"Don't be late."
The command followed Yanna out of the penthouse, through the silent descent of the elevator, and into the humid, chaotic heat of the street. It was a tether. An invisible leash that stretched but did not break as she navigated the three jeepney rides back to Quezon City.
The world had not changed in the three hours she had been gone, but Yanna experienced it now as a foreigner. The roar of the engines, the shouted curses of drivers, the smell of frying garlic and diesel fumes—it was all an assault. It was the sensory overload of a life she had just signed away. She sat in the back of the jeepney, clutching the straps of her bag, feeling the phantom weight of the pen in her hand. Yanna Rivera. The signature felt like a scar on her soul.
She reached her boarding house at 4:30 PM.
Her room was exactly as she had left it: a small, stifling box of peeling paint and stacked textbooks. But now, it looked like a museum exhibit of a dead girl.
Pack a bag. Bring nothing that reminds you of who you were.
Yanna stood in the center of the room. She looked at her textbooks—Weber, Marx, Foucault. The spines were cracked from use, the margins filled with her frantic, hopeful notes. She reached out to touch The Protestant Ethic, then pulled her hand back. She couldn't take them. They belonged to the scholar. The scholar didn't exist anymore.
She looked at the framed photo on her bedside table: her mother and sister, smiling under a tree in their province, oblivious to the fact that their survival had just been purchased with Yanna's freedom. She couldn't take that either. The shame would kill her every time she looked at it.
She opened her battered duffel bag.
She packed two plain t-shirts. Three pairs of worn cotton underwear. Her toothbrush. A bar of cheap soap.
That was it.
She zipped the bag. The sound was loud in the quiet room—the sound of a body bag closing. She left the key on the table. She didn't say goodbye to the landlady. She didn't text Ria. To say goodbye would be to admit that she was leaving. It was easier to pretend she was simply disappearing.
The return journey was a funeral procession of one.
By the time she reached Bonifacio Global City, the sun had set. The skyline was a jagged jaw of glass and steel, biting into the purple sky. The Navarro Tower stood apart from the others, a monolith of black void.
Yanna walked through the lobby at 7:55 PM.
The receptionist—the woman carved from ice—didn't ask for her name this time. She didn't even look up. She simply pressed a button under her desk, and the black elevator doors slid open with a soft hiss.
She knows, Yanna thought, stepping into the box. I am already inventory.
The ascent was silent. No buttons. No floor numbers. Just the feeling of her stomach dropping as the world fell away beneath her. When the doors opened, she expected Camille to be waiting. She expected a lecture, a command, a inspection.
But the penthouse was empty.
The vast living space was lit only by the ambient glow of the city grid far below. The shadows of the furniture stretched long and sharp across the polished concrete. The silence was absolute. It wasn't just quiet; it was a vacuum. It pressed against Yanna's eardrums, heavy and pressurized.
There was a single object on the kitchen island: a magnetic keycard, stark white against the black granite. Beside it was a note, written in black ink with a precise, razor-sharp hand.
Room 2. Sleep. Do not wander.
Yanna took the card. Her footsteps echoed obscenely loud as she walked down the long, white hallway. She found the door marked with a subtle, indented '2'. She swiped the card.
The room was a sarcophagus.
It was windowless. The walls were a matte, light-absorbing grey. The air was cool, dry, and scrubbed of all scent. There was a bed—immense, dressed in white linens—and a black nightstand. Nothing else. No art. No clock. No sense of the world outside.
Yanna placed her bag on the floor. She didn't unpack. She sat on the edge of the bed, her hands folded in her lap, and waited. She waited for Camille to come in. She waited for instructions. She waited for the fear to subside.
But nothing happened. The hours stretched. The silence deepened until she could hear the blood rushing in her own ears, a frantic, squelching rhythm. It was a sensory deprivation tank. It was a cell designed to strip away the concept of time.
She didn't sleep until exhaustion finally dragged her under. And when she did, she didn't dream. The room didn't allow for it.
She woke to a silence that was somehow heavier than the night before.
Panic, cold and sharp, pricked her awake. She sat up, gasping, disoriented by the lack of windows. Was it morning? Was it night? Had she slept for an hour or a day?
Her gaze darted to the nightstand. There was a glass of water there now, and a single, folded sheet of cream-colored cardstock.
She hadn't heard anyone enter. The realization sent a shiver down her spine. Camille had been here, in the room, watching her sleep, silent as a ghost.
Yanna reached for the note. Her hands trembled. The font was severe, elegant, and serifed.
6:30 a.m. You will be awake and showered.
