AURORA LANCASTER @aurorawritesromance - Tumblr Blog

WHAT REMAINS UNSPOKEN [CH22]

ALL CHAPTERS HERE.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘ UNDONE // ELIAS ⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

She thinks she’s being subtle.

Dalia believes the burner phone covers her, that if she powers it only in brief windows—never on the grid too long—she’s safe. But she’s still using departmental protocols. Still pinging the same towers in patterns.

And I know her too well.

“Whatever this is,” Kelsi mutters from her desk, eyes still locked on her screen as she slides me the flash drive, “don’t let Locke find out you’re playing watchdog.”

I pocket the drive, guilt already eating at my chest. “I owe you one.”

“You owe me three,” she corrects without looking up. “I take payment in the form of energy drinks.”

I wait until I’m home to plug it in, hands shaking slightly as the data loads. I tell myself this isn’t stalking—this is partnership. This is watching out for someone who’s clearly lost perspective. But the lie tastes bitter even as I think it.

Dalia’s burner pinged the cell towers three times this week. Always short windows—never more than fifteen minutes. Always the same cluster of towers on the south end of Old Mill Road, near the industrial district where legitimate cops don’t usually have business at 3 am.

The last ping was Friday morning, 3:42 to 3:58 am. Sixteen minutes. It explains why she showed up to the precinct after 10:30, missing our morning briefing with Locke entirely. Dark circles under her eyes. Coffee shakes in her hands. The careful way she’d avoided looking at me when I asked if she was okay.

I cross-reference the tower data with traffic camera feeds—a tedious process that takes me most of the evening. The cameras in that area are either broken or positioned for monitoring truck routes, not passenger vehicles. I find one angle from an intersection camera that caught a sedan matching her plates turning onto Mill Road at 9:44 pm. From there, it’s process of elimination. Gas station. A random warehouse. Self-storage facility.

And tucked behind an overgrown tree line—a low-slung motel, the kind of place that still takes cash and doesn’t ask questions. The Pineview Lodge. A faded sign and a flickering vacancy light that’s probably been blinking since the place opened.

Dalia’s smart enough not to leave a paper trail. If she’s staying somewhere off the books, she’s paying cash. Probably using a fake name. The realization hits me like cold water: she’s not just avoiding Locke’s oversight. She’s operating like she wants to infiltrate again.

It’s why I’m parked across the street at 11:47 pm, watching Room 217 glow like a secret someone didn’t bury deep enough.

I don’t get out. Not yet. I sit in the dark with the engine off, fingers drumming against the steering wheel, trying to convince myself I’m not crossing a line I can’t uncross. My eyes trace the light spilling through cheap vertical blinds—too yellow, too warm for fluorescent bulbs.

Inside that room, I can picture her sitting cross-legged on the floor. Papers spread around her like tarot cards. Half a takeout container growing cold on the nightstand. She’s probably got her caseboard set up, red string connecting photos, maps marked with thumbtacks. Her own private cathedral of obsession.

I shift in my seat, pulse ticking against my collar. There’s no protocol for this. No manual for what to do when your partner starts building shadow investigations in motel rooms and stops showing up to briefings with actual work. Locke’s been breathing down both our necks since she transferred in from Major Crimes, and Everett’s just relieved Dalia isn’t openly defying orders anymore.

She’s not compliant because she’s accepted defeat. She’s quiet because she’s planning something that’s going to destroy her career. Maybe worse.

I check the time again. 11:49 PM. Past the hour when most people are settling into bed or pretending they’re not afraid of tomorrow. My hand hovers over the door handle. I should wait until morning. Call first, give her a chance to explain before I ambush her with evidence of my surveillance.

But I know better. If I wait, she’ll be gone. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon. She’ll walk into that commune and disappear just like all the others, and I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering if I could have stopped it.

I reach into the glove compartment for my badge—not because I’ll need it for identification, but because the weight of it in my palm feels like permission. Like I’m still a cop doing cop work, not a man whose judgment has been compromised by feelings he can’t name.

The wind hits harder when I step out of the car. Cold and damp, heavy with the smell of pine sap and old asphalt. Winter’s coming early this year. Each step across the gravel lot feels deliberate, irrevocable. A decision that changes everything that comes after.

I look up at the building—a relic from the fifties, all flat lines and faded paint. The kind of place where people go to disappear for a while. No security cameras I can see or night clerk visible through the office window. Perfect for someone who needs to stay invisible.

I knock once on her door. Quiet—not the authoritative rap of a cop, but something softer. More personal. Silence stretches long enough that I wonder if I got the wrong room.

The lock clicks and the door opens just enough for her to see me. Dalia. Her dyed hair’s down, loose around her shoulders in a way I rarely see at work. She’s wearing an oversized black hoodie that makes her look younger, more fragile than the composed detective I know. Her expression is unreadable—a careful mask she wears when she’s already calculating three moves ahead.

She doesn’t greet me, just sighs—long and resigned—and steps back from the doorway.

I walk in.

The room smells like old carpet and instant coffee, but underneath that—citrus shampoo. The space is small, cramped, but she’s made it functional. There’s a small desk shoved against the far wall, and mounted above it—a caseboard that takes my breath away.

Photos. Maps. Timeline charts. Red string connecting disparate pieces of evidence like neural pathways in a brain that’s been thinking too hard, too long. This isn’t just a side project or weekend hobby. This is a full investigation, complete and methodical. Much better than the one we have at the precinct.

Dalia closes the door behind me, and I hear the soft click of the lock sliding back into place. I take a step toward the board, hands buried deep in my coat pockets to keep them from shaking.

“You did all this yourself?” The question comes out softer than I intended, almost reverent.

She leans back against the door, arms crossed defensively. “Not like Locke was going to approve overtime for a case she’s determined to bury.”

I scan the photos—surveillance shots of Amberfield’s transport trucks, receipts with timestamps, a blurry image of Raina stepping off a bus. Locations circled in red marker. Names connected with careful lines. It’s thorough and professional.

“You think the commune’s the center of everything,” I say, not really a question.

“I know it is.” Her voice carries absolute certainty. “Amberfield Logistics is just a cover. The trucks don’t just make deliveries.”

I drag a hand over my face, feeling the weight of her obsession, the dangerous precision of it. “You should have told me.”

Her smile is sharp, humorless. “Would you have let me keep going?”

“I would have helped you.” The words come out more honest than I intended.

“And risked Locke pulling you off the case?” Her voice sharpens for just a moment before she controls it. “It’s my fault she’s breathing down our necks. I couldn’t justify dragging you down with me.”

“I don’t care about Locke.”

“Well, I do.” She pushes off from the door. “I care about your career. Your reputation.”

I look at her. The hoodie’s wrinkled like she’s been sleeping in it. There’s a faint redness around her eyes. Her hands are trembling slightly, barely noticeable unless you know to look for it. She’s running on adrenaline and stubbornness, probably hasn’t eaten a real meal in days.

“You’re going in, aren’t you?” The question sits heavy between us.

She doesn’t answer immediately, just exhales through her nose—a sound I recognize as her trying to buy time to choose her words carefully.

I step closer, voice dropping to almost a whisper. “Dalia, you can’t infiltrate that place alone.”

Her gaze lifts to meet mine, and for a moment I see past the careful control to the raw determination underneath. “I have to. It’s the only way.”

“No, it’s not. There are other options—”

“I already filed my resignation,” she says, the words hitting me like a physical blow.

I go completely still. “You what?”

“I gave Everett a month’s notice yesterday. He wasn’t exactly thrilled.” She moves past me toward the caseboard, trailing the scent of her shampoo.

“No shit he wasn’t thrilled,” I breathe, my chest feeling tight. “Jesus, Dalia, you’re serious about this.”

She nods, studying the photos pinned to the board like she’s memorizing them. “They won’t stop the investigation just because I’m gone, but this gives me the freedom to move without department oversight.”

“To do what exactly? Find Ruth? Burn the entire commune to the ground?”

She looks over her shoulder, and there’s something in her eyes that makes my blood run cold. The kind of look that says she’s already made peace with not coming back.

“Dalia—”

“I know what I’m doing, Elias.”

“No, you don’t.” My voice cracks, betraying more emotion than I intended. “You think you do, but these people—this place—it’s not just some religious community. They are fanatics who murder people like it’s their hobby. You think you can walk in there and somehow be the exception?”

Her eyes flash with something between anger and pain. “You think I haven’t already survived worse? I wake up every night hearing Wren’s voice calling for help from someplace I can’t reach. I can’t sleep, Elias. I can barely function. I’m just pretending to hold it together long enough to finish this.”

The raw honesty in her voice hits me like a punch to the chest.

“I promise I’ll come back if I can.”

I should say more. Should fight harder. Should grab her by the shoulders and shake her until she sees how insane this plan is. She’s standing so close I can feel the warmth radiating from her skin, and it’s making it hard to think clearly.

She doesn’t move away. Neither do I. We exist in this fragile moment where everything is balanced on the edge of collapse. Her expression isn’t hard tonight. The armor she usually wears is down, leaving her looking exhausted and raw and heartbreakingly human.

“I filed the divorce papers,” she says suddenly, the words quiet but clear.

I blink, the statement hitting me like a curveball. “What?”

“With Markus. I’m divorcing him.” She looks down at her hands, then back up at me. “I filed them yesterday, same day as my resignation.”

It’s not relief that hits me first—it’s guilt. Sharp and immediate and ugly. The selfish part of me that’s been hoping, waiting, wanting something I had no right to want.

I swallow hard, not trusting my voice. Not knowing what to say that won’t reveal too much of what I’ve been feeling, what I’ve been carrying around like a secret weight for longer than I care to admit.

The silence stretches between us, heavy. She’s watching me, and I can feel her gaze like a physical touch. There’s something different in her expression—softer, more open than I’ve seen in months. Like the walls she keeps up at work have finally cracked.

“Elias,” she says quietly, and just the way she says my name makes something shift in my chest.

I take a half-step closer without meaning to. She doesn’t back away. The space between us feels charged, dangerous. We’re standing in a cheap motel room at midnight, surrounded by evidence of her obsession, and all I can think about is how badly I want to reach for her.

“You tracked me down,” Dalia says, but there’s no accusation in it.

“I was worried about you.” The words come out rougher than I intended.

“Were you?” Something flickers across her face—surprise, maybe.

The question hangs in the air between us. I could lie. Should lie. Give her the safe answer about partnership and professional concern. Her eyes search my face, and I can’t read what she’s looking for.

I could deflect. Change the subject. Go back to talking about her resignation or her suicidal plan. But the exhaustion in her eyes, the way she’s been carrying this burden alone—it breaks something open in my chest.

“I care about you,” I continue, knowing I’m about to destroy the best partnership I’ve ever had. “More than I should.”

I expect her to step away, to put professional distance between us again. To tell me this complicates things, that we can’t work together anymore. I expect disappointment. Her expression is unreadable, and the silence stretches long enough that I start to panic. I’ve ruined everything. Years of partnership, of trust, of—

Her hand finds mine. Fingers brush slow, almost shy, like she doesn’t know if I’ll pull away. I don’t, I couldn’t if I tried. My palm opens and hers fits there like it always should have. The contact sends electricity up my arm, makes my chest tight.

I don’t know what this is. Comfort, maybe. Pity for the partner who just confessed to crossing professional lines. She’s probably trying to soften the blow before she tells me this changes everything between us. But God, even if it’s just sympathy, I can’t stop the way my pulse jumps at her touch, the way every rational thought scatters like leaves.

She lifts her other hand to my face, brushing hair from my forehead. Her knuckles graze my temple and I feel the touch everywhere—down my spine, in my chest, lower. I close my eyes, trying to memorize the sensation because this might be all I get. This woman is going to be the death of me.

But then she moves.

She closes the remaining space between us, pressing her mouth to mine. The kiss is soft at first, hesitant, like she’s testing whether I’ll push her away. Her lips are warm and trembling, and I can taste the uncertainty there, the weight of everything we’re crossing.

My breath catches in my throat as my hands find her waist, tentative at first because I’m terrified of breaking this moment, then surer, pulling her in. Her hoodie bunches under my palms and I can feel the warmth of her skin underneath the fabric.

“Elias,” she sighs against my mouth and it wrecks me completely. The sound of my name on her lips is better than any prayer. I tilt her head back gently, deepen the kiss. One hand slides to the nape of her neck, fingers curling into her hair—it’s softer than I imagined. Her body curves into mine, every point of contact burning. Her hands move too—up my chest, into my collar, anchoring herself to me like I’m anchoring myself to her.

I kiss her again, even slower this time, like if I go too fast, it’ll disappear. Like she’ll remember all the reasons we shouldn’t be doing this.

This must be a fever dream. I may have fallen asleep in the car while staring at the motel door, but her weight against me is too real, too perfect to be anything but truth.

My thumb grazes her cheek, and she shudders. I press a kiss to the corner of her mouth, then her jaw, then just under her ear. Her breath hitches, and the sound goes straight through me. She turns her head slightly, giving me more access, and I take it. Reverently. My mouth grazes the skin just below her earlobe, tasting salt and something uniquely her. Her pulse is fast against my lips. So is mine.

I want everything. Every inch of her. Every secret. Every breath. I want to know what makes her gasp, what makes her arch against me. I want to lose myself in her until there’s no case, no danger, no world outside this room.

My hand skims down her side, feeling the curve of her, the flare of her hip. I’m drowning in the need to touch more, to taste more.

But then her hand flattens on my chest. I freeze, every muscle tensing.

Dalia pulls back just enough to look up at me. Her lips are red, swollen from my kisses.

“Elias,” she whispers. Her voice is small but grounded—like it’s being pulled up from someplace deep. I’m trembling. Actually trembling like I’m some inexperienced teenager instead of a trained operative who’s supposed to have control.

I whisper her name back, just as soft. “Dalia.”

My hand lifts—gentle, tentative—and finds the edge of her jaw. My thumb brushes the corner of her mouth, where her lips are still red, parted slightly like she wants to say something but can’t decide which truth will hurt less.

I want to ask her not to go. I want to beg her to stay. I want to tell her that losing her would destroy me.

I wrap my arms around her and pull her in, our chests pressed together, her face tucked under my chin. Her body is warm, rigid at first, then softening slowly, like she’s letting herself be held for the first time in weeks. Maybe months.

Or years.

I press my cheek against her temple, breathing in the scent of her shampoo. My voice comes out low, hoarse. “Don’t go.”

Her hands tighten against my back, fingers digging into my shirt.

“We can figure this out,” I say, barely above breath. “Together. You don’t have to do this alone.”

She pulls back to meet my eyes. Her hands slide up to rest on either side of my face, and I lean into the touch like a man starved.

“I already made the decision,” she says. Not cold or cruel. Just final.

I shake my head. “We’ll find another way. There has to be one. Locke doesn’t—”

“She’ll never approve another infiltration,” Dalia cuts in.

She’s right. I know she’s right. But that doesn’t make it easier to accept.

“I can still do this, Elias,” Dalia continues. “I can get inside and get us something solid. I just—” Her voice falters. “I need to do this.”

I stare at her, at the lines under her eyes, at the exhaustion in the way her shoulders slump when she forgets to hold them straight. At the determination that’s going to take her away from me.

I lean in and kiss her again. This time, she doesn’t hesitate. It’s sharp and hungry and a little bit broken, the way people kiss when they don’t know what goodbye’s going to look like. Her hands knot in my shirt, tugging me closer until our bodies are flush again, until I can feel every curve of her against me. I walk her back toward the bed, blind to everything but the taste of her mouth, the smell of her skin, the fact that I’ve wanted this—her—for so long it aches.

My hands slide under the hem of her hoodie to touch bare skin. She gasps into my mouth when I grip her tighter, but doesn’t stop me. Her skin is impossibly soft, impossibly warm. Her fingers tangle in my hair, nails scraping lightly against my scalp, and I groan against her lips.

We fall onto the mattress in a tangle of limbs and breath and heat. The springs creak under us, but we don’t care.

“God, Dalia…” I whisper into her skin, and she arches beneath me.

She tilts her head back, and the sound she makes—half laugh, half sigh—is like nothing I’ve ever heard from her. Careless and young and so beautiful it makes my chest tight. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her laugh like that and it only makes me more desperate to learn every sound she can make.

Her breath stutters when I trace my tongue along the column of her throat, then kiss her there, soft but urgent. She is mesmerizing. Perfect. Mine, at least for tonight.

Her finger presses against my lips, gentle but firm, eyes glassy and unreadable in the dim light.

“I’m coming back,” she says.

I nod, heart in my throat, not trusting my voice.

“I promise.”

I believe her. I don’t know if I should, but I do. I have to.

I adjust to lay down on my side, facing towards her and pull her in. She cuddles her head against my chest, and I can feel her heartbeat slowly matching mine. My hand strokes slow patterns into her back, feeling the delicate bones of her spine. Her breathing evens out first.

