Calisí;
Alana's room smells like flowers… and fear.
Not the sharp kind of fear— Not panic. No, not that.
It is a beautiful kind of fear. The one that is delicate and easy to weave and control.
That slow, obedient kind that seeps into the bones when one has learned that resistance only makes things worse.
She sits on the edge of her bed while I kneel behind her, fingers gliding through her hair as if this is intimacy... As if this is care.
Her hair is beautiful. Soft, lucious… Easy to control… much like her mind.
I brush a loose strand from her face and smile at her reflection in the mirror opposite us. My expression is warm. Almost sisterly.
Anyone walking past the open door would see nothing but kindness and sisterhood.
That is the art of this. The obvious, but blended deception.
"You've been doing so well," I whisper, but she doesn't so much as flinch.
"So quiet… So helpful." I praise further, and she swallows.
It pleases me to feel it.
