Page 34 of Hallow’s Crown

- Assign myself as direct supervisor.

- Restrict access to outside assets—no one else gets to try to break him.

- Watch for signs of backchannel inquiry. The Ministry will want to know why the logs are so clean.

I smile at that. No one ever suspects a man who does his job perfectly.

A file pings on my terminal: the auto-generated report from the biometric monitors. I open it, glance at the charts. Samuel’s heart rate never spiked above 126, even during the most extreme phase of the trial. His pain response is within two points of my own, even though he has four times the soft tissue trauma.

I wonder how much of that is natural, and how much is just will.

I think of his hands. The way they shook, not from fear, but from the effort to hold back. The way they left marks on my skin, evidence that cannot be erased. I want to keep everyone, every scratch and bruise, every ache that lingers long after the nerves should have gone numb.

I want to be the man who records it all, and I want him to know it.

There is a word for this, but the Ministry’s lexicon doesn’t have it. They use “optimization,” “compliance,” “efficiency.” I prefer the older language from the beginning of the Halloween ritual.

Hunger. Want. Ruin.

Unbidden, my own old Halloween rituals, back in the house where I was raised surfaces. My father—never once called “dad”—would stand at the head of the table, the mask already on his face, the air thick with the stink of burnt pumpkin and latex. He would say, “We endure. That’s all that matters.” The rest of the night was a blur of trials, always harder, always colder, always pushing just to the edge of what a child could take. If you survived, you were a Brooks. If not, you were nothing.

I endured. I survived.

But I never wanted anything. Not until now.

I want Samuel.

I want to know how much of him is left after I tear down every wall. I want to fuck him and be fucked by him until the only thing left is this animal honesty, this proof of life.

I want to see what happens when the game never ends.

The console clock ticks over to 04:00. I hear footsteps in the hall, the familiar cadence of someone who refuses to slow down, even when he should. The door to the control room opens. Samuel walks in, wearing the black uniform, but the look on his face says he’d rather be naked and covered in blood.

He scoffs. “Surprised you’re still sitting here rather than trying to shove your hog in my pretty peach.”

My eyes roll and I push a second coffee toward him.

He grins. “You poison this?”

“Wouldn’t work,” I say.

He sips it, makes a face. “This tastes like shit.”

“Endurance blend. Designed to last through a siege.”

He finishes half the cup in one go, then wipes his mouth on the sleeve. “You make this shit up as you go?”

I shake my head. “Every trial is documented. Every variable, every response.”

He leans closer, breath hot at my ear. “You keep a file on everyone you fuck?”

I look him in the eye. There are no others, but he doesn’t need to know that. “Only the ones who break the machine.”

He laughs. It’s the first real laugh of the night, ragged and open. He drains the rest of the coffee, then sets the cup down so hard it chips the rim.

I see the way he looks at my hands. I see the hunger mirrored there.

“We done here?” he asks.