I refuse to sleep. Instead, I memorize everything—the weight of her in my arms, the warmth of her thigh against mine, the way her hair tickles my chin. The scent of her shampoo. The steady whisper of her breath on my collarbone.

Because I don’t know if I’ll get another night like this.

And I don’t ever want to let her go.

CHAPTER 23 (12/6) >>

WHAT REMAINS UNSPOKEN [CH21]

ALL CHAPTERS HERE.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘ EXIT STRATEGY // DALIA ⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

The walls of the hotel room have started to pulse.

That’s the only word for it—pulse. The cheap beige flower wallpaper breathes, textured and uneven in the lamplight, as if it might exhale and collapse in on me at any second. I haven’t really slept in forty-three hours. Maybe forty-five. The numbers stopped mattering sometime yesterday when I poured cold coffee over my notes and didn’t even bother to clean it up. The stains are still there. Top corner of the commune supply grid, right through the name “Amberfield.”

I cross my legs on the floor. This isn’t a desk job anymore but an excavation. Case files spread like an autopsy, highlighters in colors I didn’t choose. There’s something obsessive in the symmetry I’ve created: post-it notes mapped edge to edge along the mirror, the floor, the windowsill. Pins in a corkboard I nicked from the office. Threads leading to the photo of Ruth. Jonas Vale. Raina.

I stopped using a chair a week ago. The bed’s untouched. I sleep on the floor, when I sleep at all but mostly I just sit. Think. Wait for something to click into place.

The burner phone buzzes against my thigh—no message, just the flicker of battery warning, dim and resentful. I press the power button and let it die.

With a sigh, I reach behind me, digging through the stack of legal folders until my fingers find an envelope. The divorce papers are inside—drafts. Still. I told the lawyer I’d approve them by the end of the week. That was four days ago.

I pull myself up, spine cracking, knees aching. My reflection in the mirror is a smear: hair twisted back in a half-knot, face drawn tight, lips cracked. My coffee-stained shirt’s wrinkled and I can’t even call it white anymore. My skin feels too dry, like it doesn’t fit anymore. I stare at myself until the blur sharpens into someone I recognize.

I pick up my phone to dial Markus’s attorney. I sigh of relief escapes me as it goes to voicemail. I leave the message short and professional. “Hi Pete, It’s Dalia Rowe. I’m ready to proceed. Please email me with the next steps.”

When I hang up, I stare at my phone wallpaper a beat too long. It used to be a family photo of Wren, Markus and me on a road trip, huddled up together laughing, trying to fit it in the picture. I don’t cry. The grief’s gotten quieter lately. Not smaller—just more skilled at hiding in the daylight.

Ten minutes later I’m in the bathroom, sitting on the edge of the tub as I fold my arms around my stomach. The ceramic’s cold beneath me and for a second, I pretend I’m underwater.

I let myself cry a single-thread leak. No sobs, only salt on my cheeks and no one here to see it. When it passes, I get up, wash my face with cold water. Towel off with something thin and dirty beige, stained with makeup. Back in the main room, I grab my phone again—there’s a message draft still open from last night.

Can’t. I think I’m being watched.

I stare at it. Then delete the whole thing. Again. It’s almost comforting now, the ritual of it. Drafting a message. Deleting it. The unsent things feel more honest than anything I’ve said out loud. It’s not fear that stops me, it’s the opposite. I want too much from this—to make her talk, to understand, to find the missing pieces.

My eyes drift to Elias’s name in my messages. He texted me last night—sent over a voice log Locke had pulled from the therapist’s office, Ruth’s final session.

I haven’t listened yet. Instead, I tap out a reply.

Thanks.

I don’t send it. I know where he was last night. It was the first thing Locke said to me this morning at the precinct, trying to rattle me. Bitch.

She did a good job at it as well, because I couldn’t stop thinking about it for the rest of the day. I’d watch like a hawk and listen to every minuscule word uttered between the two of them. I’m so delusional from the sleep deprivation I wonder whether I’ve just hallucinated the whole thing.

My throat tightens. I shouldn’t care as I have no claim. Elias isn’t mine, he’s my partner. He’s my last tether to this case, to reason. He’s kept me from falling off the edge more than once, and I owe him more than I’ve ever said aloud.

I kneel in front of the travel bag I keep stashed beneath the bed and unzip it. Inside are the items that don’t belong to the department: copies of files, private notes, USB drives. I sort through them, labeling them with a date and alias, then sliding them into a reinforced evidence pouch.

Then I pull out my resignation letter. Two copies. One for Everett, one for HR, both signed with my full name, my signature at the bottom taunting me with it’s cursive loops. I fold both into separate envelopes and tuck them away—I’ll deliver it tomorrow. I’ll also need to draft up an e-mail.

The final step of the day is digital. I sit at the edge of the bed and open my laptop, scrub the browser history. Clear cache, temp files, cookies. Then I reroute the motel Wi-Fi through a rotating IP mask I borrowed from Kelsi’s encrypted packet. I do this every single day out of routine. Nothing here will lead back to me once I’m gone.

The sun’s coming up behind the thin motel curtains. I watch the morning edge in through the cracks and for a moment I allow myself to think of Elias, how his golden messy curls remind me of the sunshine.

The laptop hums, open to the file marked AMBERFIELD-VALVE_SPLINTER3. I’ve memorized it by now—the logistics charts, vehicle types, quotes, everything cross-checked against shipping manifests and ghost companies. Raina’s last message is still sitting on the burner.

Tomorrow. 7pm. Same spot.

Soon, I’ll reply to Raina and no one will stop me.

I wonder if Elias would call me reckless.

I have swapped out the license plate on my car in the parking lot. It’s not legal but that doesn’t matter. If Locke’s digging, I want her finding dead ends. Let her focus on Elias, he’s better at playing nice anyway. I’m not built for pretending.

There’s a USB drive plugged into my laptop containing everything I know. Everything I’ve learned off-record, which isn’t much. Case notes. Backup evidence. Transcripts Locke never saw because Kelsi hates her just as much as me. Not entirely professional of the three of us to push Locke out, but if we played by her rules, we would never solve this case. And if I don’t come back, someone has to finish this. Even if it’s not the way I would’ve done it.

It will have to be Elias and Kelsi.

I stash my laptop into the travel bag and slide it under the bed. Not the best hiding place but it will do.

By the time I stand up again, the hotel room looks less like a living space and more like a bunker. One cup on the nightstand that’s been there the last four nights. I leave the burner phone next to it and go back to the caseboard. There’s a photo of Wren I keep at the top right corner—a random photo I took, blurred from motion. I caught it by accident one morning in the kitchen as she was reaching for a mug. Her hair still wet, sunlight dancing across her face. She didn’t know I was watching.

I touch the edge of the image with two fingers.

If they find this room after I’m gone, I want them to know I didn’t vanish. I went in with my eyes open. They’ll never understand what it takes to walk into the dark on purpose.

But I do and I’m ready.

I’m not letting those fuckers take one more victim.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

At some point, I must’ve moved from the desk to the bed, but I don’t remember how or when. The sheets are tangled around my legs, damp with sweat. Another nightmare my mind refuses to remember in order to spare me.

I glance at the clock on the wall. 9.51 am. I’m terribly late.

My laptop glows faintly from the corner of the room, the cursor blinking at the bottom of the drafted email to Everett, resignation attached. It’s not a grand exit. It’s just the only way I know to leave without someone taking the badge from my hand.

I shower like I’m scrubbing off evidence. Pull on a plain navy button-up, black slacks, the same blazer I’ve been wearing for the past week. It’s starting to smell like burnt coffee and gun oil. My badge clips on easily—too easily. It’s become muscle memory.

By the time I get to the precinct, the building’s already alive with phones ringing, voices layered over the low buzz of the old fluorescents. The familiar rhythm of controlled chaos. A world I’ve lived in for too long.

I’m going to miss this.

I move quickly, don’t stop at my desk. Elias isn’t there, which helps. Kelsi’s nowhere in sight. Locke’s probably in the briefing room with them. Good.

Everett’s door is open, so I knock once on the frame and step inside. He doesn’t look up right away, just gestures to come in. With a swift motion, I pull the door closed behind me and sit down in the chair in front of his desk. That’s how he knows something is wrong.

The resignation envelope slides from my fingers onto his desk. Everett looks at it for a long moment before touching it.

“A month?” he says, like the word tastes bad.

I nod once. “Yeah.”

“You’re technically required to give three,” he mutters, scratching his bald head in disbelief.

“And you’ve technically wanted me gone since September, so I figure we’re even.”

His jaw shifts—grinding down the urge to snap. He folds the letter along the center crease and sets it on the desk without looking at me. I stay still. I’ve learned that with Everett, silence moves faster than escalation. Let him stew. Let him realize I’m not giving him a fight.

“I don’t want the others to know,” I add.

“And what should I tell them when they notice you packing up the case files you don’t officially have access to?”

What he just said doesn’t even make sense, but there’s something charming about the Captain’s dramatic antics. Weirdly, I’m going to miss this too.

“I won’t cause you any problems,” I say.

Lies.

His eyes flick up. “I wanted accountability, Rowe.”

I keep my voice level. “Then you should’ve thought twice before bringing in someone who treats this place like spit on the ground.”

“Locke has delivered more procedural compliance in two weeks than you have all year.”

“She’s a blunt instrument,” I agree. “You handed her a scalpel job and told her to amputate.”

“And you think bleeding out slowly is a better outcome?”

No answer to that. Not one that keeps me from getting pulled off the case early, anyway. I shift my weight slightly, back still straight. My hands stay folded on my lap. He watches me the way he used to watch internal reviews—like he’s waiting to hear if something will explode.

“I’m staying until the notice ends,” I say firmly. “I’ll give you everything you need. But when the month is up, I’m gone.”

His eyes stay on me, measuring. Not sympathy—he doesn’t deal in that. Curiosity. Maybe even relief.

Everett exhales through his nose and waves a hand at me, neat and clinical. “Dismissed.”

I leave his office without another word.

Well, that went better than expected.

The envelope’s out of my hands now. It’s real. Permanent. The kind of clean cut that doesn’t bleed until you’re already miles away from the wound. And still, my fingers tremble.

I push into the breakroom and let the door close behind me. The space is empty. I press the heel of my palm against my sternum like it might calm the flutter. I need coffee.

It’s not fresh, but at least it’s hot. I pour a cup mostly to have something to hold and the ceramic mug warms my skin, anchoring me.

Out the window, a single car pulls into the parking lot outside. Elias’s. His silhouette in the driver’s seat still for a second too long before he turns off the engine. I wonder where he has been.

Did she touch you?

Did you let her?

Did you like it?

The questions grind their way into my spine and it makes me want to scream.

CHAPTER 22 >>

WHAT REMAINS UNSPOKEN [CH20]

ALL CHAPTERS HERE.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘ DARK APPETITE // ELIAS ⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

It’s been two weeks since Locke was dropped into our lives like a hand grenade disguised as backup.

In that time, she’s turned every meeting into a performance review, logged six hours of screen time reformatting Kelsi’s reports, and suggested—twice, out loud—that maybe we should reconsider Dalia’s emotional fitness for fieldwork. Officially, she’s here to “refocus the investigative trajectory.” Unofficially, she’s here to remind us we’re replaceable.

The case has stalled. Not because we don’t have leads—we do—but because Locke’s method of progress involves treating urgency like a resource we have to ration. Every time we move forward an inch, she drags us sideways with an interdepartmental form or a procedural reevaluation.

Dalia hasn’t answered any of Raina’s messages. We’re losing her, slowly, and Locke wants to “reassess contact protocols” before we engage again. Meanwhile, Amberfield’s delivery trucks are still moving. The commune’s still fed and the cult ongoing, without an end in sight. Locke’s solution? Wait for the paper trail to confess. Everett’s hands are tied. Public scrutiny’s too high for him, and Locke came with the kind of departmental approval that arrives pre-insulated. She’s too clean to argue with, too polished to call out. No one wants to be the one to say the machine’s broken when the machine says it’s working fine.

No one’s said it out loud, but the pattern is clear. She’s not here to solve the case. She’s here to control the narrative when it implodes. Which is why, when my phone buzzes mid-afternoon with a text from Locke, I already know it’s not going to be good.

Locke: Dinner tonight? 8PM. You eat, right?

I assume it’s her weak attempt at humour. I stare at the message for five full seconds before the printer next to Kelsi lets out a sound like it’s dying in stages and she curses it with the weariness of someone who’s already done CPR on it twice today. Across the bullpen, Locke is angled just slightly toward me, not enough to be obvious but enough that I can feel the shape of her attention. She doesn’t look up from her tablet. I press my thumb against the lock button and set the phone face-down.

Three minutes later, another buzz.

Locke: Le Poivre. Reservation’s under my name. Dress code applies.

Of course she picked the most pretentious place in town. I can already smell the overpriced wine and hear the pianist who doesn’t take requests. The kind of restaurant where waiters pretend to forget you exist until you order the foie gras and pronounce it correctly.

She has also made it clear it’s not an invitation I can deny. I stare at the message a moment longer, then type:

Sure.

Nothing extra. The bare minimum.

Across the room, Locke shifts in her seat and finally looks up, just for a second. Kelsi exhales loud enough for me to hear it over the clatter of her keyboard. To my left, Dalia hasn’t moved. She’s been sitting with the same file open for half an hour, flipping the same page back and forth like she’s trying to wear a hole through the paper. Her hair’s tied up and her mouth’s pressed into a thin line that’s sharper than it should be.

She hasn’t asked what the text said. She won’t and I won’t tell her for now. Still, I glance over. Her eyes flick to mine—brief, unreadable—and return to the folder. That’s all.

Our second meeting of the day starts at three on the dot. Locke runs it like a TED Talk with none of the charisma. She’s got new maps printed in full color, with bold circles around delivery routes Kelsi highlighted last week. She talks about logistics like they’re the end of the story, not just the packaging. Fuel records. Shell companies that dissolve under scrutiny but still have credit cards that swipe at gas stations near the Ridge.

Clean. Careful. And it’s moving nowhere.

Dalia stays quiet, as per usual. Kelsi offers three counterpoints that Locke scribbles into the margin like they’re footnotes in a playbook she has already decided not to use. I sit and do my allocated job: nod, jot notes, pretend like I’m on the same page. I keep my hands visible and my voice neutral. It’s the same thing I’ve done for fourteen days straight, and the only part of me that rebels is the part already planning what I’ll say when Locke finally pushes too far.

The meeting ends at 3:36pm. Locke closes her file with a snap that feels louder than it should be and says, “Updates in my inbox by tonight. Let’s not lose momentum.”

Kelsi mutters something that sounds like we never had it as she pushes away from the table. Dalia rises slowly. She doesn’t look at me, but her shoulder brushes mine on the way out, and for one second, my heart skips a beat.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

By the time I get home, the sun’s dropped below the rooftops and left the whole apartment washed in that hollow gray that never quite becomes evening. I pull the door shut behind me, toss my keys on the counter, and head straight for the mirror. No time to waste.

The tie’s still on the hook from my last dinner party with Dalia and Markus. I hold it up against my collar, try to picture what Locke expects me to look like. The good soldier. The clean cut. The rising star.

The shower doesn’t help and neither does the scotch I don’t end up finishing. Once I’m ready to go, I look like I belong at the kind of dinner where people say one thing and mean another. I stare at myself long enough to start feeling like a forgery. I don’t know why I’m going.

That’s not true. I do.

It’s because Locke has power and Everett has his limits.

When I pull into the private lot behind Le Poivre, I park under the only tree with any leaves still clinging to it. The branches cast long shadows over the hood, thin fingers reaching across the windshield. I stop the engine and sit there a moment longer than I should, letting the silence crawl in around me.

The restaurant looks like it was carved from marble and tax returns. Quiet lighting and frosted windows, a place where the plates cost more than rent and the servers don’t make eye contact unless you ask them to. I tentatively step inside and immediately feel underdressed, even though I’m wearing exactly what she asked for.

Locke’s already seated, of course. Back straight, napkin folded on her lap. She’s in slate-gray again, a dress tailored to within an inch of precision, no jewelry except a thin gold watch that probably cost more than my last car. Her hair’s pulled back into a smooth, impossible bun. She looks like efficiency made flesh. She doesn’t stand, but offers a small smile as I approach, eyes sliding over me like I’m something to be appraised and filed.

“Elias,” she sounds like she is greeting a colleague at a retirement party. “Glad you could make it.”

Not like I had a choice.

“You picked a nice spot,” I respond, sliding into the seat across from her. The table’s small, the candle between us violently flickering.

“I thought you could use something civilized,” she says, lifting her wine glass with practiced ease. “This case’s been... rural.”

I almost laugh out of sheer revulsion. I lift my own glass and take a sip of wine I can’t afford. It’s dry. Cherry, maybe?

