Or receive something back.
I feel my heartbeat slow.
Not with calm.
With clarity.
Because someone got in.
Someone touched my system.
Someone left that paper.
And whoever it was?—
They didn’t want me to find it.
They wanted her to.
I don’t go to her.
Not yet.
The instinct’s there—burning up my spine like a fuse—but I tamp it down. Chasing it now would be a mistake. She’s already folding in on herself. If I push, she’ll disappear behind that dead-eyed quiet she wears like armour when she’s cornered.
So I still play it .
Not calm.
Still.
I close the laptop, set it back in the drawer where she can see it. Like it doesn’t matter. Like I haven’t already memorised the entire sequence of the breach.
I pour another cup of coffee I won’t drink.
Run the tap for no reason.
And wait.
She comes out a few minutes later, wearing that oversized hoodie she never wears in front of me unless she’s hidingsomething under it—herself, mostly. She tucked her hands into the sleeves. Her eyes slide over mine but don’t stay.
My chest tightens.
She offers a smile. Small. Controlled.
“Sorry,” she says, voice careful. “Just… needed a minute.”
I nod as if I believe her.
Like I didn’t just watch the surveillance flicker and fail around her bedroom.
Like I didn’t just see the message meant only for her.
She crosses to the kitchen and pulls down a glass. Her fingers are stiff, mechanical. She doesn’t meet my eyes.
It’s the same way she used to look when she heard the humming through the walls.
When she thought it was a ghost, and not me.