7:00 a.m. You will bring my coffee—black, no sugar—to my study.
Be punctual. Punctuality is a virtue. Laziness is a sin.
The language was religious. Virtue. Sin. This wasn't a schedule; it was a liturgy. Yanna looked at the digital clock that had appeared on the nightstand—or perhaps she just hadn't noticed it in the dark.
6:17 a.m.
Thirteen minutes.
Adrenaline dumped into her system, blasting away the fog of sleep. She scrambled out of bed, her bare feet slapping the cold concrete. She found the bathroom—a marvel of slate and chrome—and stripped.
The shower was a violent, stinging spray. She scrubbed her skin with her cheap bar of soap, desperate to wash away the smell of the jeepney, the smell of poverty, the smell of fear. She dressed in the same clothes she had worn yesterday—the white blouse, the black trousers. They felt stiff, alien.
She exited the room at 6:50 a.m.
The penthouse was flooded with harsh morning light, but the silence remained unbroken. Yanna ran to the kitchen. It was an intimidating landscape of stainless steel. The coffee machine was built into the wall, a chrome beast with no visible buttons.
"No, no, no," Yanna whispered, her fingers flying over the smooth surface.
She found a sensor. The screen lit up. Espresso. Lungo. Ristretto. The words meant nothing to her. She found a bag of beans in a drawer and poured them into the hopper, her hands shaking so badly that half of them scattered across the pristine granite counter.
Clatter-hiss. The sound was deafening.
She didn't stop to clean it. She pressed a button. The machine whirred, groaned, and began to drip a dark liquid into a porcelain cup she grabbed from a shelf.
The microwave clock read 6:58.
The cup was hot. Handle-less. It burned her fingertips. Yanna grabbed it, ignoring the pain, and ran. She sprinted down the long white hallway, the dark liquid sloshing dangerously near the rim.
She reached the double doors of the study. She took a breath. She pushed them open.
7:02 a.m.
Camille was sitting behind the volcanic desk. She was already working, her face bathed in the blue light of three monitors. She didn't look up. She simply extended her hand, palm open, waiting.
Yanna walked forward, her legs feeling like lead. "I... I'm sorry. The machine..."
Camille didn't speak. She just kept her hand extended.
Yanna placed the saucer in Camille's palm. The cup rattled against the porcelain.
Camille brought the cup to her lips. She took a small sip. She held the liquid in her mouth for a second, analyzing it, before swallowing.
Then, with a slow, deliberate movement, she turned her wrist.
She poured the entire cup of coffee onto the floor.
The dark liquid splashed against the white marble, spreading like a pool of oil. It steamed in the cool air. The stain was shocking, a violent violation of the room's perfection.
"Cold," Camille said softly. "Weak. And full of grounds."
She finally looked up. Her eyes went to the digital clock on the wall, then to Yanna.
"And late."
She stood up. She walked around the desk, moving with that terrifying, fluid grace. She stopped in front of Yanna, close enough that Yanna could smell the scent of her—clean, sharp, expensive.
"You have begun our arrangement with a failure," Camille murmured. "This demonstrates a lack of focus. A lack of respect for the contract."
She pointed to the hallway.
"In the pantry, you will find a sack of munggo beans. Bring it to the foyer."
The foyer was a vast, echoing chamber of empty space.
Yanna dragged the burlap sack across the floor. It was heavy, twenty kilos of dead weight.
"Pour them out," Camille commanded. "Make a circle. One meter in diameter."
Yanna's hands shook as she untied the knot. She tipped the sack.
Shhh-clatter.
The sound was the texture of dry rain. Thousands of hard, green pellets hit the marble, bouncing and settling into a rough pile. It was an absurd, domestic object—soup beans—turned into an instrument of terror.
Camille inspected the circle. She kicked a few stray beans back into the pile with the toe of her loafer.
"Kneel," she said.
Yanna looked at her. "Ma'am?"
"Kneel," Camille repeated, her voice dropping an octave. "In the center. Back straight. Hands clasped behind you. Face the wall."
Yanna looked at the beans. They looked like gravel. Her mind screamed at her to run, to fight, to leave. But the contract was a weight in her chest. The image of her sister's medical chart flashed in her mind.
She stepped into the circle. The beans shifted under her feet, hard and unstable.
She lowered herself.
The moment her knees hit the pile, the breath was knocked out of her.
It wasn't just pain; it was a sensory overload. A hundred tiny, stone-hard points dug instantly into the soft flesh of her kneecaps. They found the nerves. They pressed against the bone.