The waiter appears like a ghost and she orders for both of us, because apparently she eats here every night and knows what’s best—roast duck, truffle risotto, paired with something French I can’t pronounce. I don’t object.

We talk about the case in shallow passes. Amberfield’s supply line. Fuel logs. Kelsi’s latest patch into an old shipment route. I bring up the pattern of deliveries shifting toward off-hour windows—1 a.m. drops instead of 6 a.m. Locke doesn’t comment on the logistics, just the optics.

“Could suggest a new tier of internal organization,” she says. “Means we’re closer to the center than we thought.”

“Hmm.”

Locke smiles, but she isn’t amused.

“You ever think about leaving?” she asks suddenly.

I blink. “The table?”

“The precinct.” She lets out a small giggle like I said something really funny and leans forward slightly, resting her elbow just off the table’s edge. “The whole upstate stalemate. You’re overqualified. You know that, right?”

I don’t answer.

“Come on,” Locke says, voice dipped in velvet. “You’ve got instincts I don’t usually see outside of task force recruitment pools. You’re methodical, tactical, and you don’t fall apart under pressure.”

I thought we weren’t meant to operate on instincts but I guess that only goes for Dalia. “You’ve been watching?”

“I observe everyone,” she replies, and it doesn’t sound like a compliment.

Locke sets her glass down carefully. “You’d be a fit for Major Crimes or better. I could make a few calls, and by next quarter you’d be looking at a desk in D.C., badge upgrade, team of your own.”

I keep my posture loose. I don’t say no. I don’t say yes. I reach for the wine again just to buy a second of quiet.

“And Dalia?” I ask.

Locke doesn’t flinch. “Detective Rowe’s made her choices. You don’t have to go down with her.”

The air between us stills.

“You’re not helping her anymore by sticking around,” Locke continues, and this time the softness is gone. “You’re just delaying the inevitable. When she breaks protocol again—and she will—it’s your name on the file too.”

I push the duck around my plate. I haven’t eaten more than three bites.

“She’s excellent at her job,” I say quietly.

“She’s not stable.”

The waiter returns to ask about dessert and Locke declines with a flick of her hand. For a few seconds, neither of us speaks. The candle burns lower. Somewhere in the back corner, someone laughs too loudly and is immediately hushed.

“You’re smart enough to survive,” Locke says after a while. “Don’t waste that on someone who won’t.”

I nod once, as if she’s said something profound. As if I’m thinking it over. In my head, I’m already cataloging everything she didn’t say out loud. Locke didn’t pick this restaurant for the wine or the risotto or the mood lighting. She picked it because here, in this curated hush, things sound better than they are. Offers, ultimatums, roasted ducks.

She dabs at her mouth with the napkin, precise and slow, then folds it once and places it on the table. I do the same, mirroring her without thinking. The candle’s burned almost halfway down, the wax leaning like it’s trying to escape. The check never comes and that’s how you know she is a regular and probably got her on tab. This was always meant to end before it started.

We walk outside together, Locke leading the way. My hands are in my coat pockets, and I refuse to look at her. I try to keep my shoulders loose, expression in deep concentration like I’m just contemplating her offer. It’s what she would expect from a smart person.

Maybe I’m just not that smart.

Her car’s parked two down from mine. Black, of course, government-issue without the branding. She pauses at the door, one hand on her key fob, the other on her hip like she’s not quite ready to call it a night.

“You handled yourself well in there,” she says suddenly. Oh, so that was a part of an assessment?

She laughs softly, but it’s not real laughter. It’s the controlled exhale of someone who’s never once lost her composure and doesn’t plan to start now. Locke takes a step toward me, closing the space like it’s hers to claim.

“I meant it, you know,” she is standing way too close to me. “Everything I said.”

“I know.”

“You could move up fast. You could outrun this place.”

“I like this place.”

She tilts her head, that awful smile still on her lips. “No you don’t.”

Locke steps closer again.

Her fingers reach up—slow, deliberate—and brush something off my lapel. Imaginary lint. Her touch lingers half a beat too long.

“You’re too careful to say yes right away,” she says, almost to herself. “But you’re smart. You will.”

“I said I’d think about it.”

“Thinking’s just stalling with better branding.”

I try to laugh, but it comes out wrong. I’m getting nervous. She’s too close now. Her hand lifts again—this time grazing the edge of my jaw. Just a small, fleeting brush, but it’s enough to leave heat behind. I want to grab her wrist but I’m too shocked by the audacity of the touch to even move.

Her voice drops, not loud but loaded. “You don’t owe her anything.”

I catch the shift in her weight just a second too late and feel it before I see it coming.

The cold precision of her eyes. The way her lips part—not in surprise, but intent. And then she kisses me.

It’s low and calculated, lips soft and slow, pressing on top of mine like this is her signature, like this is her seal on something she thinks she already owns. Her hand grips the front of my coat, just above my heart. Not enough to hold me in place, but enough to let me know she could.

I don’t move.

I don’t kiss back.

I don’t recoil either.

I bet she wants that. She wants flinch, protest, anything she can spin into weakness. I give her nothing. I let it land like a breeze I forgot to feel. Then, as gently as I can, I shift my weight back—half a step. Enough to break contact without creating conflict. My smile surfaces a second later, a little lopsided. I make it look like it’s all fine, like I’ve been here before, like I don’t feel my stomach crawling out of my body.

“Well,” I say, voice light, almost teasing, “maybe once the case is over.”

It comes out smooth, polished. I even throw in a soft laugh, like we’re sharing a joke. I want to throw up.

Locke’s watching me with a weird look and for a second I wonder if I overplayed it. Her fingers linger on my lapel for a second longer. Her expression hasn’t changed, but I see it in the small tilt of her head, the way her lips part just slightly—she’s recalculating. The play didn’t land the way she thought it would and I have no way of telling whether that’s good or bad.

“You’re hard to read,” she says finally.

“That’s why I’m good at my job.”

I adjust my collar casually, like this isn’t the first time a colleague made a move on me, like I’m used to this. She gives me a smile—cool, knowing—and steps back. “Goodnight, Elias.”

“Lieutenant.”

Locke turns and gets into her car like nothing happened, like that wasn’t a fucking ambush. The door closes with a soft, final click, and then her taillights flare and she vanishes into the streetlight haze. I stand there a moment too long, the night thick around me, hum of traffic in the distance. The soft rustle of leaves in the gutter. My hands are still in my pockets, fists clenched so tight I barely feel my fingers. When I finally move, I head for my car without looking at the space where she stood. I get in, shut the door a little too hard and let my forehead rest against the steering wheel.

I exhale once. Slowly.

She wanted submission. Power. She wanted to mark the moment where I became complicit.

Shame simmers under my skin, hot and steady. I reach up to my mouth, wipe it with the back of my hand. There’s no lipstick, no visible trace, only the knowledge that it happened. That I let it happen. That I had to because she is my boss, our handler. I catch my reflection in the mirror and for a split second, I wonder what Dalia will see when she looks at me tomorrow. If she’ll see through the performance. If she’ll notice the hesitation in my voice. God, I hope she doesn’t ask. I hope she does.

I close my eyes and it’s not Locke I see. It will never be her.

It’s Dalia, quiet in the low light, the way she looks when she’s half-listening, pencil tapping against her thigh, hazel eyes distant, decoding the world in real time.

But then the scene shifts—softens—becomes something more fragile. Her hand in mine, fingers entwined. The weight of her against me, not in exhaustion or necessity, but choice. Her forehead resting against my shoulder, breath warming the space between us. I imagine leaning in—not on a rooftop in crisis or a hotel room full of case files, but somewhere safe. Somewhere small and real, her mouth inches from mine, looking at me like maybe she wants it too.

I can feel the curve of her back beneath my hand. The warmth of her thigh brushing mine beneath a table we’ve long forgotten. Her breath catching, then deepening when I touch her jaw. My fingers in her hair...

And then I’m kissing her. Not the way Locke did—cold, mechanical, transactional. This is slow. Earned. Her lips warm and searching, the kind of kiss that doesn’t want to end. Not claiming or demanding. I want to feel her hands slip under my shirt, fingers roaming free. I want to hear her say my name. I want to say hers like a promise.

But when I open my eyes, the mirror hasn’t changed. I’m still alone and she’s still out there, drifting further into the case, into whatever plan she’s making without telling me. Because I know she is plotting something.

I pull my phone from my pocket, drafting a text to Dalia.

Delete it.

Start the engine.

Drive home in quiet shame.

CHAPTER 21 >>

WHAT REMAINS UNSPOKEN [CH19]

ALL CHAPTERS HERE.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘ LOGISTICS // ELIAS ⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

It’s too early, and the coffee I forced down half an hour ago hasn’t kicked in yet.

Locke’s already writing on the board when I walk in. The dry-erase marker squeaks across the surface, her handwriting so angular and precise it looks like it was etched instead of scrawled. Every stroke screams, I’ve done this before. I’m in control.

I adjust my tie as I enter, offering her the kind of nod I used to give commanding officers I didn’t respect but had to impress. “Morning.”

Brynn hums something vaguely affirmative, but doesn’t turn. She just keeps writing, the dry-erase marker squeaking in clipped, efficient arcs. She doesn’t believe in warm greetings I guess. Probably doesn’t believe in warmth, period.

The door opens behind me and I know it’s Dalia before I turn. She doesn’t make eye contact, just slips into her chair with a kind of quiet that feels like a bruise refusing to heal. Brown hair tied back too tight, mouth in a straight line. There’s a darkness under her eyes I haven’t seen before—less exhaustion, more erosion, like something’s wearing her down from the inside, and she hasn’t figured out how to stop the rot.

This silence isn’t the Dalia I know. Not the sharp-edged analyst who goes mute because she’s six layers deep in pattern-matching. This one feels... wrong, like a tether’s come loose. She’s spiraling somewhere I can’t follow, because I’m too busy playing diplomat and pretending like Locke isn’t holding us back.

“Let’s get to it,” Locke says, popping the cap back on the marker. Her blazer is creased just so, the kind of tailored authority that Major Crimes seems to mass-produce.

“We’ll begin with the commune’s footprint,” she says briskly, tossing a folder onto the table. “We’ve mapped delivery traffic patterns over the past six months.”

We? More like Kelsi.

As if on cue, Kelsi wheels in on her chair like a goblin on caffeine. With a smile in the corner of my lips, I flip open the folder and pretend like I haven’t read half of this already. Thanks Kelsi.

The top page in the folder is a transport schedule. Beneath it, grainy surveillance images of unmarked trucks, dates and locations logged like a quiet heartbeat.

“Company’s called Amberfield Harvest Logistics,” our IT goblin begins. “No website or published phone number, but they make regular, low-volume deliveries to a property—you guessed it—matching the commune’s address.”

Kelsi taps a spot on the grainy map, then gestures to another page. “Here’s the kicker. Back in 2018, the land was temporarily deeded to a shell company. Guess who sits on the board of that?”

She slides another photo across the table: a scanned charity gala image with none other but Jonas Vale standing in the middle of it, shaking hands.

Locke barely reacts. “How certain is the tie?”

Kelsi leans back, twirling a pen. “Enough to get a warrant for financials, maybe. Not enough to kick in the gates.”

I glance at Dalia. She doesn’t even touch the file, although I’m certain she looked at it the moment Kelsi sent it in our group chat.

Ever since Dalia pulled me aside and let me know that Locke is withholding information from her, we set up a group with Kelsi. Protocol be damned. Locke’s been here a week, and we’ve spent most of that time handing her tools she’s too slow to use. Not that she sees it that way. From her tone, you’d think she descended from the heavens with a USB stick and a clean conscience. Plus the quest to get rid of Dalia or the very least tarnish her reputation.

I look at Kelsi and pretend like I haven’t asked this question yesterday. “And they don’t show up on any vendor listings?”

Kelsi smirks. “That’s the trick. No government contracts, no retail clients. It’s like someone built a company just to feed a hole in the woods.”

Locke finally looks impressed. Barely. “We’ll trace the registration. Get me purchase records, fuel routes, anything that links them to Vale’s network.”

I glance at Dalia again. She hasn’t even moved. That quiet... it claws at me.

“We need more than logistics,” Locke says. “This Amberfield operation gives us infrastructure, but not intent.”

Her eyes drift toward Dalia with a calculated pause. I feel my pulse climb and I lean forward, smoothing my voice into something pleasant. “We’re still monitoring Raina. There’s potential there—soft contact. She’s not hostile.”

Locke raises a brow. She considers me for a beat longer than I like. “You have charm, Wexler. I’m starting to think you would have been better at initiating contact with Raina.”

The compliment sticks in my throat. God, I hate this.

I smile anyway and don’t stick up for Dalia. Not because I don’t want to, but because we discussed I won’t. Because we all know what happens if we lose this case. They’ll cut us out like bad stitches and call it accountability. Locke will write her own report, paint Dalia as unstable, reckless, compromised. And I’ll go back to homicide with dirt under my nails and nothing to show for it but another dead girl we couldn’t save.

So, the three of us devised new strategy on how to deal with Locke. I play nice. I kiss the ring. I let Locke think I’m grateful for her presence. Even though every time she speaks, I feel like I’m swallowing sandpaper. We also agreed Dalia will remain distant, almost like she is drifting away from the case, so Locke gets off her back.

It’s not convincing. Even Locke picks up on it. “We need your head in the game, Detective Rowe.”

I see it—that flicker in Dalia’s eye. Not rage. Just a flash of something brittle. She meets Locke’s stare and doesn’t blink. I remind myself this is part of the act.

“Great findings, Kelsi,” she says.

Locke doesn’t respond and after a moment of silence, she moves to the next item on the board. But I catch it—the look she gives me afterward, like I’m the one who’s supposed to rein Dalia in. Like it’s my job to keep her from breaking protocol again. Maybe it is.

I speak up. “Has anyone run a resource analysis on Amberfield yet? Power draws, purchase volume, seasonal increases?”

Locke gives me a small nod. “Good. You take that. Dalia can continue monitoring Raina.”

I can feel Dalia tense across the table. Her jaw tightens just slightly. Locke doesn’t care. Either way, she continues like a machine spitting logic and mandates. Everything about the way she talks feels like a game of chess where people are just pawns and you don’t care which ones break as long as the board looks neat at the end.

I nod, jotting Locke’s notes down, but I’m half-watching Dalia, her eyes locked on the board, unfocused.

“Let’s reconvene at sixteen hundred. I want summaries, movement logs, and updated assets,” Locke says then closes her tablet with that same sharp finality she applies to everything—no wasted movement, no room for input. She’s already halfway out the door before anyone’s chair scrapes back from the floor. Kelsi mutters something under her breath that sounds a lot like “Iron Stiletto Barbie” as she slumps back in her seat.

I push my chair back.

“You getting lunch?” I ask Kelsi.

She waves vaguely toward the vending machines, her head already dipped back into her screens. “If Cheez-Its count.”

I nod once and step out into the hallway. I wait for Dalia to follow behind, stewing in her role to play dumb. We walk in silence down the corridor.

Our pace doesn’t match. It never has. She walks like she’s chasing something and I walk like I’m trying not to scare it off. The elevator dings as we pass it, and neither of us stops. We head for the stairwell, some unspoken instinct leading us to the place above it all. The place where we can breathe. When I push open the roof door and hold it for her, she hesitates just long enough to let me know this isn’t routine.

The roof of the precinct isn’t much—tar, gravel, rusting ducts, and a lopsided bench that probably predates the building’s last paint job—but it’s quiet, and it’s high, and most people forget it exists. Dalia is already walking towards near the edge, not close enough to be dangerous, but close enough that it reads like a mood. Her hands are tucked into her blazer pockets. The wind tugs at her collar. Her profile’s sharp against the pale wash of sky.

I cross the rooftop slowly, giving her time to tell me to leave.

“Locke’s got half the precinct chewing her paperwork,” I say. “Pretty sure Kelsi’s going to fake a technical failure just to watch her unravel.”

Dalia doesn’t laugh, just stares out across the skyline, jaw tight.

“I can’t keep doing this,” she says finally. “Coming into that room and acting like I haven’t already seen how the house burns down.”

I step beside her. “What are you talking about?”

She shakes her head. “This case. Raina. The commune. All of it. We’re playing catch-up with people who’ve been planning this for years. And Locke—she doesn’t understand. She’s not even trying to understand. She wants it neat tied with a suspect tree, like that’s going to save anyone.”

“She’s doing her job,” I say carefully.

“She’s doing a version of a job,” Dalia corrects. “The kind that fills reports and ticks boxes and gets you promoted when everything explodes because you never actually got close enough to stop it.”

There’s heat in her voice now.

“I’m not mad she’s here,” she adds, quieter. “I’m mad we needed someone to pull a leash on us to make it seem like we’re playing by the rules. And that you—” she stops, biting back the words.

