Chapter 87 Bleed

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• The interrogation began slow and clinical, a rhythm designed to grind a person down, and when Calista refused to tell him anything Peckham’s calm shifted into something colder. The kind of patience that does not intend mercy.
• They strapped her hands to the chair and the metal bit into her palms. The lights were white and too bright, the room smelling faintly of disinfectant and stale air conditioning, and Peckham stood over her with a remote in his hand as if he held a lighter instead of a switch. “Speak,” he said once, crisp as a command, “or this ends faster.”