Competence. That’s what Thiago was selling. And competence was addictive to a woman who’d spent most of her life feeling powerless.
“I want to see the lower sublevel,” I said.
The tell was in his hands. A micro-pause in the way his fingers wrapped around his coffee cup.
A beat of silence.
“There are protocols, Mira. Clearance levels that exist for your safety and ours.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it’s true.” He sipped his coffee. “Your grandmother waited eleven months before her first tour of the research level.”
I didn’t push further. Pushing Thiago was a precision instrument, not a battering ram. He’d open the door when I’d earned enough trust or accumulated enough leverage.
The keypad was a twelve-digit system.
I’d watched six different people enter codes, memorizing hand positions from angles where the cameras couldn’t catch me watching. The first three digits were consistent across every code I’d observed: 4-7-2. The remaining digits varied by clearance level. I needed four more numbers and a twelve-minute window.
“Patience it is,” I said.
He smiled. I smiled back. Neither smile reached our eyes.
Later on, I find myself leaving food in the woods.
I’m not sure why I did it. Guilt, maybe. Or the inability to stop caring about someone who’d told me he couldn’t stay away even after I’d told him to leave.
I wrapped bread, an apple, and dried meat in a cloth napkin from dinner. Tucked it into my jacket. Walked to the eastern tree line during the gap, which I’d timed fourteen times before trusting the pattern. Left the bundle at the base of a pine tree twenty feet past the cameras.
The next morning, the napkin was there. Food untouched.
I told myself I was relieved. Percival had listened. He’d gone.
Second night, I left more. Added water.
Untouched.
Third night, I almost didn’t go. The point of feeding a ghost escaped me. He was gone. I’d told him to leave and he’d left and that was the right call for both of us.
I went anyway.
Fourth morning, I checked at dawn. Prepared for the same untouched napkin.
The napkin was folded neatly at the base of the tree. The food was gone.
My pulse stuttered. I knelt, touched the cloth. Folded with care, the corners tucked in a way that wasn’t wind or animals.
A person had done this. Taken the food, eaten it before leaving it for me to find.
I stood and looked around.
Dawn light filtered through the canopy. The forest was quiet. No footprints in the soft ground, which meant whoever had been here knew how to walk without leaving traces. Or wasn’t walking on human feet.
My chest ached. I turned to leave.
“I tried.”
The voice came from behind me. Low, rough, stripped of its usual warmth. I froze with my back to the trees and my hands curled at my sides.