“That I what?” I ask.

She looks at me then. Really looks. Her eyes are tired. Not bloodshot or red-rimmed, just worn.

“That you have to play this role,” she says, almost a whisper.

I exhale slowly. “You think I like it?”

“I think you’re better at pretending than I am.”

That hits harder than it should.

“I’m doing what we have to do,” I say. “We lose Locke, we lose the case. That’s the reality. We discussed this.”

“No,” she says. “We lost the case the moment Everett decided we couldn’t be trusted. And that’s on me.”

Her voice cracks slightly, and she turns away from me like she doesn’t want me to see it. I walk toward the bench and sit down, letting the silence stretch between us.

“It’s been a week,” I say. “Since she came on. And in that week, we haven’t lost too much ground. Kelsi found Amberfield. That’s real. That’s something.”

“And what have I found?” she asks.

I don’t answer.

“I could have messaged Raina,” she admits. “The draft is still sitting there. Half a sentence. A question I haven’t figured out how to ask.”

She sits down beside me without looking at me, both of us angled toward the city.

“I’m scared,” she says. “And not just of the commune or what happens if this lead goes nowhere. I’m scared I’ve already gone too far, that I’ve become someone I can’t walk back from.”

I swallow the knot in my throat. “You haven’t.”

She gives a dry laugh. “How would you know?”

“Because I see you,” I say. “And you’re still here.”

Her head dips slightly, like that costs her something to hear. For a moment, there’s just wind and the far-off hum of traffic.

“I’m not trying to replace anything,” I add. “With her. If that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I’m not worried.”

Lie. And I’m not innocent. Not really. I’ve been friendly with Locke, overly so at times. It’s strategic, but maybe not just that. Maybe part of me needed to believe I could still do this job without falling apart over Dalia. And maybe I’m failing at that too.

“We can still fix this,” I say. “We can take what Kelsi found and turn it into a full search warrant. We follow the logistics chain back to its source.”

Dalia nods slowly. “Yeah. Okay.”

She doesn’t sound convinced, but I’ll take it for now.

CHAPTER 20 >>

WHAT REMAINS UNSPOKEN [CH18]

ALL CHAPTERS HERE.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘ FAULTLINE // DALIA ⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

The key sticks in the lock like the house is punishing me for leaving it so long.

When I finally get the door open, the apartment smells like a weird combination of stale Chinese takeout and fabric softener. The lights are off, but I don’t need them. I could walk this space blindfolded. The TV glows faintly in the living room, a documentary muted on pause. Markus is already home.

The moment I close the door, he calls for me. “Dalia?”

His voice is lighter than I expected. Hopeful. I kick off my shoes. “Yeah.”

Markus rounds the corner a second later, a dish towel slung over his shoulder. He probably forgot about it when he was washing the dishes earlier. His smile falters when he sees my face. “How are you?”

I sigh. “Exhausted.”

He nods.

“I’ve been calling,” he says, more softly. I drop my bag too hard on the entry bench. It tips, hits the floor with a soft thud.

“I know.”

“You didn’t answer.”

“I was busy.”

“I’m not accusing you,” Markus says quickly. “I’m not. I’m just—Christ, Dalia. You’ve been gone more than home lately. Some nights I don’t even know where you’re sleeping. Am I supposed to just get used to that?”

I hang my coat, avoiding his eyes. “You know what this case is.”

“No,” he says, stepping closer. “I know what you said it was. But I don’t know anymore. You come back looking like you’ve been through hell. You flinch in your sleep. You won’t talk to me. And now you’re disappearing and you won’t tell me why.”

I close my eyes. “I don’t want to bring it here.”

“What does that even mean?”

“I mean I have constant nightmares, Markus,” I snap. “Wren. I see her covered in blood. Her hands shaking. Some stupid cult necklace around her neck. I wake up gasping, thinking she is out in those goddamn woods. I don’t want to bring that home. I don’t want you to see me like that.”

He stares at me, jaw clenched. “So what? You’d rather disappear into motel rooms and trauma-bond with your partner instead?”

“That’s not fair.”

“No, it’s not,” he says, voice rising now. “It’s not fair that I’m standing here like a goddamn bystander in my own relationship. That I have no idea what you’re going through because every time I ask, you shut down like you’re the only one allowed to grieve.”

I turn away, because looking at him hurts too much. “I don’t need your pity, Markus.”

His laugh is sharp. “Is that what you think this is? You think I’m here out of pity?”

I don’t answer.

“Jesus, Dalia,” he says, stepping back like I’ve hit him. “You really don’t see it, do you?”

“I don’t want your support if it’s just to make yourself feel better,” I whisper. “I don’t want you holding me while I fall apart just so you don’t have to feel helpless.”

He stares at me, wounded. “Then what do you want?”

I don’t have an answer. I can’t say what I’m really thinking—that Elias was the one there when the burn on my hand still stung, when the dark felt too thick to breathe through. That his voice pulled me back. That I needed him in that moment and I let myself have that, just for a second. It’s not fair, but Markus sees it, I think. He sees the distance and realizes he can’t cross it.

He shakes his head like he’s trying to dislodge the thought. “Do you even want this life anymore, Dalia? This home? Me?”

That stings. I look at the coat rack missing my jacket too many days in a row.

“I don’t know,” I say honestly. “But I know I can’t keep pretending that coming back here makes it better.”

Markus steps back, and the air feels colder suddenly.

“I’m going to stay at my sister’s tonight,” he says. “Give you space. But you need to figure out what that space is for, Dalia. If you want anyone left when this ends.”

“Markus—”

But he’s already walking towards the door, passing by me, grabbing his keys. He pauses only once, hand on the knob.

“When you figure out whether you want me or just the memory of me, let me know.”

The door clicks shut behind him like the final sentence of a chapter I never meant to write. I stand in the echo of it, hands trembling slightly. This case isn’t just pulling me under, it’s hollowing me out. And the worst part is I’m letting it.

Silence blooms, immediate and almost sacred.

I stand frozen in the middle of the hallway for I don’t know how long, hands still clenched, breath sharp in my throat. The fight with Markus hangs in the air like static—unfinished, unresolved. Eventually, I make my way into the kitchen. It’s dark except for the glow of the fridge light when I open it. No appetite, no plan, only instinct. I grab the first thing I see: a carton of almond milk and a half-full box of cereal from the counter I don’t remember buying.

The spoon clinks softly in the bowl. I take it to the couch, still not bothering with the lights. It’s absurd, the comfort I find in the sound of cereal shifting in milk, the cold ceramic against my palms. I eat slowly, like chewing will buy me more time to not think. Guilt creeps in like fog, thick and clinging. I should’ve come home sooner. Should’ve called. Should’ve tried harder not to disappear into the shadows of the case. But Markus doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand the dreams, the way Wren’s voice lingers like smoke in my lungs. He thinks it’s about trust, about honesty. But it’s about weight and how heavy it feels to let someone try to carry what you can barely even hold yourself.

I work my way through the cereal, each bite turning soggy before I can swallow it. The spoon scrapes the bottom of the bowl louder than it should. The place still smells like Markus. His jacket is gone, but the ghost of his soap lingers in the fabric of the furniture. The cereal sticks in my throat. I force it down. There’s a half-dead cactus by the window, and I can’t remember the last time I watered it. Probably around the same time I last came home to stay, before the hotel sheets and burner phones and silence that became easier to explain than guilt.

Anyway, I thought cacti were easy to take care of.

Suddenly, there is a faint buzzing from the hallway. Not the usual hum of the fridge or pipes settling. Mechanical. Rhythmic.

I set the bowl aside and cross the room quickly. The hallway’s still swallowed in darkness, my shadow blending in as I step over the laundry basket I kicked after Markus left. This day just keeps getting better and better. I drop to my knees beside my fallen bag, digging through crumpled receipts and tangled cords until my fingers close around the body of the burner phone.

One new message. Raina.

The clock in the hallway ticks 10:03 p.m. I hesitate, my thumb hovering above the screen. I shouldn’t open it, but I do it anyway.

Hey. Was thinking about our talk. You free tomorrow?

I exhale slowly and let the message burn in my brain. It’s late. If I answer now, it’s a breach. The sensible thing is to ignore it. The right strategy is to ignore it. If I want to keep this case, I have to ignore it.

I open the reply window.

Sure. What time?

I stare at the words, my thumb over the send button, chest is tight. Something in my ribs pulls back like a warning.

So I delete it. But then I type again.

Can’t tomorrow. Maybe later this week?

Delete. Backspace eats the letters like they were never real and the temptation sits with me like a second skin. This isn’t Locke’s moment. It’s mine. The moment where I choose whether I keep control or let it go.

No. I’m smarter than this, the logical part of me whispers. Sure, Locke is an ass but Elias is right. We’ve still got the case. Maybe Ruth is still alive.

My phone buzzes from my jean’s back pocket. This time, it’s Elias.

Locke pulled audio logs from Whitmoor, with Ruth’s therapist, Dr. Cartwright. You looped in?

I blink at the screen. I’m not. Of course I’m not. I laugh out loud as I sit on the cold hallway tiles, still in my work clothes. She went behind my back. Maybe Elias told her I’d want the logs and she just didn’t care. Or maybe he’s been spending more time with her than I realized. I stare at the screen too long. I don’t reply. It’s clear Locke doesn’t trust me. Elias… I’m not sure what he’s doing. I trust him but my mind is fried from the case, from Markus, from the distaste I have for Locke. Sleepless nights, nightmares, Wren. The list just keeps growing.

The screen dims and I begin to form a plan.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

I don’t sleep. The couch might as well have been stone, and the blanket a net made of threadbare guilt. Every time I closed my eyes, Wren’s face hovered in the dark like smoke over a dying fire. At some point, I rolled to the floor and lay there instead. Never sent Raina the message either. Now it sits in my drafts, a quiet thing with teeth.

The conversation with Markus still loops in my mind like a bad surveillance feed—grainy, off-kilter, full of things unsaid.

By the time I step into the precinct, the lights feel too bright. The elevator is slow. The walls inside are mirrored just enough to remind me that I look like hell. I tie my hair up. Tight. Controlled. A version of myself that looks more certain than I feel. Inside the briefing room, the buzz of screens and cooling fans hums low. Kelsi’s already there, perched like a gargoyle on the edge of her chair. Her fingers twitch over her tablet without looking, like the motion’s a tic more than a task. Locke stands across the room, straight as an arrow, arms folded tight, expression colder than the tile beneath our feet. Elias is beside her, close enough to share the screen she’s pulled up.

He looks up first when I enter.

“Morning,” he says, too casual. He looks tired too. Tie loosened. That permanent furrow between his brows dug deeper.

“Barely,” Kelsi mutters.

Locke doesn’t look up. “You’re late.”

“It’s seven-oh-two.”

“And I said seven sharp.”

Her tone isn’t aggressive, just sharp enough to slice. Kelsi raises her brows at me. I don’t return the expression.

Locke taps the whiteboard behind her with the end of her pen. “We’re building a suspect tree. We start with the core leadership—whoever’s running this commune—and work our way down through recruiters, handlers, and outer-ring contacts like your friend Raina.”

I want to laugh. We have already done this.

“She’s not my friend,” I respond.

Locke doesn’t blink. “She’s your informant until she’s not. We act accordingly.”

On the whiteboard behind her there are surveillance shots, digital profiles, financial records half-built.

“Still no formal IDs on the two figures in white hovering around Vale from the last Circle meet-up,” Elias says.

“Start digging,” Locke says, like we have been just sitting on our asses the past weeks. “I want their activity. Cross-reference location pings. And that therapist—Cartwright? If he’s got dirt, I want it unburied.”

Elias glances at me and I look away. This is my moment to ask, but I stay silent because I’m going to let Locke play these games. I’m barely listening to her as I take a seat next to Kelsi.

“Raina’s planning something,” Locke goes on. “No one in a group that secretive just ‘grabs coffee’ without an agenda.”

What a genius. Didn’t know Major Crimes is full of prodigies like her.

“She could just be testing the waters,” I offer. “Feeling me out.”

“She’s already touched base once,” Locke says. “We should flip her.”

“You’re suggesting we confront her?” I ask innocently, trying hard not to sound like I’m performing.

“She’s already compromised. Better to move now than sit on our hands until someone else goes missing.”

I hope my expression doesn’t give away my disdain. “She invited me to the commune. If we push her now, we lose the one person giving us a way in.”

Locke’s gaze sharpens, but Elias cuts in, measured, calm. “She’s right. If Dalia’s presence feels authentic, pushing too soon burns the thread.”

For a moment, Locke just stares at him. Then me. She doesn’t say anything, but I can feel the verdict in the way she turns back to the whiteboard: conditional. Perhaps she doesn’t want to lose Elias’s support for now so she plays along.

Also, what idiot suggests trying to turn a full on cult zealot after one coffee meetup?

“You’ve got forty-eight hours to come up with a better plan on how to use Raina,” she says finally. “After that, I pull the plug. Either Raina gives us something useful, or she becomes a liability.”

My heart is a stone in my chest. Meanwhile, Kelsi hands Elias a piece of paper and he tapes it onto the whiteboard. It’s a topographic map.

“Commune’s here.” Locke circles a patch of remote forest. The silence that follows is too thick to swallow. I stare at the map, at the radius of isolation.

There is a creeping sense that every inch of that place was designed to swallow girls like Ruth whole.

CHAPTER 19 >>

WHAT REMAINS UNSPOKEN [CH17]

ALL CHAPTERS HERE.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘ INTERFERENCE // DALIA ⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

If Captain Everett ever cracked a smile, I imagine it would look a lot like today’s grimace.

He’s already in the briefing room when we arrive—suit pressed, coffee untouched, eyes tracking movement like he’s prepping for a storm no one else can see. My boots echo too loud on the linoleum floor. I feel like a teenager called into the principal’s office, except the principal has backup this time.

Sitting beside Everett is a woman I don’t recognize.

Tailored dark blazer, dark gray slacks, not a wrinkle in sight. Raven black hair pulled back into a low, tight bun. No jewelry. The only color on her is the badge clipped to her belt—Major Crimes Task Force. She stands when we enter, unsmiling. She’s got the vibe of someone who’s already judged you and is only waiting for your performance to match her assumptions.

“Detective Brynn Locke,” Everett says by way of introduction. “She’s your new point of contact.”

Like we’re being gifted a seasonal liaison instead of a babysitter with claws. Locke extends a hand—to Elias first. “You must be Detective Wexler. I’ve read your reports.”

Her grip seems firm, efficient. Elias smiles, enough to be polite, but there’s something warmer in it than I’d like. His body shifts slightly toward her. Not much, but it’s enough for me to notice. She doesn’t offer me a hand, of course, just turns her head enough to meet my gaze and nods. A polite dismissal.

“Rowe,” I say evenly.

“Detective Rowe,” she says. “We’ll be working closely. Closer than I’d prefer, if I’m being honest.”

Charming.

I arch a brow. “Well, I’m sure we’ll both survive.”

Elias’s eyes snap to me and a flicker of something crosses Locke’s face—amusement or disdain, it’s hard to tell. Then she’s all business again, flipping open a slim file folder like she’s slicing open a body.

“I’ll make this brief,” she says, her voice razor-edged. “The way this case has been handled is… unconventional.”

Captain Everett nods, arms crossed, confirming what we already suspected. “Full transparency from now on. No more solo rides.”

Locke slides a paper across the table. “I’ll need all operative aliases, fake accounts, timestamps of every interaction with known cult affiliates, and a detailed report of Detective Rowe’s activities since her first contact.”

I meet her gaze head-on, teeth clenched behind a closed mouth. The air between us feels like sandpaper. I glance at Elias, who’s already nodding, posture relaxed like he’s trying to set the tone. “Happy to share everything. We’re glad for the support.”

Support. That’s generous, Elias. She doesn’t look like support, she looks like the human embodiment of a shutdown protocol.

Locke lazily turns a page. “This isn’t about turf. It’s about risk mitigation. You’ve put yourselves in dangerous proximity without backup. That’s not bold—it’s a liability. We’re lucky it hasn’t already blown up.”

She doesn’t look at Elias when she says it. Only me.

“Your alias profile—the spiritual forums, grief pages, that sort of thing. Did you consult with anyone on that strategy?”

Elias gives me a look—half warning, half admiration. He’s not used to me snapping. Maybe he likes it.

“We built the strategy and made contact with the help of Elias and Kelsi,” I say, keeping my tone as flat as possible. “And got results.”

Locke nods, once. “Which is why you’re still in the room. But results don’t excuse recklessness. If your cover breaks, we don’t just lose access—we risk exposure. That endangers more than just the two of you.”

There’s a logic to it. A cold, hard strategy. I respect it. But respect doesn’t stop the prickle running up my spine. It doesn’t stop me from noticing how Elias shifts his body toward her when she talks. Or how his brow furrows in concentration when she lays out the next steps. He does that when he’s engaged. Absorbed. That focused energy he gives to things that matter.

