The bleeding had stopped, but there was swelling on his cheek that would darken into a bruise by tomorrow. I felt a small, vicious satisfaction at the sight of it.

“Bring her inside,” he ordered, not looking at me. “Put her in the east stable. Separate from the pony.”

The driver grabbed my arm and pulled me toward one of the outbuildings. I stumbled on the stones, my bare feet slipping, and he yanked me upright without slowing. We passed through a gate, down a path lined with oleander, to a building that looked like a barn but smelled like something else. Clinical. Sterile. The smell of disinfectant and something underneath, something that might be fear or might be blood.

The east stable is a row of stalls, but not like the ones at the estate. These have solid doors, no windows, and no way to see in or out. The driver opened one and shoved me inside.

I landed on my knees, the impact sending a shockwave through my bones. The door closed behind me, and I heard the lock turn.

The stall was small. Smaller than the one at the estate. No straw, no bedding, just a concrete floor with a drain in the center. A ring bolted to the wall at chest height. A camera in the corner, its red light blinking. No water. No bowl. Nothing.

I sat there in the darkness, my hands still bound behind me, and I waited.

I don’t know how long I waited. Minutes. Hours. The light from the crack under the door shifted from gold to gray to nothing. The camera blinks. The drain in the floor smelled of bleach.

My shoulders ached from the position of my arms. The zip tie cut into my wrists deep enough that I could feel the wetness of blood on my skin. My throat was dry. My stomach was empty, but none of that mattered. All I thought about was Santa.

Where was she? What were they doing to her? Was she in a stall like this, alone, waiting? Or was she somewhere else, somewhere worse, with Delgado’s hands on her and no one to pull her away?

I thought about the folder, left on the gravel at the drop zone. Maria’s photograph, face-up in the dust. Agent Chen’s number, the call I made, the promise I made to Santa in the visitation room.

Two weeks ago, I told her. We have two weeks. We didn’t have two weeks. We didn’t have anything.

The door opened. I flinched at the sudden light, my eyes adjusted slowly. Delgado stood in the doorway, a tablet in his hand, his face illuminated by the screen. The bruise on his cheek had bloomed into a deep purple, spreading across his cheekbone like a stain.

He didn’t enter the stall. He stood in the doorway, looking at me the way he looked at Santa in the courtyard. Like I’m livestock. Like I’m something to be assessed, evaluated, priced.

“You know,” he said, his voice conversational, “I’ve been doing this for fifteen years. Ponies, mailgirls, the whole system. I’ve seen a lot of girls come through my facility. Some of them fight. Most of them don’t. The ones who fight are always the most interesting.”

He stepped into the stall, his shoes clicking on the concrete. He crouched down in front of me, close enough that I could see the fine lines around his eyes, the grey in his stubble.