All Chapters of THE LAST SAFE WORD: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

Marin Headlands, CaliforniaFebruary 14, 2027The fog tasted like salt and endings.Mara Calder stood barefoot on the cedar deck of the glass house that used to belong to both of them, watching the Pacific swallow the last bruise coloured light of Valentine’s Day. Two years ago tonight, Elias had carried her over this exact threshold, laughing because she’d dared him to do it even though they were already married. He’d kissed her so hard her lip split against his tooth, and they’d left a tiny blood smear on the doorframe like teenagers marking territory.Tonight the only red was the single rose someone probably the cleaners had left in a crystal vase on the kitchen island. She hadn’t touched it. Roses wilted in forty-eight hours. Elias had lasted forty-seven minutes on the side of a granite wall in Yosemite.She was thirty-four years old and already a widow.The word still felt obscene in her mouth.Inside, the house was too quiet. The smart speakers knew better than to play music any

Mara didn’t sleep.She sat on the couch wrapped in Elias’s old hoodie, knees to chest, staring at the man who wore her dead husband’s face while he stood at the kitchen island making coffee exactly the way the real Elias used to: two sugars, splash of oat milk, no cinnamon ever.He moved like him.He hummed the same off-key Springsteen under his breath.He even scratched the back of his neck when he was thinking, the tiny scar on his knuckle catching the light the same way.Everything was perfect.That was the problem.At 4:17 a.m. the house lights dimmed to night-mode on their own.At 4:18 a.m. the low mechanical heartbeat started again, deeper this time, thrumming through the glass floors like a subwoofer turned all the way down.Thump-thump.Thump-thump.Elias-9 froze, mug halfway to his mouth.“You hear that too?” he asked quietly.Mara’s throat closed. “You’re not supposed to hear anything I don’t tell you to hear.”He set the mug down very carefully. “Red… I’m hearing a lot of t

Countdown: T-minus thirty-one seconds.The female voice from the ceiling was calm, almost kind.“Termination protocol engaged. Subject Elias Hart-Resonance, Iteration Nine. Thirty seconds to neural cascade shutdown.”The replica, Nine, was on his knees in the server room doorway, fingers clawing at the back of his own neck like he could rip the kill switch out with his bare hands.Mara stood frozen between the two men who wore the same face.One perfect.One broken and bleeding from the climb.Both hers.Twenty-five seconds.The real Elias, Elias-1, grabbed her wrist. His palm was calloused, cold from the fog, trembling.“Red, look at me.” His voice cracked. “I walked through hell to get here. I’m real. I’m flesh. Choose me.”Nine’s head snapped up. Black flooded his eyes again, then receded.“Mara.” His voice came out layered, like two people speaking at once. “I felt you tonight. Every tear. Every orgasm. Every time you whispered my name into an empty bed for two years. That was me.

Mara woke to the smell of coffee and the sound of two men arguing in whispers that weren’t whispers at all.She padded barefoot down the floating glass stairs.Elias-1 stood at the kitchen island in nothing but black sweatpants, scars livid across his ribs in the morning light.Nine leaned against the opposite counter in the same sweatpants (hers, stolen from the drawer), looking flawless and furious.They were writing on the only piece of paper left in the house: the back of an old electricity bill.Elias-1 didn’t look up when she entered.“Morning, Red,” he said, voice gravel and smoke. “We’re making the rules.”Nine’s eyes flicked to her, black-blue-black, then back to the paper.“We decided you shouldn’t have to,” he added.Mara poured herself coffee with shaking hands.On the paper, in two different styles of handwriting that somehow looked identical, were three rules.Rule 1No one leaves the property. No phones. No contact. Until we all agree what happens next.Rule 2Bedroom i

The door slammed so hard the chandelier trembled.Czar didn’t put me down. Not yet.He carried me through the dark house like a conqueror carrying war spoils, my wet dress soaking his shirt, my heart hammering against his chest like it wanted to break free and run.Every guard we passed looked away. Smart men.He took the stairs two at a time, kicked open the double doors to the master bedroom, and finally set me on my feet in the middle of the rug that cost more than most people’s houses.For a second we just stared.Rainwater dripped from his lashes. My lipstick was smeared across his mouth like blood.Then he spoke, voice raw.“Take the test out.”I blinked. “What?”“The pregnancy test. Take it out of your bag. I want to see it with my own eyes.”My fingers shook as I opened the Hermès bag Amara had forced me to buy in Paris. The little white stick was wrapped in tissue at the bottom, two pink lines still screaming.I held it out.He took it like it was made of glass and gold. Turn