He used to aim it at me.

“I understand you recently made contact with a woman named Raina. You met her alone?”

“She wouldn’t have come if I brought backup,” I say. “The point was subtlety.”

“The point,” Locke says, coolly, “was that your cover could have blown and no one would’ve known where to find your body.”

Elias leans forward, ever the diplomat. “Dalia took precautions and I was nearby the entire time, monitoring from the car.”

“And that’s your idea of a security perimeter?” Brynn asks him, but this time her tone softens by a hair. “Next time you think a steering wheel counts as surveillance, loop me in.”

He gives a slight smile. “Understood.”

Brynn mirrors it. The first real shift in her expression.

The air between them warms by a fraction while my stomach tightens. It’s stupid, I know. Elias is good with people—he listens too well, stands too close, tilts his head when others speak like he’s memorizing their vowels. Still, I haven’t seen that look from him in a while, the one where his mouth curves just a little too long after a joke.

Locke flips the folder closed. “Here’s how this works. No unsanctioned contact or undercover meetings. No movement near the commune unless I sign off personally. You bring me a threat assessment and I’ll bring you authorization. We do this by the book or not at all.”

“Understood,” Elias says again.

I say nothing. The silence does the job for me.

Brynn nods once, brisk and final. “We reconvene in one hour. Have your materials ready.”

With that, she nods once and leaves, heels clicking crisply down the hallway like punctuation. Everett trails behind her, probably wondering how many calls he’ll have to field now that she’s in the mix.

When the door clicks shut, Elias lets out a low breath and mutters, “Well. That could’ve been worse.”

I stare at the spot where Locke stood. “Could’ve also been a root canal, but sure. Let’s count blessings.”

Elias glances sideways. “Come on. She’s not a monster.”

“No,” I say. “She’s exactly what we were warned about. Control. Chains. Supervision with a smile.”

“She’s not smiling,” he says, almost teasing. I don’t bite.

He runs a hand through his blonde hair. It’s still slightly damp from the morning drizzle, strands clinging to his forehead in a way that would probably look charming to anyone not currently fantasizing about throwing a mug through a window.

“She’s smart,” he adds.

“I noticed.”

“I mean, she knows what she’s doing.”

“Fantastic.”

He frowns. “Dalia…”

I wave him off. “Let’s just prep the files. Wouldn’t want to keep our new leash waiting.”

The hallway feels colder than the room we just left, and I know it’s not the air. It’s me. The fury burns in the hollow of my ribs like swallowed coals, quiet and sharp. Elias follows behind me without speaking, letting the distance stretch until the door to the briefing room swings shut behind us. We reach the end of the corridor where the glass window overlooks the precinct parking lot. Rain still spits at the panes in soft, miserable gusts. The light outside has shifted gray, muted. Even the cars look half-alive in it.

“She’s not wrong,” Elias says quietly.

I press my thumb into my palm, hard enough to sting. “That’s not what’s bothering me.”

“No?”

“She didn’t need to act like we were two rookies with a vendetta and a dream. She hasn’t smelled the farmhouse rot or stood in that damn circle while some devotee was branded like livestock.”

Elias gives me a look. I cross my arms, jaw tight. “And since when do you play so nice?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Since when do you smile that much in a ten-minute meeting?” The words snap sharper than I intend.

His brow furrows. “She’s here to help us keep the case.”

“No. She’s here to help Major Crimes snatch it. And you—”

“I’m trying to keep us in it,” he cuts in, voice low but tight with strain. He takes a step closer to me and my breath catches. “If we push too hard, she has all the leverage she needs to shut us out completely. I’d rather have a seat at the table than be left outside wondering what’s on the plate.”

I hate that he’s right. I hate that he sounds reasonable. I hate that Locke’s face keeps flashing behind my eyes—composed, smart, calculating—and the part of me that should only care about this case is suddenly tangled in the feeling that I’ve been… replaced. Reassigned. Not in the operation, but in Elias’s eyes. I have compromised not just mine but his position as well. Put Kelsi at risk too.

“I know how to play nice too,” I say. “But I don’t trust people who enter the room already writing our obituary.”

Elias steps closer again, just a few inches, and drops his voice. I can smell his cologne and it’s dizzying in the midst of my rage fit. “You think I trust her more than you?”

“Aren’t we glad for support?”

“That’s not—” He stops, exhales. “You think I’d let anyone jeopardize you after what happened at the gathering?”

My throat tightens. The memory slams back into place like a door left ajar—except it’s not the memory of the gathering itself. It’s his hands on my shoulders, his voice steadying me in the dark, the heat of his body when I rested against him like gravity had finally pulled too hard. He sees the shift in my face and his expression softens.

“Dalia,” he says, low and urgent. “You can hate Locke. Fine. But don’t mistake strategy for distance.”

I want to say something cutting, something that keeps the walls up. I should be the one acting like Locke. Rational, calculating every step, analyzing opportunity.

“I don’t like being leashed,” I whisper.

“I don’t like you walking into danger without a hand to pull you back.”

His voice cracks just slightly on the last word and my heart gives that traitorous stutter again. He steps back then, not dramatically, just enough to give me space again, to let the heat settle.

I turn back toward the bullpen. “Let’s get her that damn report.”

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

Kelsi’s tech cave pulses in soft blues and whites like some kind of deep-ocean lab. She swivels in her chair as we step inside, a smudge of eyeliner streaking across her temple like war paint. The scent of energy drinks and static clings to everything, as always. At least some things don’t change.

“So, did Brynn Locke give you matching collars, or are you arguing over who gets the short leash?”

Elias groans softly. I don’t answer. I don’t have the patience for Kelsi’s flavor of sarcasm today.

Locke arrives moments later—still perfectly crisp jacket, tablet in hand. She doesn’t make eye contact with me, just takes a seat like she’s always belonged there, like this is her unit, her intel, her war. This is her power play, making sure I know my place. I let Elias’s words from earlier echo in my mind, steadying me. I’m a professional.

And I’m damn good at what I do.

I slide the evidence folder toward Locke. “Photos of suspects and surveillance from the café. Kelsi also pulled and matched most names to faces from the Facebook group and the cult gathering.”

Locke doesn’t say thank you. She opens the folder, flipping through it with that same surgeon’s precision demonstrated earlier. Her eyes linger on each picture.

“Is this the contact?” she murmurs, tapping one image where Raina is mid-turn, her mouth caught in half-speech.

“Yeah. She’s careful,” Elias says, pulling a chair closer.

Locke tilts the photo. “And you think she would be vulnerable to a turn?”

“No,” I answer. “She’s loyal to the idea and the people.”

Locke finally looks at me, eyes like polished slate. “So she’s your pressure point.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“No,” Locke says, “but you’re already tugging the thread.”

The implication settles like grit in my throat. I don’t like being read. Not by someone who sees the case in footnotes and suspects in percentages, not by someone who wasn’t at the farmhouse looking at the stitched together person with no name.

Kelsi interrupts the tension by dragging a new window onto the largest monitor. “I ran a facial comp between the photo of Ruth Quinn from the envelope and the latest café frame. It’s definitely Raina in both.”

“Build a profile,” Locke says immediately. “Everything we have on Raina. Associates. Employment. Residences. Track movements over the past year. I want to know where she gets her coffee and if she owns a cat.”

“We have already done that,” I answer bitterly.

“I want a clean case,” she ignores me. “What you two have built is commendable but messy. You’ve followed instincts and now we need structure.”

I feel that last word like a slap. Structure. As if everything we’ve done—everything I’ve risked—has been chaos masquerading as work. Maybe it was. Elias doesn’t say anything, but he stands and starts pinning up photos, names, timestamps. Kelsi’s monitor spills out surveillance grids and data crawls across the screen like ants swarming a carcass.

Locke turns to me. “You formed contact. That’s valuable. But you’re not going back under.”

I raise a brow. “That wasn’t a question.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

A flicker of something ugly burns behind my ribs. I look to Elias, but he’s watching Locke again, his expression unreadable and neutral.

He nods slowly. “There are other ways in.”

It stings, more than I expect. He’s playing nice again and Locke’s not oblivious to it. She glances his way, subtle, barely a smile—but enough. Perhaps she thinks her strategy is working and she has successfully sown the seeds of doubt in Elias. Or perhaps I’m the target.

And Elias is doing an awful good of job in assisting Locke.

“From here on,” Locke continues, tapping a few quick notes into her tablet, “we focus on knowns. The commune. Names. Land registry. Phone data. No more blind walks through the woods.”

My jaw tightens.

“Dalia’s alias could still hold,” Elias steps in. “If it’s a matter of trust, we can tighten protocols.”

Locke gives a small shake of her head. “Too risky. If she’s burned, we lose more than a cover—we lose access.”

“You don’t turn people like Raina by poking them with warrants,” I respond.

“You also don’t build cases on vibes and spiritual bonding.”

That one lands too well. Kelsi winces. Traitors.

Elias speaks again. “We’ve done everything we can to protect the integrity of the case.”

Locke looks at him, and there is a weird shift in her expression. “I believe that.”

Of course she does.

Locke rises, snaps the folder shut. “Keep digging. If Raina’s our link, then we either flip her or follow her to someone we can.”

And with that, she’s gone, footsteps echoing down the hall, clipped and confident. Elias exhales beside me. Kelsi mutters something under her breath and dramatically collapses onto her desk, sending an empty can spinning.

This sucks.

CHAPTER 18 >>

WHAT REMAINS UNSPOKEN [CH16]

ALL CHAPTERS HERE.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘ OVERSIGHT // ELIAS ⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

I’ve been watching the café door for forty-seven agonizing minutes.

The Pear & Birch sits pressed between an antique shop and a shuttered bookstore, its windows aglow with warm amber light, its sign swaying gently in the wind like it has nowhere better to be. The place looks soft, quiet—the kind of space where people pretend life doesn’t follow them inside. Chalkboard menu with little hearts around the word “chai.” Inside, Dalia is meeting a woman tied to a missing person. To a cult. To things neither of us fully understand yet.

And I’m parked thirty feet away, powerless.

Rain whispers against the windshield in slow, steady taps. Not enough to run the wipers, just enough to keep the glass blurry. I lean forward, trying to catch a glimpse of her silhouette through the window’s condensation. I think I see her—navy jacket, brown hair—but it could be anyone. That’s the point. She’s supposed to disappear in there.

I shift in my seat and the upholstery groans beneath me. The dashboard clock ticks over. Forty-eight minutes.

I rub a hand down my face and force myself to breathe. In. Out. Just like we practiced with victims on the edge of panic. Only now it’s me. No panic room or exit strategy. Just me, the steering wheel, and the phantom shape of Dalia behind fogged glass. She’d told me not to follow or to intervene unless something happened and I agreed, because I trust her instincts, but right now I hate it.

My coffee sits cold in the cup holder. I don’t even remember buying it.

The cult gathering night keeps replaying in flashes in my mind. Her voice hoarse from the nightmare, screaming for Wren. Her hand in mine. The weight of her against my side. The way she’d looked at me—just for a second—with nothing guarded in her eyes. Maybe that’s what’s tearing me apart now. I’m not afraid she can’t handle Raina, I’m afraid she’ll do it too well. That she’ll go too deep and not know how to come back.

The sky darkens and rain turns to mist. People pass by with collars up, umbrellas bobbing like black flowers. The café door opens. A man steps out, then leaves.

I grip the wheel.

She’s in there alone with someone who knows this cult from the inside and we have no clue what Raina wants. Redemption? Control? Or is she just another lost voice echoing someone else’s orders?

I lean back in the seat and close my eyes. All I can think of is the firelight catching the edge of Dalia’s jaw. The way her hands trembled around the necklace. The scent of sweat and metal and dirt after the ritual and how I couldn’t do a damn thing to help her except hold her afterward and hope it was enough.

A crack of laughter bursts from someone across the street. I jolt up, scanning the sidewalk. Just two kids going home after school, oblivious.

God, I hate this.

My phone buzzes once on the dash and I snatch it up, hands slightly trembling. Not her. Just a precinct update.

I toss it back into the cup holder. Forty-nine minutes.

I wonder what I’ll do if she doesn’t walk out, but just then the café door swings open and Dalia steps out.

She’s slower than usual, shoulders rounded against the drizzle, jacket zipped up to her chin. For a second, I think she’ll glance my way but she doesn’t. She turns left—away from me—toward the corner of the street like she doesn’t know I exist. Because, of course, I don’t. It’s the smartest move.

Raina follows her out just a breath later, standing beyond the café awning. She lingers long enough to look both ways before heading off in the opposite direction.

Dalia doesn’t look back and disappears around the corner like smoke. I don’t start the engine. Not yet. The wipers twitch once. I keep my hands on the wheel, every muscle buzzing with the ache to move. But surveillance 101—wait. Don’t spook the tail. Don’t shatter the illusion. Let the curtain fall before you go backstage.

Five minutes.

A pair of teenagers pass. A bike rattles by. The street resumes its rhythm like nothing just happened. I wait until the last of the foot traffic clears, then ease the car into motion quietly, like I’m just another part of the scenery. I round the corner.

There she is.

Dalia stands just out of view from the main road at a bus stop, hood up, one hand gripping her phone. Her eyes flick to the car as I pull to the side and the passenger door opens with a soft creak as she slides in without a word, closing the door shut behind her like she’s sealing off another world.

I check the mirrors and merge back onto the road, windshield smearing rain into the softest blur.

For a few seconds, we don’t speak. She shifts in her seat, pulls her hood down. Her hair—dyed a soft brown—clings slightly to her cheek. “She didn’t sound hostile. More like… curious. Like she thought I passed a test.”

I exhale through my nose. “That’s good. You sold it.”

“Maybe.” Dalia’s gaze stays forward, unreadable. “She invited me to meet more of them. Outside of the Circle, at a commune.”

That word freezes in the air between us. Commune.

I glance at her. “They live together?”

“Some of them,” she says. “It’s not required. But the devoted ones—she called them ‘keepers’—they stay there long term. There’s a rhythm to it. You get pulled in, step by step. Assimilation.”

I drive a little slower. “Proper cult vibes. You think Ruth was living there?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t bring her up.” Her hand tightens around her knee. “Raina said most new members are chosen at their first Circle. If Ruth came in through the same door I did…”

“She was marked from the beginning.”

Dalia doesn’t respond to that.

The wipers sweep across the glass again. Outside, lights blur across storefronts and puddles. Inside, the tension knots tighter between us.

“She asked me what I was searching for,” Dalia says finally. “They find the wound first, then they offer the salve.”

“And what did you say?”

“I told her I lost someone,” she says.

I don’t say anything to that.

“I didn’t have to fake that part.”

I glance over. Dalia’s face is calm, but I can see it—just beneath the surface. The ache. The splinter still lodged too deep to pull free. I want to reach for her, say something useful, something that doesn’t sound like I’m scared out of my damn mind. She leans back in her seat and closes her eyes, letting the hum of the car swallow the rest of the day, but her fingers keep twitching, like some part of her never made it out of that café.

And I keep glancing her way, like if I stop looking for too long, she’ll disappear.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

The scent of wet pavement clings to my coat as we step back into the precinct. Dalia brushes past me first, her expression unreadable, but her jaw’s tight, the muscle there twitching like she’s still hearing Raina’s voice in her head. I try not to look at her too long. We’re both running on fumes and adrenaline and whatever threads still keep me tethered to professionalism.

Inside, Kelsi’s already waiting, half-lurched across her desk in the tech cave, face lit by the bluish cast of four monitors. She raises a brow without lifting her head.

“You two look like roadkill. Good roadkill. But still.”

I ignore her. So does Dalia.

Kelsi gives us a side-glance, half amused, half wired. “Sooo, anything useful from your field trip?”

“There is a commune,” Dalia says flatly. She sets her notes down on the edge of the desk. “It’s a couple hours out—private land, closed perimeter. They call it a sanctuary.”

Kelsi snorts. “Yeah, so did Jonestown.”

Dalia nods. “Raina invited me.”

Kelsi’s fingers twitch toward her keyboard. “I’ll start mapping it.”

We’re barely two minutes into planning when the door slams open.

“Rowe. Wexler.” Captain Everett’s voice is a gunshot in a quiet room. I have almost forgotten about the bastard. He beckons to us to follow him.

Everett’s pacing behind his desk when we step inside, face weathered and flushed from whatever storm he’s been stewing in all day. He doesn’t offer seats, but that’s the usual. Doesn’t even look up right away, just holds up a file—ours, clearly—and then drops it onto the desk with a sharp slap of paper against wood. His bald head is shiny like a freshly polished bowling ball under the fluorescent lights.

“You’ve had two weeks,” he starts. “Two weeks of thin leads, strange detours, and nothing I can take upstairs without getting my ass handed to me.”

