Folks notice Rafe Volkov more when he speaks than when he stays quiet. Questions come out of him like wind through a cracked window.
Floating through moments like a breeze. Not tipping their hand, unlike so many who reach while pretending not to - bodies angled too close, voices draped in fake ease, pupils tightening at replies that meant more than expected.
Nothing about him gives it away.
Inside his office on the sixth floor, walls match the man - empty spaces, sharp edges, every item chosen for purpose, never display. Not one thing sits where it does just to impress. His desk, made of deep-colored wood, holds only a shut folder and a tall glass filled with water. Two chairs stand ready, built well but not flashy. Behind him, the window cuts out a section of skyline, arranged somehow so you cannot miss how much lies under his hand.
Across the table, my hands rest still. He looks up, yet I do not stir.
Calmness stays with me, every moment. Stillness runs deep, never shaken.
He opens the folder.
"Damon Cross," he says. "Twenty six years old. Last known address a city you left three years ago. No criminal record. No Commission affiliations. No documented contact with any trafficking network operating in our territory."
He looks up.
"That's everything we found," he says. "In twelve hours."
I hold his gaze. "Then they've been careful about keeping him invisible."
"Maybe," he adds. Not harsh. Simply exact. "You won't find him around."
This test feels known, like spotting a building style abroad that reminds you of home - recognition without memory. You hand me choices instead of answers. One path lines up with what I already said. That one fits. This time he questions it, though he does not call me a liar outright. His eyes stay fixed, tracking which object I move toward, noting the speed of my hand.
I grab at none of them.
"He called me from a number registered to a logistics company operating out of the southern port," I say. "The company dissolved four days after his call. The number no longer exists. If your search found nothing it's because someone made sure there was nothing to find."
Silence.
A pause stretches between us, his eyes holding mine just past the point of ease.
After that, a note appears on paper.
It's not that I avoid his words - they just aren't worth my attention. Seeing them might make him think I care, so I keep quiet instead of giving clues. What he shares doesn't matter much when silence says more than curiosity ever could.
"Tell me about the call," he says.
That is when I say it to him.
A shape like memory forms when voices echo just right. Not staged fright but the hush after terror settles - that lived inside Damon's words. His tone held what scripts cannot fake. Details arrived piece by piece - paths across water, connections between ports. Names slipped through before silence took over. Realness builds in fragments such as these.
Fingers pass two slips to Rafe, one name per paper. His turn comes next after that.
I keep three.
A pair of targets I hand over actually live. Inside the web I've quietly broken apart these past months, they move. Removing them pushes my goal forward - Rafe Volkov's means make it faster than mine ever could.
My own hands hold just these three. They belong to me.
Down on the page go the two names he writes.
Then he asks - "The night of the call. Where were you?"
I tell him.
Then he asks - "How long after the call did you leave for this city?"
I tell him.
Then he asks - "Who told you to come to us specifically."
This is where it hits me. Not loud, but there - a tiny change in how he listens. Each earlier question focused on Damon instead. On the network around him. On outside details pulling me into this moment. This one digs into who I am. Where things come from. How choices take shape inside.
A single thought wears familiar fabric but hides another shape beneath. This one walks like the rest yet carries a separate weight inside.
A whisper slips out - the name of someone gone, unreachable, beyond questions. Pausing just before, like holding breath at a door left open too long. Loyalty lingers, even when there's no one left to guard. The silence after says more than the words ever could. Giving it up feels wrong, though nothing changes now. Still, the pause stays, stubborn as an old habit.
Down goes the name on paper.
After that, his eyes move toward it.
His eyes meet mine after a pause.
"You have a good memory," he says.
"I'm sorry?"
"The shipping routes your brother gave you. The timeline. The names." He pauses. "Most people in genuine distress struggle with sequential recall. Trauma disrupts chronology. You've given me everything in precise order without a single correction."
A hush hangs where sound should be.
Two seconds go by. My eyes drop for just a moment - like someone struck by words they felt deep in the ribs. Lifting my gaze again, my face shows tiredness built from past disbelief, now too familiar to hurt anymore.
"I've told this story to myself every day for eight weeks," I say. "Trying to remember everything he said. Trying not to forget anything that might matter." I pause. "I didn't know precision would make me look suspicious."
One beat.
Two.
A flicker crosses his face - too fast to catch, nearly gone before I see it.
Almost.
The folder shuts under his fingers. A quiet click follows. Dust settles on the desk beside it.
"We'll look into the names," he says. "You'll stay until we have something."
A figure rises. That gathering has ended.
On my feet now, heading for the exit - nearly past the threshold before his voice cuts in once more.
"Miss Cross."
I turn.
"The person who sent you to us," he says. "We'll need to verify the connection. For your protection."
This time he speaks the final portion with no special stress at all.
For your protection.
One quick dip of my head. "Sure thing." A beat passes. Silence settles between us."
I leave.
Down the hallway, my steps match the rhythm I started with. Steady. Unchanged. Near the far wall, Gregor stands - our paths cross - I offer that weak grin, the kind worn out from pretending sadness means something to people you do not know. Rounding the bend, eyes scan for tiles, sinks, signs - the closest restroom pulls me in. Door shut behind me, latch clicks into place.
Here I am by the water tap.
The tap turns. Cold liquid flows out.
Staring back at me is my own face.
Out there, he'll check the name. That step makes the corpse real - its identity locked in - and suddenly they'll wonder again, harder this time, who really pushed me into this mess.
Fewer than four days remain on my clock.
The tap stops flowing. Water halts its movement.
A towel grabs the damp off my skin. Water fades from fingers into cloth.
Stepping out of the bathroom, the hallway meets me with its usual hush. Down the stretch of carpet, my feet move without hurry. The fourth floor waits, quiet as ever, above. Seventy two hours hang in front, shaped by choices not yet made.
Fate moves fast. Time won't pause.
Neither do I.