“Oh, you clever girl,” she murmured.
Marcus blinked.“What?”
“She had the wrong screen up.I’m guessing it was in her pocket. But she still used the keyboard.”Torres grabbed a sheet of paper and drew a quick rectangle, marking out the grid of a standard smartphone keypad: three rows of letters, punctuated by a scatter of symbols.
“Look,” she said, already sketching.“If you line up what she pressed with where her thumb would naturally land—she’s spelling something.The symbols mirror the layout.It’s not nonsense, it’s position.”
Marcus stared down at her drawing as she started mapping each symbol to its mirror key.Slowly, the pattern began to emerge, jagged but legible.
Torres’s pen stilled.She looked up at him.
“She’s sending us a message,” she said quietly.
***
Kate’s legs trembled by the time she reached the seventeenth floor.The air in the stairwell was thick and stale, tasting of rust and disuse.She pushed open the door to the rooftop level and was momentarily blinded by the weak, pale light filtering through the dust-caked windows.
Elijah Cox was there, standing near the broken window where the skyline unfurled in smog and silver.He looked thinner than she remembered, hollow-eyed, his once-smooth voice a rasp of gravel.
“You came,” he said, opening the door to the outside with a flourish.“Shall we?”
Kate didn’t move.“You dragged me halfway across the city for this.If you’re going to kill me, get it over with.”
Cox smiled faintly.“I’ve never wanted that.You are my witness, Kate.”
Her voice was steady.“What does that even mean?”
“It means,” he said, turning to face her fully, “that each life I claim, each death, has a purpose.And that purpose is you.Without you, none of it matters.Please…”
He walked out of the door, crossing the flat roof to a ventilation shaft shaped not unlike a ship’s funnel.A pair of kitchen chairs sat next to it, commanding a view of the whole city. Reluctantly, Kate joined him.
“But theydon’tmatter.That’s the point.The killings—your so-called messages—they’ve changed nothing.The world hasn’t repented.People haven’t flocked to churches.The bankers still work weekends, the lawyers still cheat on their spouses.The very existence of the Ten Commandments proves the opposite of what you think—it proves that human beingsstrugglewith these things.They always have.They always will.”
Cox watched her, his hands on his knees, eyes glittering.“The work has barely begun.”
“But you’re not a prophet,” Kate continued.“You’re not an instrument of divine will.You’re a murderer.You take pleasure in pain, in fear, in your own myth.The Commandments are your branding, your marketing strategy—a way to make yourself stand out from all the other sick little narcissists who like to watch people bleed.”
The faint smile faltered.His breath caught almost imperceptibly, and Kate saw it—the stiffness in his shoulders, the subtle wince as he shifted his weight.
“And you’re getting weaker,” she said quietly.“Climbing up those stairs—don’t tell me that didn’t hurt.You haven’t fully recovered from your last escape.You’re sitting because you have to.You move slower.You’re in pain.”
His jaw clenched.“The spirit cares nothing for the flesh.”
“The next time you’re locked up,” Kate went on, “you’llseeit slipping away from you.The power, the control.Some of the younger ones—they’ll start to doubt you.Then they’ll start to talk.Before long, you’ll be just another old man in the corner, giving away his commissary for protection, terrified of losing his glasses, his dentures.You’ll rot like the rest of them.That’s my prophecy.And it didn’t come to me in a dream—it came from watching men like you decay in real time.”
She leaned closer.“Because that’s all you are.A twisted, ugly old man.”
There was silence.The city murmured far below, a constant hum of unseen life.Kate’s phone buzzed three times in her pocket.Cox noticed it.Kate noticed it.She didn’t move.
Cox inclined his head slightly.“Impressive.Your self-control has improved.You would have made an excellent disciple, had you the courage.”
He folded his hands.“You have a choice, Kate.You can arrest me, and your mother will be executed.Or you can let me walk out of here and disappear into the city.You’ll never find me again, but in exchange, she lives.And perhaps, one day, I’ll even tell you why your father really—”
Kate cut him off sharply.“You really think that’s the key, don’t you?That I’ll trade everything for an answer?That I’d compromise my badge, everything I stand for, because I’m so desperate to understand what your game is?”
“It isn’t a game.”
“No, you’re right about that.It’s something sicker.”She took another step toward him.“You don’t understand because you can’t.You’ve never loved anyone, never lost anyone.Every day I deal with people who have.They sit across from me, broken, askingwhy.And most of the time, there isn’t an answer.Life is cruel.Life’s a bitch.Death is random.For most of us, the gap that’s left behind—that absence—that’s the only truth that matters.”