“We have new intel,” I say.

He throws a hand up. “From where? Magic?”

“We’re close—” I start, but he cuts me off with a hand like a blade.

“You’re nowhere. You’ve been tailing whispers and theories. No arrests. Not a single piece of actionable evidence I can take to the DA. Meanwhile, the higher-ups are circling like hawks, and Major Crimes is ready to pounce.”

Dalia speaks, voice even. “We found a commune and a woman from the group we think is responsible made contact. It’s the strongest lead we’ve had.”

Everett’s mouth goes tight. “What do you mean ‘contact’?”

Dalia doesn’t blink. “She reached out to our alias on the cult’s page. We set up a meeting.”

“Alias. You’ve been using a fake profile to talk to cult members?”

“We needed to get closer,” Dalia responds. “This was the only way.”

“And your plan is what? Stroll through their front gates without a warrant again and ask nicely if they have been chopping off hands?”

“I know the risks,” I can tell Dalia’s patience is wearing thin.

Everett’s bald head is starting to resemble a red balloon. His eyes flick to me, sharp. “And you knew about this?”

“I was the one watching her back.”

I don’t think I have seen the Captain really angry before. Sure, he was never a gentle leader, but this is a new level of pissed, even from Everett. “You two went undercover. Into an active, potentially dangerous religious compound. Without clearance. Without tactical support. Without telling anyone.”

Dalia doesn’t flinch. “I wore a wire.”

Everett laughs. A bitter, incredulous sound. “Great. So when your cover blows and they bury you out there in the trees, we’ll have crystal-clear audio of the first shovel hit.”

“We got a location,” she snaps back. “A real one. It’s off-grid, fortified, and houses new members. That includes potential previous victims.”

Everett stands. It’s not a dramatic thing, but the motion changes the shape of the room. Suddenly, we’re ten years younger, standing in front of a principal, not a commanding officer. And Dalia? She doesn’t move an inch.

“Sir,” I say carefully, “we acted cautiously. No operational details were compromised. Dalia—”

“You mean Detective Rowe posed as a potential cult recruit, made contact with an unknown element, embedded herself in a situation without authorization, without cover, without so much as a damn heads-up?”

The tension coils tight, a steel trap waiting for blood. I should really just shut up. Everett exhales through his nose, eyes flicking between us. His jaw shifts, like he’s trying not to grind it.

“This isn’t a noir drama. You answer to me. And you don’t get to decide whose life is worth gambling.”

Dalia stays quiet. I want to defend her, but I know when silence is the only thing that holds a thread intact.

Finally, Everett drops into his chair again, pinches the bridge of his nose.

“You got something good,” he mutters. “A location. Names. Faces.”

He looks up. “That’s the only reason I’m not pulling you both off this case and feeding it to Task Force.”

Our breath holds in unison.

“But this ends now. No more improvisation. No more unsanctioned operations. You want to keep your names on this case file, you’re going to file a full written report—tonight. Of everything, from the start. I want it in my inbox before tomorrow morning or it’s over.”

“Yes, sir,” Dalia says quietly.

“And I’m pulling in a babysitter.”

My stomach tightens.

“Someone from Major Crimes is going to liaise from here on out. Think of them as your leash. You’ll brief them on all infiltration progress. Any contact with cult members, any field work—they sign off on it. Not you.”

His eyes fix on Dalia.

“And if I even suspect you’re working around it, I’ll have your badge.”

I exhale slow, steady. Dalia gives Everett a stern nod.

“You can go. And thank whatever god you believe in that you brought me something worth not ending your careers over.”

CHAPTER 17 >>

WHAT REMAINS UNSPOKEN [CH15]

ALL CHAPTERS HERE.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘ THREAD // DALIA ⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

It’s late enough that most desks sit empty, their papers curling slightly at the edges like dried leaves. I stare at the screen in front of me, fingers hovering above the keyboard, not typing.

The message box is open. Waiting.

Across the room, Elias pretends to read over a stack of reports, but I can feel him watching. Not impatient, just present. The way you watch someone edging a cliff. Not because you don’t trust them, but because you’re terrified they will make one misstep, falling off, never to be seen again.

I scroll back through Raina’s profile, analyzing her like we used to study suspect photos. Something in the way she stands—always off-center in pictures, like she’s hiding from her own life—makes my gut tighten. In both images—Ruth’s old photo from the envelope and Elias’s recent surveillance shot—Raina is near the edge of the gathering. Watching and still. She’s not leading, but she’s not aimless either. It’s almost like she’s waiting for instruction orr maybe permission.

The screen glows pale across my face.

Hi, I saw your comment in the Church of Reclamation post. I’m new here, still figuring things out. It’s been hard finding people who understand what it feels like to be… searching. I’d love to talk if you’re open to it.

I reread it six times. The wording’s careful. Too careful?

“She won’t bite if you sound like a bot,” Kelsi said earlier.

My stomach is a coil of nerves I can’t unwind. Elias shifts in his swivel chair. I don’t look at him, but I hear the quiet thud of his mug hitting the desk.

“You’re overthinking it,” he says softly from across.

I glance at him. “That’s the job.”

He stands up from his desk and walks closer, enough for me to feel the faint stir of his warmth again. I should be used to it by now but I’m not. My body still reacts like it’s being handed something it forgot it needed. It’s been like this ever since the cult gathering.

“You trust her to be harmless?” he asks.

“I don’t even know her.”

“Exactly.”

I nod, eyes back on the screen. “I trust my instincts.”

I push back from the desk. The room feels smaller suddenly. I can hear Kelsi typing from her tech cave—probably digging deeper into the Church of Reclamation, trying to find a breadcrumb the cult didn’t cover with doctrine and gold foil. Elias leans against the edge of my desk, arms folded, silent. I hate waiting.

The precinct smells like dust and recycled air. That late-afternoon drag when the building feels like it’s breathing heavier than the people inside it. I stand and walk past the bullpen—desks abandoned, paper stacks left mid-collapse—and head straight for the only room still glowing. IT. The cave. Kelsi’s domain. Inside, it’s all cold light and the electric thrum of machines thinking too hard. Kelsi’s curled over her desk, boots up on a printer, typing one-handed and sipping what smells like battery acid, which is probably her third energy drink. Maybe her fourth.

Elias follows me, leaning against a filing cabinet like the concrete underneath him isn’t quite steady. I notice how his collar is unbuttoned, sleeves rolled. The kind of tired he’s not trying to hide anymore.

Kelsi doesn’t look up. “Your fake self is alive and well.”

I cross my arms. “Anything else we need to tweak before I try and make a new friend?”

She spins in her chair, one brow arched too-long bangs. “You’ve joined three grief forums, a healing yoga group, and something called Light Beyond Wounds.”

“That sounds like a skincare ad.”

Kelsi grins. “No. More like a pyramid scheme.”

The computer dings. Kelsi’s eyes flick to her screen before I can even react. “She answered.”

Everything inside me goes still. I half-run back to my desk too fast, chair wheels creaking, fingers suddenly cold despite the warm throb in my chest. The screen refreshes itself with a soft flicker. There it is.

Raina L. has sent you a message.

Elias hovers behind me, silent. I click it open.

Hey, I think I saw you at the last Circle… you were the one they called up, right? Most people don’t reach out after something like that, so either you’re curious, or brave. Maybe both. Want to grab a coffee?

I reread it, then again, and a third time, slower. She recognized me from the ritual, from the firelight and the chanting and the moment I said nothing as that young man stepped into the center of that circle. A version of me exists in her mind now. A silhouette shaped by secrets and half-light and tomorrow, she wants to meet her.

Elias’s quiet, but I can feel the resistance like static in the air between us. He’s holding it in, maybe because he knows he can’t stop me or maybe because he’s not sure if he should.

“What if this is how they pull people deeper?” he murmurs. “Start friendly. Build the trust. Then they ask you to give something up.”

“Then I’ll give her just enough,” I say, “until she gives me something real.”

“She’s cautious,” Elias says.

“She’s baiting,” I counter, but the words don’t land with conviction. I can’t tell yet. I don’t know if I want her to be dangerous or just lost. One is easier to confront. The other… might mean Ruth really had a chance. I lean back in my chair, eyes still glued to the message like it’ll shift if I blink too long.

“I’ll go,” I say.

Elias hums low, like he’s already preparing for battle. “You could wear a hidden mic and GPS bracelet.”

“You’ll be close, right?”

His eyes meet mine, sharp and unreadable. “Always.”

And just like that, the fear loosens in my chest—only slightly, but enough to breathe. I stare at the message one last time before typing my reply. I need to be measured. Gentle.

Thank you. Which cafe were you thinking?

I don’t hit send immediately. I glance back at Elias, his arms still crossed, jaw the usual tightness. He looks like he’s bracing for a punch that hasn’t landed yet.

“It will be fine,” I whisper, but in my gut, I know this is a step off that ledge. I hit Send. The reply disappears into the digital ether, and the screen stares back at me like it’s waiting to see if I flinch.

There’s a little place in Halloway called the Pear & Birch. Tomorrow, 4pm?

Just a meeting. Just talk.

Tomorrow, I meet Raina.

Tomorrow, the door opens wider.

Maybe that’s exactly what Ruth thought too.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

We’ve been parked here for twenty minutes, maybe longer. The engine’s off, but the car still carries the heat from the drive, its interior warm, like it’s trying to keep us suspended in a moment neither of us wants to admit is real. Outside, Halloway hums at a pace just slightly too slow for comfort. The café is across the street, all chipped paint and crooked charm. A hanging sign creaks faintly in the breeze: Pear & Birch. A little bell hangs above the red-painted door—scuffed from years of use, but still bright enough to catch the eye. The windows are fogged from the inside, glowing amber with light that spills over rows of worn wooden tables and mismatched chairs. A single plant in the window.

Elias sits beside me, hands loose on his knees. His coffee’s long gone cold, forgotten in the cupholder. I can feel his gaze every so often, flicking toward me, then away. He’s letting me have silence. He’s always been good at that—giving quiet without making it feel like absence. I stare down at my hands, knuckles pale. My nails are bare, trimmed short. Nothing about me screams believer, but the disguise runs deeper than hair dye and soft clothes. My voice has to shift. My posture. The role is supposed to feel like armor, but today it clings to my skin like wet fabric. Every breath feels like it might give me away.

I glance at the café again. Through the front window, I catch a silhouette. Could be Raina.

“She saw me,” I say. “At the fire.”

“I know.”

“She remembered.”

“She was meant to,” Elias says, his voice lower now. “You were the newest member.”

He shifts, turning slightly to face me.

“She could be dangerous,” he murmurs.

“So could I.”

He huffs out a dry laugh, but there’s no amusement in it, only tension, stretched tight between us, one thread away from fraying.

“Dalia,” he says.

I look at him. His mouth is a line. His eyes are oceans that could swallow me whole.

“If something doesn’t feel right—anything—get out.”

The air is thick between us now, heavy with things unspoken and I reach for the door handle.

“I’ll be careful,” I nod. He doesn’t stop me, but as I step out, I feel his gaze like a hand on my back—steady, tethering, warm. I close my eyes and I am no longer Dalia Rowe.

I am a wound, looking for light.

CHAPTER 16 >>

WHAT REMAINS UNSPOKEN [CH14]

ALL CHAPTERS HERE.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘ CONTACT // DALIA ⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

I walk through the front entrance with the weight of a sleepless night in my spine.

The warmth of the cabin, of Elias, is already slipping from my skin like water. All that’s left is the tension coiled tight between my shoulders and the echo of Jonas Vale’s voice. I’m halfway through the glass doors to my desk when Hutchins looks up from the front desk and lifts a hand. “Detective Rowe.”

His voice cuts clean across the lobby. He’s holding a manila envelope, the station’s address printed out in a neat font in the middle.

“Came in this morning,” he says as I approach.

“Who dropped it?”

Hutchins hands me the envelope. “The postman.”

My stomach tightens. I take the envelope from him and hold it at the edges, wondering whether I should get it screened for fingerprints, even though deep down I know it won’t yield anything. The envelope isn’t addressed directly to me or Elias and I’m about to ask Hutchins why he thinks its for me when I see it. The other side says ‘FARMHOUSE’ on it.

I should wait for Elias but my curiosity takes over. The seal fights me as I peel it open with one thumb, careful not to tear it. Inside, there’s one piece of thick cream-colored paper, almost card stock. There’s nothing on it. No writing or signature, just a blank piece of paper.

I open the envelope wider. The hallway tilts slightly beneath my feet.

“Dalia?”

I don’t turn immediately. The voice is familiar in a way that used to be comforting, but isn’t anymore. I stiffen, tucking the paper back into the envelope before turning. He’s standing at the end of the corridor, holding a brown paper bag in one hand and two coffees in a cardboard tray with the other. Dressed casual—faded shirt, sleeves rolled. His brown hair is too neat, the kind of neat that means he’s trying. I used to love that about him. The way he cared about showing up.

Markus. The door glides shut behind him with a hiss. He is smiling like this isn’t the first time he’s done this, like we’re still the couple who does brunch on Sundays. He steps forward, and I don’t move. I let him hand me the bag—warm, egg sandwich, probably with rye—and I force a thin smile. My usual, back when I still had one.

“Markus.” I keep my voice neutral, measured. “What are you doing here?”

He shrugs, like it should be obvious. “You haven’t been home. I texted. I figured—I don’t know, maybe this was one of those long weeks. Thought I’d swing by.”

I didn’t go home after the trip to Dunhaven Glade. I couldn’t.

I force a smile. “Thanks. You didn’t have to.”

He nods. “You look tired.”

Movement catches my eye and I see Elias walking up to the entrance of the station. His footsteps are deliberate, soft but solid as he walks through, a stack of files under one arm, a half-drunk coffee in the other. He waves to Hutchins, an easy smile playing on his lips.

“Morning,” Elias says as he walks past the two of us.

Markus glances over, slightly turning towards him. “Morning.”

The way he says it is too smooth. I can hear it in the undertone, the weight behind the syllables. I wonder if Elias hears it too.

Markus shifts again, eyes flicking to the envelope still in my hand. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah. Just casework,” I say automatically. I’m annoyed he is here.

Markus nods, but it doesn’t sit right. “Well… I’ll let you get back to it.”

He leans in slightly, just enough for the scent of his aftershave to hit me—a citrusy cologne. I hate the smell of it.

“Text me later?” he asks.

“Sure.”

Markus leaves, figure vanishing through the precinct doors like he was never here in the first place. I watch him go, then awkwardly catch up to Elias at my office desk.

“You okay?” he asks. I pass him the envelope in response. He takes it, brows knitting as he pulls the paper out. His jaw tightens, and his fingers flex once before handing it back. There’s a twitch in his fingers like he’s fighting the urge to crumple it.

“This is bold,” Elias says finally, staring at the second item that was inside the envelope. A photo.

Of Ruth Quinn.

She’s standing near the edge of a circle—campfire smoke curling around her shoulders like mist. Her ginger hair is longer than in the ID photo. Eyes wide. She’s wearing a threadbare dress, something floral, sleeves uneven. The firelight casts a bruised glow across one side of her face. People surround her, some sitting, some standing, but she’s the only one looking directly at the camera. Not with fear.

Belief.

“Looks similar to the Dunhaven gathering,” Elias murmurs.

I take the photo from his hand, fingers brushing his. The paper is matte and heavy, not printed from a home computer—this was processed, chosen, delivered.

Elias shakes his head as he turns the envelope, looking for more clues. ”They know.”

I ignore the comment.

“She was there,” I say. “Alive.”

“Dalia, the envelope says farmhouse,” Elias looks at me with an intensity I don’t want to acknowledge right now. “And there is a photo of Ruth.”

“They want us to know,” I say slowly.

“You don’t wanna hear it, do you?”

“Kelsi might be able to run comparisons. If we can match faces from old gatherings, we can build a pattern.”

Elias frowns. “Dalia—”

I point to the slightly blurry person behind Ruth on the photo. “That looks like Vale.”

Elias grabs my left shoulder. He isn’t rough but the contact shocks me, like electricity running through wire.

“She is dead, Dalia. She is quite likely the woman in the farmhouse we couldn’t identify.”

It’s my turn to frown at him. “We don’t know that.”

“Regardless,” Elias lets go of my shoulder. “This is a threat.”

I fold my arms in front of me. “What’s up with you?”

He doesn’t say anything, just watches me for a moment longer. “Let’s go to Kelsi.”

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

Kelsi is mid-mouthful of granola when we barge into her office, slightly breathless from the conversation with Elias. I can still feel the weight of the envelope in my hands, even though Elias is the one carrying it now. I trail behind him like a ghost of my own nerves.

Kelsi’s fingers freeze above her keyboard, spoon dangling from the other hand. She glances between us and the envelope in Elias’s hand. “Please tell me that’s not another antique murder postcard.”

