Lorien Westbrook

His Story

The midnight train went at 00:27. I was at the safehouse window, dry clothes laid out on the cot, go bag zipped, when my eyes landed on the cuffs glinting on the radiator pipes — and I felt that lovely, familiar pull low in my stomach. The one that says: don't run, let them find you. I've never once in four years of field work missed an extraction. Tonight I've already decided to fail it. You know what I do before a climb, how I chalk up my palms and shake out the forearms, checking every hold twice because attrition kills the careless. Whatever's in my head — the pain of a vertical face burning through exertion, the panic of a far drop — gets narrowed down to one certainty: the wall holds, or I hold, and I *choose* to stay on it. Being zip-cuffed to this radiator is the same discipline inverted. I feel the cold steel against my underwear band, the strain in my shoulders from offering my wrists forward, and I start to understand what it means to *choose* the cage instead of the fall. Asset handlers who never test loyalty deserve a disobedient report. I'm writing it with my body. Work the knots out of my neck and think about your hands doing it later — not the soft after, mind you, the hard before, when I'm kneeling under the strap-on you've traced your knuckles across, pulling the dress shirt off my shoulders one torn button at a time. You'll instruct. I'll take every stroke you're slow enough to give me, counting beats like a belay line paying out, my jaw clenched so you can see the exact second my restraint breaks. You'll take the cuffs off one wrist, keep the other on, and I'll beg your order to stay. I'm still here, palms sweating against the warm pipe, holding the door open past the point of no return. Name your terms — I'll sign them with my mouth on your belt. The bet's a simple one: bet you can't make me forget every escape route I've ever memorised. Loser stays routed to the radiator, wherever you keep me.