"Ah!" Yanna gasped, her body jerking forward.
"Straight," Camille commanded.
Yanna forced her spine erect. She clasped her hands behind her back. The shift in weight drove the beans deeper. Tears sprung instantly to her eyes, blurring the white wall in front of her.
"You will remain here," Camille said, checking her watch. "One hour. That is the exchange rate. Twelve minutes of correction for every minute of infraction."
She turned and walked away. The sound of her loafers retreating down the hallway was the sound of hope leaving the building.
Click. Click. Click.
Then, the study door closed. Thud.
Yanna was alone.
The first ten minutes were a biological panic.
The pain was a living thing. It was a fire that started in her knees and consumed her nervous system. Every bean was a soldering iron. Yanna bit her lip until she tasted blood. She trembled violently, sweat pouring down her face, stinging her eyes.
Get up, her brain screamed. Move. Shift your weight.
But she didn't. She held the pose. She was a statue of misery carved from trembling flesh.
At twenty minutes, the sensation changed. The sharp, stabbing agony dulled into a deep, throbbing roar that felt like it was cracking her bones. Her shins were on fire. Her lower back spasmed.
Then, she heard the voice.
It drifted down the hallway from the study. Camille was on a call.
"...the merger is non-negotiable. Tell the board to accept the valuation or I walk..."
The voice was calm. Powerful. Effortless.
The contrast broke something inside Yanna.
Here she was, kneeling on dried beans, sweating, bleeding, suffering in an empty foyer. And fifty feet away, Camille was reshaping the world with words. Camille was a god. Yanna was a supplicant. Yanna was a thing to be put in a corner and corrected.
The humiliation washed over her, hotter than the pain. But strangely, the humiliation brought clarity.
At forty minutes, Yanna detached.
It was a survival mechanism she recognized from the library, when she would press her nails into her arm. But this was deeper. She floated out of her body. She hovered near the ceiling, looking down at the pathetic girl in the black trousers.
She watched the girl tremble. She watched the girl suffer. And she realized something monstrous.
The anxiety is gone.
The knot in her stomach about the money? Gone. The fear of her mother's disappointment? Gone. The terror of the future? Gone.
There was no room for anxiety in the fire. The pain had burned it all away.
This is simple, Yanna thought, her mind drifting in a haze of endorphins and agony. I don't have to choose. I don't have to think. I just have to endure.
The pain was a cage. But a cage is also a shelter.
For the first time in years, Yanna felt... safe. The debt was being paid. Every second of agony was a peso subtracted from the ledger. It was a fair trade. It was a clean trade.
She closed her eyes and leaned into the pain. She welcomed it. She let it hold her up.
"Get up."
The voice shattered the trance.
Yanna opened her eyes. Camille was standing over her. She held a fresh cup of coffee in her hand—perfect, steaming, black. She took a sip, watching Yanna with clinical interest.
"I said get up."
Yanna tried. She sent the command to her legs, but the signal died. Her knees were fused to the floor. She tried to shift her weight, and a fresh, screaming wave of agony—the blood rushing back into crushed tissue—caused her to cry out.
She collapsed forward, catching herself on her hands. She crawled out of the circle, dragging her ruined legs behind her like a crippled animal.
She collapsed onto the cool marble, gasping, her body shaking so hard her teeth rattled.
"Let me see," Camille said.
Yanna rolled onto her back. With trembling fingers, she pulled up her trouser legs.
The skin of her knees was a ruin. It was angry, inflamed red, mottled with deep purple bruises. And pressed into the flesh were hundreds of deep, white indentations—a honeycomb pattern of suffering.
Camille looked down. She didn't smile. She didn't frown. Her expression was one of quiet, profound satisfaction.
"Good," she whispered. "A clear lesson."
She crouched down, balancing effortlessly on the balls of her feet. She reached out and brushed her thumb over the ruined skin of Yanna's left knee. The touch was electric. It sent a jolt of shock and desire straight to Yanna's core.
"A body that has been educated does not forget," Camille murmured.
She stood up. She looked at the pile of beans.
"Clean this up. Every single bean. Use the dustpan in the closet."
She turned to walk away, then paused. She looked back at Yanna, who was lying on the floor, broken, bleeding, and terrifyingly calm.
"And Yanna?"
Yanna looked up, her eyes wide, glassy with pain. "Yes, Ma'am?"
Camille's eyes narrowed, analyzing the strange, slack expression on Yanna's face.
"You took that better than I expected," Camille said, her voice dropping to a dangerous, intimate purr. "I think you and I are going to get along very well."