Page 87 of Fractured Allegiance
It skips. Freezes. Then flickers again.
One frame.
Two.
That’s not a glitch.
That’s remote access.
And it didn’t come from me.
I lower the scope.
Watch the monitor stabilize for a heartbeat.
Then stutter again.
The kind of stutter that says someone’s watching her through a cracked window she doesn’t know is open.
My hand tightens on the edge of the rooftop ledge.
I shouldn’t go over there.
She just saw me tonight. We just saw each other. Said things that held the very edge of more than we were supposed to mean.
But this isn’t about meaning.
This is about control.
About how she’s being watched, not just by me, maybe by Drazen, or by someone else who has access to a channel even I can’t trace from here.
I stand.
Cross the roof.
Climb back down.
My boots hit the pavement two stories below and echo once off the alley brick.
I take the long way around, past the rear fire escape, down the narrow hall that smells like rust and wet cardboard. Second floor. Her door. No lights in the corridor. No cameras.
My hand hovers over the wood.
I knock.
Not hard. But not soft either.
It’s the kind of knock that says: I already know you’re awake. And I’m not leaving.
I wait.
One second. Two. Then I hear her footsteps on the other side.
She doesn’t ask who it is.
She just opens the door halfway and stares at me like she’s already guessing what the next wrong thing I’m about to do is.
Her robe is back on, loosely tied this time. Her hair damp like she’s just washed the night off her skin.
