Page 114 of The Secretary Volume II

I open it.

The handwriting is mine, but frantic.Angled.Like I was racing.Or trying to outrun something worse.

I flip through quickly, too quickly—memories I don’t recognize, warnings I can’t place, something about a panic room, something about his left eye.Dates, but no logic.Just me screaming at myself across a gap I can’t close.

The words hit hard, like a siren I meant to silence.

And then—footsteps.

I don’t remember unlocking the door.I don’t remember letting anyone in.

But I don’t move.

Whoever it is already knows I’m here.

Andra enters like the place belongs to her.No knock.No hesitation.Just the unshakable confidence of someone who’s done this before and already knows how it ends.

Her eyes move fast—scanning, assessing, confirming.She doesn’t look at me so much as through me.Like a damaged item in inventory.

Her heels make no sound on the floor, but somehow it still feels like I’m being marched toward sentencing.

She’s in full regulation gray.Blazer sharp.Hair pinned.No jewelry.Not because she’s minimalist.Because she doesn’t need the distraction.

I clutch the journal tighter.

And that’s when I know.

She’s not here to check on me.

She’s here to collect.

Her expression never changes.“This has been a difficult week,” she says, like it’s a weather report.“We’re all adjusting.”

Her voice is smooth, but it doesn’t soothe.It lands like sedative-laced blame.

Her eyes flick to the journal, then back to mine.“You understand, I hope, how dangerous internal documentation can be.Especially when it lacks context.”

I don’t answer.I can’t.

My grip tightens.I don’t mean to.

She steps closer, calm and coiled.“Especially when it ends up in the wrong hands.”

I flinch.“I didn’t—I didn’t tell anyone.”

Her smile is the kind you give someone when you’re about to close a door on them—final and dismissive.”No one’s accusing you, Gillian.”

But they are.She is.

“I don’t even remember writing it.”

“That’s common,” she says.“That’s why systems exist.To catch what slips through.”

She takes another step.My heart kicks.There’s something in her expression.She’s come here to kill me.For sure.

“You know we don’t typically intervene,” she adds.“But these are unusual circumstances.”A pause.“And misinterpretations can create liabilities.”

My fingers lock tighter around the journal.

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