Chapter Ninety-Two: The Isolation Cage

[L E N N Y]

In the stark, sanitized isolation chamber, Lenny found himself confined to a starkly minimalist cage—a space so deliberately featureless that it seemed designed to erase any trace of personality or history. The harsh metallic clang of the door echoed in his ears as it sealed shut, trapping him within its cold, unyielding walls. This was his world now, reduced to a few square feet of sterile, white, untextured walls and a single padded platform that mocked the concept of comfort.

For a moment, Lenny stood motionless, his breath ragged and uneven as he struggled to contain the storm of emotions threatening to overwhelm him. Rage simmered just below the surface, a fierce, burning fury at the way he'd been manhandled and discarded, treated as little more than a dangerous animal to be caged and forgotten. His heart pounded fiercely against his ribs, each beat a deafening drum of anger and humiliation.

The faces of those who had put him here flickered through his mind—Tess's expression of shocked horror, Austin's fierce glare, Cole's thinly veiled disgust, Jace's stunned silence. He spat on the floor at the thought of Jace. And Darrick... Darrick's absence was a betrayal all its own.

With a guttural snarl, Lenny's fists slammed into the wall, the impact sending a jolt of pain up his arms. The dull thud of his blows against the seamless white surface seemed to mock him, reflecting his own powerlessness. He was nothing here, stripped of any ability to affect his world.

Pacing the tiny space like a caged beast, Lenny's steps were quick and agitated. Each turn was a reminder of the room's suffocating boundaries, of the control they had over him. The stark whiteness of the walls pressed in on him, oppressive and unrelenting. There was nothing to break the monotony, nothing to interact with, nothing to do but confront the reality of his imprisonment.

"They think they're better than me," he muttered under his breath, his voice hoarse with barely suppressed rage as the image on Austin flickered through his mind, large and proud "Like they haven't done worse... like they're not monsters too." His fingers tangled in his hair, pulling at the white strands as if trying to physically drag the thoughts from his mind.

The isolation was meant to be a punishment, a way to break him down. And as much as he resisted, as much as he fought against the creeping despair, he could feel it working. The helplessness was the worst part—the gnawing sense of vulnerability that came from knowing he was completely at their mercy.

Slumping against the wall, Lenny slowly slid down until he was sitting on the cold, padded floor. His head fell back against the wall, eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. The silence of the room was total, oppressive, filled only by the sound of his own ragged breathing.

"I'm not a monster," he whispered to himself, the words a feeble shield against the crushing weight of his situation. But the label echoed in his mind, a dark whisper that grew louder with each repetition.

Monster. Monster. Monster.

A bitter laugh escaped him, void of humor. They had pushed him here, to this breaking point, and now they would label him based on his reactions, based on the survival instincts that flared when cornered and threatened.

His gaze drifted to the small camera mounted in the corner of the room, its unblinking eye a constant reminder that he was never alone, always observed, always judged. They were watching him break, piece by piece, and he wondered if they felt any satisfaction in it.

"I'll get out of here," he vowed quietly, the words laced with a desperation he couldn't fully suppress. "I'm not going to let them keep me like this." But even as he spoke, doubt crept in, a quiet, insidious voice that whispered of endless days and nights in this white hell.

His fists clenched at his sides, nails digging into his palms. He wasn't going to break. He couldn't. Not here, not under their watchful eyes. He would hold on, somehow. For pride, for spite, for the sheer stubborn refusal to give them the satisfaction of seeing him crumble.

But as the hours stretched on, marked only by the steady, soulless hum of the fluorescent lights overhead, Lenny found himself wrestling with a growing sense of dread. Each passing moment in isolation stripped away another layer of his resolve, leaving him raw, exposed, vulnerable.

And utterly, terrifyingly, alone.

The flickering of the lights above seemed to mock him, a subtle reminder of the facility's control over even the smallest aspects of his environment. A part of him wished they would just go out, plunge him into darkness and give him a moment of reprieve from the relentless glare.

They'd locked him in here to break him. And worse?

It was working.

A shaky sob tore out of his throat before he could stop it.

"No," he gasped, shaking his head violently. No, no, no, no, no. He wouldn't cry. He couldn't cry. Not here. Not because of them. His hands curled into his jumpsuit, his nails biting into the fabric. His chest heaved, his lungs tightening, but the more he tried to fight it, the worse it got.

Another sob escaped him, quieter this time, raw and helpless.

And then another.

And another.

Until the weight of it all crushed him.

Lenny buried his face into his arms, his body curling in on itself as the sobs took over. They wracked through him like a fever, like something he couldn't control, each one more desperate than the last. His body trembled with it, the helpless kind of crying—the kind that hurts. The kind that doesn't stop once it starts.

No one could hear him.

But the lights remained, steady and bright, and Lenny was left to face the long, empty hours with nothing but his thoughts for company. Thoughts that grew darker with each passing minute.