“Normally,” Atlas echoes, flat as sheet metal.“Not tonight.”
Inside, the living room holds heat; the kitchen throws a soft, steady glow.I drop my keys in the bowl, shed my jacket, and turn toward Wren.
“Sit,” I say, gesturing to the couch.
She sinks.Her bag in her lap makes her look smaller than she is; she moves it to the floor like she remembered she doesn’t have to carry something to justify taking up space.
“We’re going to do two things,” I say.“First, you tell me exactly what you saw and felt, clean and in order.Second, we decide tonight’s plan so your body doesn’t keep hunting for unknowns.”
She nods.“Okay.”
“From the first second the feeling hit.”
“I was fine,” she starts, voice thin but steady.“Watching the play.Then it felt like...a thread pulled tight inside my head.I looked up and there was a man in 118.Not cheering.Not moving.Watching the bench.Watching me.”
“Tall, dark coat, knit cap,” Finn adds softly, remembering from the bus.
She swallows.“Still.The stillness was...the same.”
“Same as him,” Atlas says.
She doesn’t look at him.“Yes.”
I meet Atlas’s eyes a beat—down, not now—and turn back to her.“You looked away.When you looked back?”
“He was gone.”
“Good,” I say, and the word makes her blink.“Good data.You assessed without moving toward it.You stayed in sightlines.You told us.”
Finn slides onto the coffee table facing her, forearms braced on his thighs.“You did perfect.”
Atlas paces a short, sharp line and plants against the wall, hands on the back of the couch like he’s bracing the room to keep from cracking something.“We should pull exit feeds.”
“We will,” I answer.“Ops will send a packet in the morning.In the meantime—tonight’s plan.”
I point: “Wren, my room.Door however you want it.I’m on the couch in the living room.Finn takes the guest room.”I look at Atlas.“You want the floor near the hall or the chair by the front window?”
“Hall,” he says.“Between her and the door.”
Wren’s eyes flash, a quick flicker of protest at the idea of anyone sleeping on the floor for her.
“Air mattress,” Finn says immediately, hopping up.“I’ve got one in my trunk.Rookie road-trip leftover.Smells like rubber and regret, but it works.”
That tugs a real smile out of her—small, quick, there and gone.It’s enough.
I pull my laptop from the counter, log into the internal post-game portal we use for film and facility cams, and queue the second-period crowd angle on 118.Not because I think we’ll get a face we can use—because the act of looking is a piece of safety too.
“Here,” I say, bringing the screen to the coffee table.“Walk me to the moment.”
She leans forward, careful not to crowd herself.I scrub.Beer snakes.Foam fingers.A kid on a parent’s shoulders.Then—
“There,” she whispers.
I freeze.Pixels and shadow.A tall shape, cap low, body turned toward the bench while the rest of the section faces play.The zoom gives me blocks of color, nothing more.
“It looks enough like him to hurt,” she says, voice thin again.
“We treat ‘enough’ like ‘is’ until we know otherwise,” I answer.“Ops will handle the chase.Tonight is body calm.”
