Their great stroke of luck is that their records aren’t on a platform sophisticated enough to automatically send document copies by email.
I’m not sure when I started genuinely enjoying this kind of work. Maybe the moment I felt the first thread of adrenaline enter my veins when I deleted something from a system, or maybe when I forwarded certain compromising footage to the wife of a director who had been trying to push out some employees who had becometoo vocalfor not being paid for more than four months.
What I know for certain is that the old, sweet Amalia wouldn’t have been involved in any of this, and I think that’s exactly what I like about it. That behind a keyboard, I don’t have to be polite all the time. I don’t have to keep my head down.
Sometimes I wish I were more like Lupe, with her restless streak and that spark she has for life and youth.
For me, the perfect date would be in a small café, armchair-style seats, jazz in the background, hot chocolate with too much whipped cream, and rain outside.
Though for it to count as a date I’d need someone across the table from me, and somehow I can’t picture any of my classmates in that setting. Right then, two brown eyes — almost black — appear in my head, looking at me through the lenses of his glasses.
He’d probably be dressed in black, Converse on his feet, that vintage watch on his wrist that gives him an infuriatingly attractive maturity, shirt sleeves rolled up.
He’d probably be drinking black coffee or one of those strange green teas that taste like grass, with a book on some algorithm or theorem God himself has forgotten, and every so often he’d look up at me.
And that would be enough.
I don’t know why it stings the way it does. It’s just a fantasy, something my own mind invented out of nothing. But the thought that I’ll never actually have it settles over me like a weight I wasn’t prepared to carry.
I head home with that feeling trailing quietly behind me, telling myself it doesn’t matter.
You’ve never been good at lying, Amalia. Not even to yourself.
Blood accounts for seven to eight percent of total body mass. The wound was caused by a 9mm round. We’ve been here for four minutes...
“Silas, damn it, get out of your head.” Dean coughs into my lap, and even though my pants are black, I know that’s a blood clot.
“The ambulance will get here in...” God, how long at eight miles out if they’re doing around fifty miles per hour...
“It doesn’t matter when they get here. We both know I’m not walking out of this.” He coughs again into my lap.
I don’t hear him. In my head every number is spinning. I’m trying to find a combination that keeps him alive for seven more minutes because I called the ambulance two minutes ago.
“I need you to take care of Karina,” he rasps through his teeth, and at the mention of her name, I look down at him.
“You’ll take care of her yourself, Dean.” I press down on the wound as hard as I can.
I know it hurts like hell, but I need to stop the bleeding somehow.
Why didn’t I tell him not to go today? Why didn’t I turn down this contract? I should’ve listened to my gut.
The report. That stupid, endless report that refused to come together no matter how many times I restructured it. I was supposed to be with him tonight. Dean was alone with that man because I was sitting at my desk fighting with numbers that should have taken me thirty minutes and instead took me fifty. By the time I got here, he was already on the floor of the warehouse, that snake who shot him long gone.
I should have known. I should have been there.
“Hey. Silas. Look at me,” he whispers, and I want to scream at how pale he is right now.
“Don’t you dare,” I tell him through my teeth. I can see it in his eyes. I know what he wants to say, and I’m not going to let him.
He’s all I have left in this world. He’s the only father figure I ever had, even if he’s my brother. He’s the only one who ever pushed my mind toward solving things, the only one who saw I was good at something and gave me a purpose.
The only one who stepped between me and our father all those times he mocked me for always having my nose in a book about algorithms.
“I know you’re going to do what needs to be done when I’m gone, but Si...” He taps my temple three times with one finger. “Promise me you won’t let this,” his hand drops to my chest, “lose every argument.”
“I’ll promise you that if you hold on for five more minutes,” I say, my voice thin because the tears are building in my eyes.
A smile spreads across his face, and I already know his last words are being saved for her.