“No,” I say. “Worse.”

Elias drops the envelope on her desk. She wipes her fingers on a napkin and slides the photo from the sleeve like she’s opening a cursed letter. The second she sees Ruth, her expression changes. No more snark. Just a quiet, focused narrowing of the eyes.

“Where’d this come from?”

“Postman dropped it off,” I reply. “Said ′farmhouse’ on the envelope, so Hutchins knew it was our case.”

Kelsi spins her chair to her workstation and sets the photo gently beneath her document camera. The light glints off the image as she pulls it up onscreen, her fingers already dancing across the keyboard like she’s trying to beat the image into compliance. Lines sharpen. Faces come into focus.

“Damn.” Kelsi mutters.

I fold my arms, eyes locked on the screen. “Someone inside the Church of Reclamation is keeping tabs.”

Kelsi clicks twice, and the screen flares to life with the photos Elias took. The resolution improves again, pulling the background faces into jagged half-clarity. Most of them are blurred—just indistinct enough to escape recognition. Then, Kelsi pulls up the picture of Ruth from the envelope right next to it.

Kelsi points to a woman—late thirties, maybe early forties, curly brown hair pulled into a messy bun, expression soft.

“She’s looking at Ruth,” I say slowly.

“You’ve seen her before,” Kelsi nods at her. She taps another key. The image vanishes, replaced by another still pulled from Elias’s footage at the last cult gathering. It’s darker—firelight flickering, faces half-shadowed—but she’s there. Same woman. Same bun. This time, her hands are raised in front of her chest in an open-palmed prayer gesture.

“She was there,” Elias mutters. “Last Friday. Same woman. That’s… four years apart.”

“Same person,” I confirm. “No doubt.”

Kelsi splits the screen and lays the two images side by side. Even with the differences in lighting, posture, and context, it’s unmistakable.

“Let’s find her.” Kelsi pulls up the fake Facebook page and after a few clicks, we have our person. The woman, called Raina Ellery, had been circling this group for a long time.

The screen shifts again—this time to Raina’s Facebook profile. It’s curated with intent. Every picture looks casual, but lands just shy of posed. A mix of spiritual imagery, wellness quotes, and cryptic mentions of the Church. She writes like someone who wants to be seen as both enlightened and unreachable.

Kelsi scrolls faster now. “She reposts Vale’s writings. Replies to comments like she’s moderating.”

“She’s going to be at the next gathering,” I say. “That’s not a question.”

I tap my fingers against the edge of Kelsi’s desk, mind spiraling into motion. The profile is just a shell, but I know better. I’ve seen that kind of shell up close. People who hide in plain sight, wear serenity like armor, who speak in soft syllables while moving bodies in the dark.

“If she saw me last time,” I say, “and she’s in with the inner circle—then we need her to trust me.”

“Dalia,” Elias warns.

“She won’t trust a stranger,” I say. “But maybe she’ll talk to someone who was chosen by Vale before.”

There’s a pause. Not silence—Kelsi’s server rack is humming, her screens flickering—but the emotional kind. Elias doesn’t like this. He doesn’t have to say it.

Kelsi swivels lazily in her chair, one boot hooked on a drawer handle, nail polish half-flaked and unapologetic. “You’re talking about walking up to a senior cult member and saying what? ‘Hi, loved your emotionally manipulative confession ritual. Want to get coffee?’”

I glance at her. “Subtlety’s not your strong suit, is it?”

“Sweetheart, I work in a bunker full of blinking lights and surveillance spiders. If subtlety paid my rent, I’d be homeless.”

Elias runs a hand down his jaw. “We don’t know what she’s capable of.”

“We didn’t know what Jonas was capable of either,” I shoot back. “And he picked me out of a crowd.”

“Exactly,” Elias snaps. “You think that was a coincidence? You think you can just walk into the den again and hope Raina plays nice?”

“I don’t hope,” I say flatly. “I calculate risk. And this one’s worth it.”

Kelsi cocks her head, watching me. Her eyes are sharp despite the smudged eyeliner, reading every microshift in my posture.

“She looked at Ruth like she meant something,” I add. “If there’s any way to know what happened to her—to stop this from happening to anyone else—then it is worth the risk.”

Kelsi leans back, her expression unreadable. Elias doesn’t speak. Maybe he hoped there would be more time between the last cult meeting and the next.

“I’m not asking for permission,” I add, quieter now.

Kelsi lets out a low breath and rolls her chair back to the keyboard. “Fine. Let’s message her.”

Elias still hasn’t said anything. Not directly.

I turn to him. “Say it.”

He shakes his head. “No.”

“Say it anyway.”

Elias studies me with that same unreadable stillness he wears like a second skin. But I know him better. Enough to see the twitch of his jaw, the slight drag of his thumb across his knuckles. He’s holding something back. Maybe a dozen things.

“She could be bait,” he says finally. “You know that, right? She might be nothing. Or worse, she might be exactly what they want you to find.”

I nod. “I know.”

His eyes narrow slightly. “And you’re still going to message her.”

“Yes.”

Kelsi mutters, “Well, someone has to be the match in this powder keg.”

She scrolls, clicks. The screen lights up brighter than before. I turn to Elias again, steadier this time. “If it were me in that photo—if it were someone you cared about—you’d do the same.”

He doesn’t respond and that’s answer enough for me.

CHAPTER 15 >>

WHAT REMAINS UNSPOKEN [CH13]

ALL CHAPTERS HERE.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘ VIGIL // ELIAS ⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

Her scream is still echoing inside my chest.

I try not to clatter the mugs. The cabin’s kitchenette is barely a kitchen—just a chipped laminate counter and a single-burner stove with buttons so faded you have to guess what temperature you’re playing with. Dalia’s still in the other room, the door cracked open just enough that I can hear movement. Pacing, maybe. She didn’t go back to sleep after the nightmare. Neither did I.

It’s been hours since the ritual ended, but I keep seeing her face under that firelight, the way she stood with the chain clutched in her hand, pretending to be someone else. I didn’t know how to reach her, laying on that damp forest floor with a camera in one hand, burner phone to the right of me. All I could do was watch as Jonas Vale picked her out of the crowd and she was made a part of their sick ritual. And when she came back...

I wanted to pull her into me last night. Wrap her up and remind her she wasn’t alone, that she didn’t have to be the strongest one in every goddamn room. I know the walls she’s built are there for a reason. You don’t scale them, you wait until she opens the gate herself. But that dream, that scream—Christ, it almost brought me to my knees. When she screamed, it felt like something inside me cracked open and I ran before I even thought to. My body knew it was her and it felt like she let me in. Just a little. Just enough. Now I can’t stop thinking about it: her palm over mine, the way our hands trembled together, the soft weight of her leaning into me on that couch like she was finally giving in to gravity.

The kettle hisses and I pour slowly. Two mugs. I know how she takes it: black, no sugar, like sweetness is a luxury she doesn’t get to want. Mine would be with two spoons of sugar if only we had it. I pour a splash of milk into my mug and take a sip. I keep glancing at the door, waiting for her shadow to appear, waiting for her to sit next to me like last night meant something real. When she finally appears, the light cuts across her face like watercolor—half-shadow, half-sunrise from the pale morning light. She’s in one of my hoodies, sleeves too long. She asked me for it before I left the bedroom to make coffee.

She doesn’t want to feel like Claire anymore.

Her hazel eyes flick from the food to me, then down to the table. For a moment, she doesn’t look like the detective I’ve worked with for years. She looks like Dalia. Just Dalia. My heart aches to see her wake up every morning like this.

“You cooked.”

I shrug, sliding her mug toward her. She sits slowly, as if her limbs are remembering how to move in real life. Her hand curls around the coffee like it’s a life raft.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” she says apologetically.

“You didn’t.” I pause. “I hope the eggs are edible.”

That earns me a small smile.

She drinks slowly, watching me over the rim of the mug. I can feel her thinking, turning the events of the night over in her head like a piece of glass, looking for edges. I set a plate in front of her—scrambled eggs, toast, some sad slices of apple from a gas station pack we picked up on the way here. It’s something. Something that says: I’m here. I care. Let me.

“I was thinking,” I say, easing into the seat across from her, “maybe we go over what we’ve got. While it’s still fresh.”

It’s not that I have no empathy for what she has been through, I just simply know her better. She wants to work through the evidence, find the threads and understand how the cult fits into all of this, disappearing into the work to shed the skin of Claire. She nods, almost too eager and I unlock my phone. I show her the photos—Jonas Vale, the firelight, the boy kneeling while the people in white hover over him—and she studies them like her life depends on it.

“I didn’t want you to see me that way,” she says, so quiet it’s almost nothing. “Weak. Afraid.”

My throat closes up. “You think that’s what I saw?”

She doesn’t answer.

“Dalia,” I say, and it lands heavy, real, everything I’ve been holding back packed into just her name. “You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met. Don’t tell me that wasn’t brave.”

Her expression hardens—back to detective, back to steel—but I see the flicker of emotion before the mask sets in. She sets her coffee down and leans in, our shoulders touching.

The first image is wide: Dunhaven Glade lit by fire, bodies in loose rings like predators pretending to be prey. The next few are closer—cropped shots of who I assumed was Jonas Vale, his mouth open mid-chant, everyone staring at him like he is some prophet.

“That’s Jonas,” she says, voice low.

“And the boy?”

“Don’t know,” Dalia swallows. “He confessed to...”

She closes her eyes for a second, the memory still vivid in her mind.

“Animal abuse.”

Maybe I should have chosen a different time to discuss this rather than breakfast and suddenly I feel like an idiot.

“They made me brand him,” she continues. “With the spiral.”

I nod. “Do you think he is the next target?”

Her eyes drift to the window. Beyond it, the sky is pale and smudged like an old bruise.

“I have to go back in,” she murmurs.

I close my eyes. I already knew she would want to.

She looks up at me, eyes burning into mine. “If we drop out now, we lose everything.”

I sigh, leaning back into the dining chair. “I know. I’m not asking you to walk away.”

Her brows lift just slightly, but she doesn’t say anything. My hands itch to reach out again.

“I never thanked you,” she says, suddenly. “For last night.”

“You don’t need to.”

“I do.” Her voice softens. “You grounded me.”

“I’m with you,” I respond. “All the way.”

Dalia offers a tired smile. She tucks her legs under her in the chair, arms folded over her middle like she’s trying to hold herself together. And God help me, all I want to do is reach across this shitty table, cup her face in my hands, and promise she doesn’t have to keep doing this alone.

But she needs my presence, not my longing. “And if they push you further next time?”

“I’ll deal with it.”

“Dalia—”

Her eyes harden, and there’s something in them that silences me. Not anger. Grief, worn smooth and sharp at the same time.

“If we lose this case, we lose the trail. We lose Ruth Quinn. And who knows who else.”

I nod slowly, though everything in me revolts at the thought of letting her go back in alone.

“Then we prepare.”

“Agreed.”

I don’t say what I’m thinking. That watching her walk into that circle again might undo me. That every second she was gone felt like my chest had caved in.

I just refill her coffee and sit a little closer than I need to, because for now, this is enough.

CHAPTER 14 >>

WHAT REMAINS UNSPOKEN [CH12]

ALL CHAPTERS HERE.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘ TREMOR // DALIA ⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

Elias is on his feet the second I enter. Jacket still on, phone clenched in his hand. His eyes rake over me—coat, hair, face.

“Dalia.”

I’ve never been so glad to hear his voice. He is still fully dressed, hair mussed from raking his hands through it too many times, worry carved into the corners of his mouth. His eyes sweep over me like a searchlight, over and over. Not invasive, just frantic. Silently counting limbs, looking for damage.

His voice is gravel. “Jesus, Dalia.”

My arms ache from tension I haven’t let go of yet.

“I’m fine,” I say, and it’s a lie, and we both know it.

Elias crosses to me in two long strides. He doesn’t touch me but he’s close enough that I can feel the warmth radiating off his body, close enough that if I shifted even slightly, I’d brush against his chest.

“I thought—” He stops himself. Clenches his jaw. His hand twitches like he wants to reach for me but doesn’t know where to land.

“I’m here,” I whisper.

“This could have been disastrous,” His voice breaks on it.

“I had to make them believe I was one of them.”

“And if something had happened to you?”

“Nothing did.”

“That’s not the point, Dalia.”

He says my name like it’s been burning the back of his throat for hours. I exhale. It comes out shaky and my legs are threatening to give, and maybe he sees it—because suddenly his hands hover just inches from my arms, not touching, but ready.

“I need to sit,” I mutter.

He backs away instantly, giving me space without making it feel like distance. I sink onto the couch, legs folding beneath me, spine bowed. He lowers himself beside me and his knee brushes mine. He doesn’t move it.

“Are you hurt?” he asks softly. “Anywhere?”

I shake my head.

And then—

His hand, fingertips only, rests on my forearm, barely even there. As light as breath, but I feel it like an electric current. Steady. Anchoring. He’s trembling. I can feel it on my skin, the aftershock of what-ifs. I should pull away. I should say something dry or deflective or sharp.

But I don’t. Instead, I put my hand over his, realizing I’m also shaking. I don’t look at him when I say it.

“I thought about you.”

He doesn’t speak, just gently turns his hand over squeezing mine like it’s a lifeline, the way someone keeps you tethered to something human when the rest of the world is trying to rip that part of you away. I slightly tighten my grip. Neither of us lets go.

I exhale through my nose, eyes closed. “They made him confess.”

My thoughts trail off and I suddenly realize my fingertips sting, probably from when I touched the hot chain. Elias’s eyes drop to my hands as I’m staring at it.

“You saw it, didn’t you?” I ask.

“Yeah.”

“You trusted me.”

“I always trust you.” His eyes flick up to mine. The words settle between us like dust, unavoidable, weightless and heavy all at once. I trust him too.

“You look like hell.”

“Yeah. Well.” He gives me a dry smile. “You try sitting in a room, picturing someone you—”

He stops himself and I feel my throat tighten. I look at him fully then, really look. There’s something about the way he sits, the careful stillness, like he’s trying not to shake apart in front of me. The lamp behind him casts shadows across his jaw, softening the edges. He has the kind of face people remember—handsome, open, trustworthy. It’s why suspects talk to him. And he’s looking at me like I’m the only thing in the room that matters.

I don’t deserve that look.

His thumb strokes once over the back of my hand, then he slowly pulls away.

“You’re good at this,” I whisper.

“Good at what?”

“Making me feel like I’m not coming apart.” I glance down at his hand.

I want to say thank you.

I want to say don’t let go.

“You should sleep,” I say. The words come out soft and brittle.

He smiles, just slightly. “You first.”

I snort. “That’s not happening.”

He lets his head fall back against the couch, blonde strands still messy. For a moment, I think the tension might break there, splinter into something lighter, but he turns toward me again, and something in his eyes drags us both back down.

“You scared me,” he says, voice barely audible.

I blink.

“There was this one moment…” His jaw tightens. “I thought it was going to be the last time I saw you.”

I shift and press my forehead gently to his shoulder. It’s more than I’ve given anyone in years. He doesn’t say more, just turns his head slightly until his cheek brushes the top of my hair.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” I murmur.

His hand lifts again, rests lightly against my back. I feel the warmth of it through the layers of cotton, seeping in. My whole body feels like it’s trying to lean into him without permission. He was the only voice I imagined through the dark, in those moments when Jonas picked me. My mouth opens. Closes. There are too many things I want to say. That I’m scared too. That I keep waking up with her name on my tongue—Wren—and I don’t know what it would do to me if we found her like that body in the farmhouse. That I don’t know how to be someone soft anymore.

But I say none of it. Because this moment feels safe and I don’t want to break it.

So I stay where I am against him, letting myself exist there.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

Wren stands in the doorway, lit from behind like a silhouette cut from light.

The hallway stretches too long, warped like a photograph held too close to flame. Its walls bulge and breathe, as if the entire space is alive and waiting. Wallpaper peels in long, curling strips, sagging like the tired skin of something ancient. Wren doesn’t blink or move. She’s barefoot. The sleeves of her pink hoodie hang too far past her wrists, stained darker at the ends. There’s something wrong with her hands. I can’t see them clearly, but they twitch every so often like she’s trying to hold something invisible.

“Wren,” I say again, voice catching in my throat like a bad memory. “Sweetheart.”

Her mouth opens slowly, like it hurts and I expect her to call for me but no sound comes out. Her lips shape something else entirely. Something I can’t name, but I feel it in my bones. Behind her, shadows drip down the walls like oil, thick and slow. A flickering light sputters overhead. It’s not electric, more like fire caught under glass.

There is a heavy chain around Wren’s neck. The charm rests against her chest, catching the flickering light just enough for me to recognize the spiral. The same spiral that burned into the boy’s skin. The same one carved into the floorboards in the farmhouse.

