The sanctuary Mild chose was a stark departure from the suffocating luxury of the Dupont estate and the clinical surveillance of Zen's hospital. It was a small, third-floor walk-up in a district where the streetlights hummed with a tired yellow buzz and the air smelled of rain and exhaust. There were no master keys here, no guards, and no silk sheets.
The walls were a pale, peeling eggshell, and the floorboards groaned under his weight like a living thing. When Zen had offered him the trauma unit position—a chance to reclaim his identity in a sterile, "safe" environment—Mild had looked at the silver-haired man and felt only a cold, creeping claustrophobia. To work for Zen was to remain a piece on a board.
"I need to breathe air that doesn't belong to a billionaire," Mild had told him before disappearing into the city's grey arteries.
