I didn’t finish the thought.
I was getting good at that today.
* **
“It’s fake,” I said again, more to myself this time.
The words dissolved the moment they left my mouth. I took another sip of coffee and stared at the wall—at nothing—while the breakroom bustled around me. The microwave clock blinked 12:00. Normal things. Mundane, ordinary, real things.
I focused on them like anchors.
Because the alternative was still there, lurking just beyond the door I’d slammed on it—patient, silent, waiting for the moment my grip loosened. And I could sense it, like something standing behind you in a dark hallway.
My hand tightened around the cup.
Fake.
Staged lighting. Clever editing. What spread across the internet like a fever and burned itself out in forty-eight hours, forgotten before the next grotesque thing crawled up to take its place.
That’s all it was.
That’s all it was.
I almost believed it.
* * *
Somehow, blessedly, I made it through the rest of the day without Crank-Ass saying a single word to me.
Not one passive-aggressive sigh. Not one comment about protocol. Not even a disappointed head shake in my direction.
It threw me off, honestly. Like walking down stairs in the dark and missing a step—that lurching, stomach-droppingmoment before your foot hits solid ground.
I saw him, of course. You couldn’t really avoid Callan in a building this size, no matter how much you wanted to. He moved through the back corridors the way he always did, checking gauges, adjusting valves, existing with that quiet and territorial energy that made every room seem slightly smaller than it actually was. But he never stopped me. Never looked at me long enough for it to become anything.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was avoiding me.
Fine. More than fine.
The rest of my day folded itself into work, and I let it. Routine checks. The tasks that asked nothing of you except your hands and minimum attention, and I gave them both gratefully. The video clawed at the edges of my thoughts a few times—surfacing without warning. There were always other things to take its place, always another reading to take and another number to log.
By the time the closing announcements drifted softly through the building and the overhead lights dimmed to their low evening setting, I’d convinced myself I was fine.
Almost.
I grabbed my bag from my locker and put on my jacket, the familiar weight of exhaustion settling in.
The aquarium at night was different. Quieter deliberately, almost earned. The tanks glowed softly in the dimness, casting their slow, blue-green light across empty hallways that had been loud and crowded with visitors just hours before. Fish drifted in their slow, endless circles, utterly unbothered. No deadlines. No difficult coworkers. No videos that burrowed into the back of your brain and refused to leave.
Lucky bastards.
I pushed through the side door and the night air hit me—cool and damp, carrying a smell of fresh earth that only comes after rain. The parking lot was nearly empty now, just a handful of cars scattered under the overhead lights, their reflections in the puddles left behind on the pavement.
I stood there for a moment, not quite ready to move. Not for any real reason, just tired in the way that goes deeper than sleep can fix, the kind that sits behind your eyes. The kind that makes the drive home almost like one more thing you have to get through before you’re allowed to stop.
I exhaled slowly, watching my breath curl and disappear in the cold air.
Then I found my keys, and I walked to my car.