Six flights up, Clare’s legs finally gave out on the landing.
She caught herself on the banister, breathing hard. Glanced at me and pushed away when I tried to help. Stubbornly, she gathered herself and kept going.
My body screamed with every step, needing rest. The key stuck in the lock three times before it finally turned.
We stumbled inside like survivors of a shipwreck, all elbows and exhaustion and relief we couldn’t quite voice.
The warmth hit us immediately. Radiator hissing in the corner, space heater glowing orange near the bed. After hours of freezing in a stolen car with broken heating, buses that felt like refrigerators, walking through Lyon with wind cutting through our coats, the heat was almost painful.
Clare dropped the backpack by the desk. Didn’t sit. Didn’t even remove her coat.
I stood near the door, one hand still on the lock. Couldn’t make myself move further into the room.
We’d been in the same three-foot radius for hours and hadn’t talked about it. The alley. The killing. How easily I’d done it.
Now alone in a room barely bigger than a closet, silence pressed down on us.
Outside, a car horn echoed through narrow streets. Voices in French and Arabic drifted up from floors below. The world continuing. The manhunt continuing. But in here: us and the question neither of us wanted to ask.
Clare pulled off her coat. Hung it on the back of the chair. Positioned the chair between us. Maybe unconscious. Maybe not.
Her throat worked like she was trying to find words.
“In the alley.” Rough, careful. “When it happened. Did you remember anything?”
I stared at her. Understanding what she was really asking.
Did you remember WHO you were? WHAT you were? Where that training came from?
She leaned against the desk, arms crossed. “Any flashes? Anything?”
Her words trailed off. She couldn’t say “what you are” but we both heard it.
I pulled the notepad from my back pocket. First time I’d used it since we ran. Wrote: No memory. Just reflex. Automatic.
Held it up where she couldn’t avoid seeing.
Something in her expression shifted. She’d hoped for answers.
She realized I was as lost as before. Maybe more lost. Because now I KNEW I was capable of killing but didn’t know WHY I was capable of it.
She turned away, shoulders drawing in. Protecting herself.
From me.
The realization hit harder than it should have.
And I couldn’t move past the threshold.
Automatic. That’s what I’d told her. That’s what it was.
But what did automatic mean?
My body knew. Throat. Neck. Precise points. Exact pressure. Dead before hitting ground.
I’d done this before. Enough times that thinking wasn’t required.
Who was I? What was I? What did they make me?
