Last Guard by Nalini Singh

Before

“Well?”

“She’s responding positively to the drug regime. In fact, the results of her cognition and comprehension tests put her in the ninety-ninth percentile of her age group.”

—Report on Payal Rao (age 7) to Pranath Rao

THE SMALL GIRLsat in the room where they’d locked her up and stared at her hands. They bore no scabs or cuts, the scars from her previous marks having faded away. She was too young to think in terms of metaphors, but she felt as if the scabs and cuts on her mind were fading, too.

The fuzzy edges had become sharp, the broken thoughts whole.

Putting her hands on the soft stretchy cotton of her black tights, she looked at the wall in front of her, and she made herself think. The doctor had said she could soon have her own proper room, where no one would lock her inside.

She wanted that—but she’d seen Lalit spying on her from around the corner. He was waiting for the doctors to stop watching her; he’d hurt her again if she let him. So she had to make sure he never caught her alone—and she had to make her mind stronger and stronger, so he couldn’t make her lose her thoughts again.

Don’t give the monsters the satisfaction of seeing you give up.

“I won’t,” she whispered to the memory of the boy who’d said such nice things to her, and who’d looked at her like she was strong and brave and not wrong in the head. “I won’t, 7J. I promise.”