“She say anything about it?” Mason asks.
I shake my head. “No.” Which doesn’t mean much. Liv doesn’t complain about work.
She adapts and adjusts, pushing through. That’s who she is.
But still: two late shifts, then an early one, then a call that should’ve gone to another unit but got rerouted.
“Feels like someone’s nudging things,” Mason mutters.
Exactly. I glance at him. “You seeing it too?”
He nods once. “Didn’t want to say it out loud yet,” he admits. “Figured I might be reaching.”
“You’re not.”
Silence settles between us because if we’re both seeing it, then it’s not paranoia.
It’s a problem.
Across town, she’s probably brushing it off. I can picture it. Liv standing beside the rig, arms crossed, that slight furrow in her brow when something doesn’t sit right.
She isn’t panicking or spiraling. Just… noticing. And then letting it go.
Because that’s what she does. Because if she stopped for every uneasy feeling, she’d never move.
Later that night, I meet her at work, finding her in the garage. She’s leaning against the side of the rig, talking to Scott.
I don’t approach right away. I hang back and let her converse. Watch the interaction.
“You ever feel like calls are getting… weird?” she’s asking.
Scott frowns slightly. “Weird how?”
“I don’t know,” she murmurs, pushing off the rig, pacing once. “Like they’re not random anymore.”
My chest tightens. There it is. She sees it too, even if she doesn’t fully trust it yet.
Scott shrugs. “It’s a bad stretch,” he agrees. “Happens.”
“Yeah,” she mutters. “I know.” But she doesn’t sound convinced. She sounds like she’s trying to convince herself.
“You’ve been through worse runs than this,” Scott adds.
“I know,” she repeats. “Just feels different,” she admits.
Scott studies her for a second. “Different how?”
She hesitates, and I can see the moment she decides not to say it. “Never mind,” she shakes her head. “Probably just me being paranoid.”
And there’s the dismissal, the thing people do when their instincts are right but inconvenient.
Scott nods. “Wouldn’t blame you if you were,” he says. “After everything lately?”
“Yeah,” she huffs. “Exactly.”
She laughs it off. But it doesn’t stick.
I step forward then, making my presence known.
