Page 33 of Fractured Allegiance
And then, right as I tell myself to go shower, to change, to do anything else… something moves.
Just a flicker. Across the street.
A darker shape, Too quick to define.
But not quick enough to unsee.
I freeze.
The curtain twitches in my hand. My heart doesn’t pound — it knots. Like it’s folding in on itself.
Because I felt that.
Same weight as before. Same space-invading stillness.
Not a threat, not yet. I lean forward but see nothing. Just the breeze tugging at the awning over the deli entrance. A plastic bag stuck under the wheel of a car.
But it’s not enough to convince me I imagined it.
Not with the way my skin just bristled like a nerve cut too close to the root.
I take another sip. Force myself to step back from the glass.
Lock the window.
Then double-check the latch.
I don’t want to admit who I thought it was.
Who I still think it could be.
Because I only saw him once. Properly, at least. Back in the logistics office, while he was asking too few questions, and too smoothly at that. Looking at me like I wasn’t new, just next.
But before that… there was the other night. At Dom’s club. When he was still nameless, just the man who didn’t blink twice; he only sat in the corner, and watched the room the way wolves watch fences.
I didn’t look at him twice.
Didn’t have to.
Some men wear silence like a cut.
And I remember that absence of sound now.
Tall frame. Controlled posture. Something about the way he held his glass like it wasn’t worth tasting.
And eyes that didn’t wander.
They landed.
On me.
Only briefly. But enough to make me feel named.
I move through the apartment on autopilot.
Shower. Fresh t-shirt. Bare feet. Second drink.
I try to convince myself it was nothing.
