The sun hung low and cruel, casting sharp, angular shadows over the back lot as Aldrin and Iris emerged through the steel doorway. The door sealed shut behind them with a heavy metallic thud—an almost ceremonial punctuation to the chaos they were walking away from. The sounds of emergency stitching, the beeping monitors, the distant mutter of a tired doctor—gone, tucked behind reinforced walls.
Outside, the world continued as if nothing had happened.
Aldrin said nothing as he led the way to the SUV. His long strides were steady, but not rushed. Alert, but collected. Iris trailed beside him, her pace just offbeat—like her body was still catching up to what her mind was trying to piece together.
There was blood on her hands.
It had dried during the drive to the clinic, cracking faintly at the joints of her fingers. She had wiped most of it on a towel back at the clinic, but streaks still clung beneath her nails, smeared down the side of her blouse like a message written in haste.
Aldrin opened the driver's side door, but paused before stepping in. His eyes flicked over to her again—sharper this time, like a spotlight narrowing its beam.
"Blood," he said quietly, gesturing toward her torso.
She looked down as if noticing it for the first time. "Yeah," she said, her voice neutral. "Didn't have time to change."
Aldrin didn't move. He kept one hand on the roof of the SUV, the other still on the door.
"Take the rest of the day," he said, not looking directly at her. "You're done."
"I didn't ask if I was."
"You don't need to."
She narrowed her eyes faintly, but something in his tone—firm but not cruel—told her this wasn't a dismissal. It was a reprieve. An unspoken mercy.
She opened the door and climbed in. The moment was quiet—strangely calm considering what they'd just escaped. It wasn't peace. Just the lull that came when adrenaline ran out of things to burn.
Aldrin pulled out of the lot and merged with the slow midday traffic. The city buzzed on around them—oblivious, as always.
She sat with one leg tucked beneath her, gaze out the window, watching rows of apartments pass like snapshots in a reel.
Aldrin didn't speak.
Neither did she.
Only when they neared her block did she finally break the silence.
"So... what was that?" she asked. "Who was the guy in the warehouse?"
Aldrin's eyes didn't leave the road. "Not your concern."
"Seriously?"
"You're not cleared for this."
"You brought me," she shot back.
He didn't answer immediately.
"You followed me."
That shut her up.
The SUV pulled up along the curb in front of her apartment. She reached for the door handle but hesitated. Her fingers hovered there, as if opening it would mean something more than just stepping outside.
Then, quietly, she asked, "Was it personal?"
Aldrin sat back in his seat, hand resting casually at the bottom of the steering wheel.
"No."
A beat passed.
"But it's about to be."
That made her still. Not with fear—something more layered. Like the threads of a web were beginning to take shape around her, and she wasn't sure if she was meant to follow them… or avoid them.
She stepped out without another word and closed the door gently behind her.
Aldrin stayed parked for a few seconds, watching the reflection of her silhouette in the side mirror as she disappeared into the stairwell. When she was gone, he finally exhaled—quiet and long, like he'd been holding it in since the warehouse.
He adjusted the rearview mirror. No sound, no radio. Just the rumble of the engine and the whisper of tires against asphalt.
He wasn't going back to the office. Not yet.
He turned left at the next light and headed toward the edge of the city, where the streets became quieter and the skyline thinner. Where glass gave way to concrete and memory.
To his home.
He parked in the private bay beneath the building and ascended without meeting a soul. The elevator lights flickered softly, casting a dull glow on the steel walls as the doors closed.
When he stepped into the apartment, it was still—too still.
He didn't bother with lights.
He shed the blazer and laid it across the arm of the couch, then walked to the small bar in the corner. He poured a short glass of dark liquor—neat—and leaned against the counter.
The image of Ainsworth on the ground flashed unbidden in his mind. The side door. The trail of blood. The open silence. Something had changed. Something thinking had left its mark.
He took a slow sip, letting the burn settle into his chest.
Then he pulled out his phone and tapped into the encrypted line.
There were calls to make.
And someone had to answer for the ghosts that had started walking again.
The door closed with a sound too gentle for the weight it carried.
Iris stood in the entryway of her apartment, still. The kind of stillness that comes not from peace, but from overstimulation—like her senses had been wound too tight, and now they didn't know how to unwind. She stared ahead, unblinking, as though her body had returned before her mind did.
She didn't realize how tightly she was gripping her phone until her fingers ached. It dropped into the dish by the door with a hollow clatter, next to her keys. The sharp noise echoed off the walls, and for a moment it felt like the entire apartment was holding its breath with her.
Her shoes came off next. Left, then right. She walked barefoot into the kitchen without turning on a light. The late afternoon sun tried to press through the half-closed blinds, casting long stripes across the tiled floor.
Only then did she glance down at her blouse. The light caught the faint, brown-red smears along the hem. The fabric had stiffened. She ran a hand down it without thinking, a subconscious need to smooth it out—as if neatness could undo what she'd been part of.
It wasn't her blood.
But it might as well have been.
She peeled it off slowly, carefully, like a second skin she was afraid to rip. It joined the jacket in the sink. The water gushed out with a sudden violence, splattering against porcelain and cloth alike, washing over the dried blood. The water changed color. So did her expression.
Neutral. Detached.
Just like she'd been trained.
But underneath it… something churned.
She wandered to the living room, towel clutched in one hand but unused. Her limbs moved like they didn't belong to her. The couch pulled her down into its waiting arms. She sat there, legs drawn up, hair damp against the side of her neck. Her eyes were wide but unfocused, staring at nothing.
What had she just done?
She had followed the chairman. Lied—boldly, recklessly—just to stay involved. And he'd let her. Maybe reluctantly. Maybe instinctively. But he'd let her in.
She tried to recall his expression in the car. Stern, silent. Yet his hands had steadied Ainsworth with a strange sort of tenderness, like he'd done it a hundred times. Like it wasn't the first time he'd carried someone bloodied through a backdoor, hidden from the eyes of the world.
What kind of man was Aldrin?
What kind of place was this?
And what exactly had she stepped into?
There were too many silences today. Too many half-glimpsed truths. And yet, it was the feel of it all that unnerved her more than the facts.
Because it hadn't felt wrong.
It had felt real.
For the first time in months—maybe years—she wasn't an outsider looking in. She had crossed the threshold. She had heard the gunfire. Seen the aftermath. Smelled the metal in the air. She had stood inside the storm, soaked to the bone.
And it terrified her how alive it made her feel.
Her hand drifted toward the throw blanket, pulling it over her body like armor. Her body settled into the couch, but her thoughts did not settle with her. They spiraled upward, twisting through the gaps in memory—Aldrin's silence, the blood on the floor, the open door, the gunshot.
She hadn't seen the shooter.
She hadn't seen the whole picture.
And that might have been the point.
Something deeper was playing out behind the curtain, something that didn't make itself known with documents or data. No, this was older. Hungrier. The kind of threat that crept instead of charged.
The kind that thought.
She stared at the ceiling now, not really seeing it, but looking through it—trying to calculate the weight of what she'd seen… and what she'd still yet to understand.
She wanted answers.
But tonight, all she had were questions.
And the sense that this was only the beginning.