US

ad that on

nding there for two minutes doing exactly that .. not coming in, not leaving, just existing i

ow,"

the thir

ri

e didn't say anything else. He just looked at me with that face he'd been making since we were twenty-two, the one

the fi

ler's assist

es

e pack. Clean recor

so

ile feel like it's

head. "What doe

ys I've lo

enty-three people you interviewed today, you haven't mentioned a single other name. Just hers.

se he was right and I didn't parti

afternoon and I'd shaken hands and asked questions and written things down and I couldn't tell you the name

er e

a V

ontrolled, and the whole time she did it she looked at me like she was bracing for something. Not afraid. Not nervous in the way people got nervous meeting their

look at stra

ot just the pack file. Transfer records, references from her

that wasn't quite a lau

doing

I ask

N

cause she

ri

ng profes

t of my

ll and then the outer door closing and then the building went quiet the way it

my chair and look

. This low persistent feeling under everything, like a sound just below what you could actually hear. I'd had a version of it since I woke up in that hospi

out and grab

r wrist before I even registered I was doing it. And then I'd pulled back and apologised like an idiot and she'd looked at me .. just for a sec

n and read it again. Same

name I didn't immediately recognise. References listed. Photo in the top right corner that the file's scanner had wa

noticed that when she sat down. I'd noticed it and then I'd made myself stop noticing it because I was co

it back up and put it on the top of the pile face up, beca

th vegetables, I ate it without tasting it while I read through border reports and tried very hard to think about border reports. The reports

home

few pieces of furniture, the stuff that had been in storage while I was gone. It didn't feel l

d at the wall and my wolf was still doing that thing, that low insisten

he feeling, steady as a he

and close

're technically asleep but some part of you stays just below the surface the whole time. I kept alm

up in the hospital with no idea what year it was, tubes in my arm and a nurse who kept saying sir, sir, you need to stay

making

of a hole. Now it sounded like it had found the edge of something. Like a perso

I was completely awake, not groggy, just suddenly and entirely consci

r of

he conference room this morning .. both palms wrapped around it, thumbs crossed ov

ay. It sat in the front of my head with the weight and the textu

that conference room. I was certain of that. As certain as I could

e dark and went to the desk in the corner where I'd brought a stack of f

nd and her hands still clear as anything in the back

going to