Week nine. I stopped counting the days.
Not because the clock didn't matter. The clock was always there, three hundred and twenty-seven days remaining, ticking in the back of my mind like a metronome that never stopped. I stopped counting because counting was the thing that made the time feel long, and long was the enemy of patience, and patience was the only weapon I had.
After the Vasquez test, Ramirez moved me up. Not to the office. To the warehouse. I split my time now: mornings in the kitchen, afternoons at the warehouse. A man who could work both sides was a man worth keeping, and a man worth keeping was a man you trusted.
