Allia had had a long day a far too long one, the kind where the screen feels like it weighs a ton, where lines of code overlap with the images of a murder she had erased the night before. Her morning coffee had tasted like a lie, the one she drank that evening tasted like exhaustion.
She left her office with the naïve hope that some fresh air would be enough to loosen the tightness in her chest.
The building's lobby was crowded.
Rushed silhouettes, conversations spoken too fast, laptops still clacking inside bags.
She searched for her earphones.
When she lifted her head, she saw him.
Marc.
Not a hazy memory, not an approximate face Marc, exactly as she remembered him.
The same smiling eyes, the same way of holding his notebook against him, a little awkward, a little endearing.
Her heart skipped a beat.
"Allia?" he asked, an incredulous smile tugging at his lips.
She froze for a second, as if her brain was trying to reconcile the impossible: running into a university crush in the lobby of a cybersecurity building, on a Monday evening.
"Marc… wow."
"Well, look at that. I recognized you right away."
She laughed a spontaneous laugh, the kind she had almost forgotten.
He stepped closer, warm, sincere, miles away from the suffocating complexity of her daily life.
"Got two minutes?" he asked.
"Two minutes… maybe even three," she joked.
And they walked out of the building together.
The café was a few streets away.
They talked as if five months, five years, five lifetimes hadn't passed between them.
Marc told her about his job teaching digital arts, his students who confused Photoshop with dark magic, and the too-short nights spent grading projects.
She told him or rather, let slip a few fragments about her work, carefully avoiding anything related to crimes, blurred networks, erased evidence.
He laughed often.
She found herself answering him with a lightness that wasn't forced.
It was the first time in a long while that something felt… normal.
When they parted, he said:
"Can we see each other again?"
She wanted to say no.
She wanted to say I'm not allowed to.
But she nodded.
"Yes."
She came home late.
Elia was sitting on the couch, legs crossed, hair perfectly styled despite the hour.
"Did you have work?" she asked.
Allia felt her heart tighten.
It was her first chance to tell the truth.
She let it slip away.
"Yes. A big file."
Elia stared at her for a long moment too long.
Then she smiled.
"You should've sent me a message. I was worried."
Her voice was soft.
The softness of a silk thread… pulled tight around a throat.
Allia nodded, then slipped into her room before the guilt became visible.
The first lie.
The lightest.
The heaviest.
The following days passed strangely fast.
Marc sent her funny, sometimes clumsy messages that brought sunshine into days usually marked by tension.
They had coffee again.
Then another.
Then a movie.
It wasn't a fiery love story.
It was better: it was simple.
She had never had that.
Meanwhile, at work, the atmosphere shifted subtly.
Meetings piled up.
Words like "recurrence," "signature," "predictive" kept coming back too often.
One morning, her superior called her into his office.
"The murders in the north sector… you saw the reports?"
She nodded.
"We found a witness," he continued. "A homeless guy from the area. He's talking about a woman."
Allia felt the ground tilt beneath her.
"A woman?"
"Yes. Tall, slim silhouette. Hair maybe black, maybe brown… it's blurry. But there's something. He says she seemed 'calm.' Too calm."
He paused.
"We don't know if it's reliable. But if the media get hold of it, we'll have to secure access to the files."
"Of course," she murmured.
She left the office with a metallic taste in her mouth.
A woman.
Slim silhouette.
Calm.
There weren't thirty possible profiles.
There was only one.
She knew Elia was killing.
But the idea that a witness had seen her…
No.
No, no, no.
It was too dangerous.
That evening, she joined Marc for an improvised dinner.
She laughed, but her mind was elsewhere.
She smiled, but her hands trembled slightly.
"Are you okay?" he asked softly.
"Yes. Yeah, it's just… work."
He seemed to understand.
He placed his hand on hers.
A simple touch.
A banal gesture.
A terribly delightful one.
The kind of gesture Elia would hate.
Allia came home late again.
She hoped to open the door silently.
But Elia was waiting in the living room's shadows, like a patient statue.
"You've been coming home late a lot lately."
Allia's stomach tightened.
"We've had… a lot of work."
Elia stepped closer, slowly, as if each step had a precise purpose.
"I feel like you're hiding something from me."
Her tone was calm.
Terrifyingly calm.
Allia forced a smile.
"I'm just tired."
"Mmh."
A silence.
Long.
Heavy.
Then Elia gently placed a hand on her cheek.
"You know I'm here, right? Always. For you."
Allia nodded.