My breath stutters. “No, baby, not that. You can’t wear that—”

Her arms lift, but they’re not her arms. Too long. Too pale. The skin shifts with the wrong kind of bend, like joints rearranged under pressure. She holds her hands out to me, blood dripping from her fingertips in slow streams. It spatters the carpet, but the carpet doesn’t soak it up.

“Give her back,” she whispers. It’s not Wren’s voice. An echo behind an echo. A child speaking with a voice too deep, too old.

The walls stretch taller. The hallway closes in. I take a step, but my feet stick like glue to the floor. A second step, harder. My knees tremble. I have to get to her. I have to—

But she’s already stepping back, melting into the dark.

“No—Wren!”

A sudden heat floods the hallway. The spiral glows. Not only on the pendant anymore, but everywhere, crawling up the walls, curling around the doorframes, etched into the ceiling like constellations of suffering. The light is gold, then white. Behind Wren, a figure appears, arms outstretched like a parody of salvation.

“You gave up on her,” the voice says.

“No.” My throat burns. “I never stopped looking.”

Wren’s eyes flick up, and this time, she sees me. She opens her mouth and screams—

The door crashes open like a gunshot.

“Dalia—”

His voice cuts through the haze like a blade but my name is reshaped into something gentler. I’m already halfway upright, heart still jackhammering against my ribs, hands clenched in the motel sheets. I feel him before I see him—Elias. The weight of him on the edge of the bed, the heat from his body sinking into mine like a shock to the system. His hands don’t touch me at first, but they hover. I can feel the indecision in the air. Then one finds my shoulder, warm and steady. No pressure. Presence.

“I’m okay,” I lie, barely a whisper. My voice is hoarse. My throat burns.

“You screamed.” I can barely see him in the darkness. “You said her name.”

I close my eyes. My fingers curl tighter in the blanket. “It was just a dream.”

“Doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt.”

It’s too much—the cult gathering, Wren, his voice, the fact that he came running.

“I saw Wren,” I say. “She was in a hallway. She had the spiral on, like it was hers. Marked.”

He doesn’t say anything, just listens, lets the quiet stretch, thick and necessary.

“She didn’t say anything at first. Only… stared. And then someone was behind her.”

My chest tightens again. My whole body’s still vibrating, like the dream’s trying to pull me back under.

“It’s just my brain messing with me,” I say quickly. “Trauma paints ghosts.”

Elias doesn’t argue. He just reaches down and takes one of my hands—slowly, like he’s afraid I might break.

“I know,” he says. “But it still feels real.”

I let him hold my hand. His skin is warm, fingers callused. He rubs his thumb over the back of mine, a small, anchoring motion that makes it harder to breathe in the best and worst way.

“I hate that it still gets me like this.”

“You’re allowed,” he says.

I finally look at him. His hair’s a mess, his shirt wrinkled like he threw it on without thinking. There’s something in his face—tight, quiet, strung with worry like he’s trying not to show it but doesn’t quite succeed.

The contact makes my heart stutter.

“You’re safe,” he murmurs.

Something in me crack, just enough to let the ache in. I nod. I don’t trust my voice.

We sit like that for a long moment, my hand in his, his presence wrapped around me like armor. The edges of the dream fade. The motel walls feel solid again. The sheets, though damp with sweat, don’t feel like restraints anymore. He releases my hand, but it’s not abrupt. His fingers trail away like a secret he doesn’t want to give up. He stands slowly, gaze lingering.

“I’ll make coffee,” he says.

I watch him leave. The door clicks softly behind him, and I stay where I am, sitting in bed, fingers still tingling where his had been.

CHAPTER 13 >>

WHAT REMAINS UNSPOKEN [CH11]

ALL CHAPTERS HERE.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘ MARKED // DALIA ⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

I wake to the smell of burnt coffee.

The light in the cabin has shifted—soft and gray at the edges, bleeding through the cracks in the curtains like the morning isn’t sure it wants to arrive. My neck aches—I’ve fallen asleep half-curled on the couch, a throw blanket tucked around my legs.

Elias.

I sit up slowly, the couch creaking as I move. The cheap laminate table is littered with notes from the night before, maps I scratched out in pencil, a short list of supplies in Elias’s slanted print. I hear him walking around outside, boots on frost-stiffened grass, pacing. I brush a hand through my hair—darker than it used to be, the temporary dye clinging to the strands. I catch myself in the mirror and pause. Not me. This woman looks like she belongs on that fake profile we built. A little too tired, a little too clean. She could be anyone. A widow. A believer.

Perfect.

I wash my face with water that smells like copper and wipe it off with a paper towel. Then I pull on my boots, re-tie the laces too tight, and head out. Elias is crouched beside a pine trunk. He doesn’t look up right away.

“You didn’t sleep,” I say.

He smiles, faint. “Didn’t need to.”

“We’ve got six hours,” he continues, straightening. “The group’s been quiet online since the last post. No new location chatter. No member activity flagged. Kelsi thinks they’re prepping off-grid.”

I nod. “Then we’re on our own.”

He studies me. “You good?”

I shrug. “Good enough.”

It’s not a comfort, but it’s honest. We go over the plan again—simple and tight. No heroics. No improvisation unless absolutely necessary. If something goes wrong during infiltration, I’m to say the safe phrase—“vanilla ice cream”—and extract immediately. If I can’t, Elias pulls me out in ten minutes, no matter what. Period.

He agreed to it and I know he hates it.

I pull out the pamphlet from my hoodie, the one we took from Ridgepath. The Vessel Suffers For Our Salvation. My fingers trace the letters pressed into the paper. I wonder how many people read those words and felt saved. I wonder how many are still missing.

“You ever think,” I ask suddenly, “what it feels like to believe something this deeply?”

Elias doesn’t answer right away.

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “I do.”

I don’t ask what he means.

Above us, a bird shrieks—sharp and quick, lost in the wind. I close my eyes for just a moment, just long enough to hold the sound. I’m starting to feel nervous now. The buzzing hum beneath all this, the thing this group is building toward. And whatever happens next, I have to walk into it like I believe too.

We sit outside the cabin on the wooden steps for a little bit, side by side, wrapped in silence that doesn’t press too hard. Elias keeps his gaze on the trees. He hasn’t said anything in the last twenty minutes, but I can feel him thinking—feel it in the way his fingers twitch near his knee, in the way his foot taps a rhythm into the step. Restless, contained.

“They’ll be watching the road,” I say. “We go in from the ridge line.”

He nods, slow. “I checked the maps again. It’s a three-mile loop through the back trail. Rough terrain.”

“I’ll manage.”

I glance over. He’s already looking at me, and the weight of it hits low—something old and protective and complicated.

“You trust me?” I ask.

“More than anyone.”

I want to believe that should make this easier. It doesn’t.

I stand and move back inside. Time to get ready. The table’s covered in gear—burner phone, emergency comms, clothes for the persona I’ll wear tonight. A nondescript jacket. Loose-fit jeans. Worn sneakers with the laces stained just enough. Elias even aged the soles so they wouldn’t look new. I take the burner phone apart, check the SIM, reassemble it, then set it down next to my ID folder. One name. One face. One shot.

Behind me, I hear Elias’s boots on the porch. Then the door opens.

“Dalia?” His voice is just above a whisper.

“Yeah.”

“Come back in one piece.”

I close my eyes and smile at him.

“Always do.”

But I don’t know if that’s still true.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

The woods look like they’ve been waiting for me. More likely, I’m just paranoid. It’s a thought I shouldn’t have, but can’t shake. The deeper I hike, the more the trees begin to feel posed—branches reaching out just a little too deliberately, trunks too evenly spaced, the path too clear despite the underbrush. I don’t want to admit to myself how anxious I actually am.

The sun’s long gone now, but the moon—bloated, silver—guides me through the undergrowth like an accomplice. Elias is nearby, I’m sure of it, but this part is mine. Mine to carry, mine to risk.

I’ve become her. The woman I built over the last week in front of monitors and mirrors and fake prayer circles. Bookish. Open-hearted. Hurting but hopeful. A threadbare single mother clinging to the promise of community. Hair dyed a warmer brown, ends uneven enough to pass for neglect. Minimal makeup. Nothing sharp or loud.

My thoughts beat louder than my footsteps. Every branch creak becomes a whisper, every rustle a warning. But I keep going forward, toward the firelight ahead.

When I crest the hill, I see them. Scattered figures moving in the clearing below, loose shapes in plain clothes, drifting through the trees like shadows in orbit. There is a soft murmur of easy chatter synchronized with the crackle of flames and the hush of pine needles shifting under their feet. Candles burn low in shallow bowls placed in a circle around a central fire. I count forty people, maybe fifty. It’s hard to tell. They don’t cluster, but drift like smoke.

I stop just inside the tree line, inhale once. A long, steady breath that doesn’t calm me.

This is it.

I step forward. One foot, then the other, until I break through the last of the pines and cross into a group of people. No one turns. They don’t sense the threat because I’m a part of them, another lost soul seeking redemption through whatever means. Belonging. I drop my chin and let the role settle deeper into my bones, relaxing a bit. The woman they’re expecting isn’t confident. She’s curious, fragile, still grieving. She walks like her hope might shatter if someone reaches for it too fast.

The smoke coils upward into the canopy, and I realize I can’t see the sky anymore, only branches stitched tight overhead, framing this place like a closed lid.

A man passes me without a word, carrying a bundle of rosemary in one hand, drops it into the fire as he goes. The smoke sharpens—herbal and bitter, makes my throat ache. Another woman kneels near one of the candle bowls, murmuring something too soft to hear. There’s no check-in, no one waiting with a list to strike your name through it. You show up, or you don’t. You belong, or you don’t. The line is invisible and that’s what makes it dangerous. I find a place near the edge of the circle, not too close to the fire and not too far from the trees. Close enough to run if I have to. I fold my hands in front of me and wait.

I wonder where Elias is. His presence, even though it’s invisible, calms me.

I clench my jaw and force my breathing to slow.

Jonas Vale hasn’t appeared yet, but the space is already shaped around him, the kind of power that doesn’t require presence. Someone begins humming, low and rhythmic. Then another joins in. Then another, until it becomes a web of sound, winding through the trees, vibrating in my teeth. The gathering has begun.

And I am one of them.

Suddenly, the humming stops all at once. It cuts off mid-breath, mid-note, like someone flipped a switch. The absence rings louder than the sound ever did. That’s when I see him. Jonas doesn’t stride into the clearing. He doesn’t announce himself or demand attention. He simply emerges—like the forest parted for him specifically. His coat is long, deep brown like tree bark, with an old-fashioned collar and cuffs that look handmade. He carries nothing. No book, no candle, no symbol of faith. He doesn’t need one. He is the symbol.

People part for him without speaking, eyes filled with reverence. The circle widens as if the fire itself leans back to make room.

I study his face. The photos online didn’t do him justice—not because he’s attractive, but because they missed the precision of him. How symmetrical he is, cheekbones and chin carved to invite trust. Brown hair too neat. Eyes too bright, too friendly. It’s all been smoothed into something palatable. Except for the smile.

It’s wrong. Uncanny. The corners of his mouth tug upward just enough to imply warmth, watching the crowd like a shepherd counts sheep before a slaughter.

He raises one hand.

“We are here,” he says. The voice is gentle, like a storybook narrator. Goosebumps rush over my body.

“We are ready,” The group responds in perfect synchrony, like breath. “We are the light.”

The cadence is rehearsed—repeated until memorized, until meaning is replaced by obedience. Vale lowers his hand. He walks the circle’s edge slowly, making eye contact with nearly every person there. When he passes me, I feel the brush of his gaze like a weight settling over my shoulders, even though I’m not front row. My body reacts instinctively—heart rate ticks higher, skin too tight—but I keep my expression soft. Open. I’ve worn this mask before, in grief.

Jonas pauses at the fire, crouches beside it. He picks up a bowl of something dark—ashes, maybe—and sprinkles a pinch into the flame. The fire flares, just slightly, and I swear the smoke shifts direction. He begins to speak.

“They will mock what they don’t understand. They always have.” His tone is calm, intimate, like he’s telling a secret to the whole group at once. “But we? We understand.”

Deep. I try not to make a face. A few murmurs rise around me, people nodding. Soft hums of agreement.

“The world demands blood for peace. We offer it freely. The vessel suffers for our salvation.”

I flinch, but only inside, my fingers twitching at the phrase. The slogan, the thread we followed here. And now, hearing it out loud, it sounds worse. Less like doctrine and more like prophecy. I wonder if Jonas speaks loud enough for Elias to hear, and whether he feels the same.

Someone across the fire—a woman, maybe mid-50s, in a pale shawl—lowers to her knees, arms open like she’s receiving something. A blessing. I don’t know. Jonas looks at her a beat too long, then returns his attention to the group.

“Tonight,” he says, “is not for questions.”

His gaze snags on someone—out of view, to my left. “Tonight is for surrender.”

This doesn’t sound particularly family-friendly.

From the trees behind him, two figures step forward. Both women, both in white. One carries a folded linen sheet, the other a brass bowl. I catch the glint of water so it’s not just a prop. One of the women sets the bowl at Jonas’s feet. The other holds the cloth out to him, reverent. He turns slowly, then speaks again.

“Who among you is ready?”

My throat dries. For a long moment, no one moves.

Then, a young man—barely out of his teens, I’m guessing—steps forward, fists clenched tight. His lip trembles, nodding once. The kind of nod you give yourself before jumping into something cold and irreversible.

Jonas beckons.

The boy kneels at the fire’s edge. One of the women wets the linen and presses it to his forehead. Then his temples. Then his mouth. Baptism through silence and anticipation.

He starts crying. Quietly, like a child trying not to wake a parent and no one comforts him. Jonas simply lays a hand on the boy’s shoulder, then moves on.

“Tonight,” he repeats, “is not for questions.”

The members are all folding themselves around him, leaning into his calm, his certainty. Vale lets the weight of the world do the work for him, and offers a way to carry it. I look around the circle. Every face is focused, every posture open. They want this, whatever this is. They want it enough to unmake themselves a little.

I lower my gaze and attempt to do the same. My thoughts are racing. Where’s the real power here? What’s being promised in secret? And where does it end?

Ruth Quinn. The unknown woman in the farmhouse, strung together like a doll. And who knows, how many other.

I ground myself, focusing on the ritual unfolding in front of me. The other woman in white lays the damp cloth across young boy’s shoulders like a mantle. His spine straightens. His mouth begins to move, whispering something I can’t hear. Over and over again.

“The Vessel suffers for our salvation.”

Then Jonas Vale looks at me. No words, no nod. Just a hand, extended toward me, palm up.

I freeze and I have to remind myself—I’m not Dalia here.

The circle parts for me as I step forward, all eyes suddenly trained on me. I hope I’m not shaking too hard. Jonas leads me in silence, fingers curling briefly around my shoulder, guiding me into the very center where the boy still kneels, now humming low under his breath.

I try to keep the rising panic at bay. This is a relatively small group of people, who know each other. Vale must have been the person who approved the fake Facebook account and because I’m the newest member, I stuck out like a sore thumb. I should have stood more at the back, should have focused on blending in more.

I got too curious.

Jonas doesn’t really acknowledge me. He starts speaking about devotion, about surrender, about shedding the names we were given for the truth we deserve.

The woman dips another cloth. The water drips as she lifts it. Forehead. Temples. Lips. It’s colder than I expect, and the scent is stronger this time—like something sweet rotting underneath. I keep my eyes down, shoulders still. A tremble runs the length of my spine, but I hold it in place.

She doesn’t place the cloth over my shoulders. Instead, she folds it into a perfect square and presses it into my palms. It’s damp. Heavier than it should be.

There’s suddenly a hand on my shoulder and it takes everything in me not to flinch. Jonas’s touch is almost weightless. Every cell in my body is screaming to pull away. He leans in.

“You carry grief well,” he murmurs, voice so low I feel it more than hear it.

This was a terrible fucking idea.

He turns back to the circle, leaving me with the boy and damp cloth. He is still crying and I have no clue what to do. I feel like I’m failing some weird initiation ceremony.

People drift outward, whispering and touching shoulders, murmuring thanks and phrases that sound like prayers. I stay, the cloth pressed against my palms, the ghost of Jonas’s hand still burning into my shoulder.

I think of Elias. Wherever he is—watching, waiting—I know he saw that. I know what he must’ve felt when they called me, when I stepped forward, when Jonas touched me. He would’ve wanted to move, but he didn’t.

Because he trusts me.

God, I want to see his face.

I slightly turn my position to look at Jonas again. The fire crackles behind him, casting his face in shifting orange. He lifts a thin silver chain from a bowl—a pendant attached at the end, spiral-shaped and gleaming. A low hum ripples through the crowd as the pendant is held over the flame, the metal darkening from silver to copper, copper to red.

Jonas turns towards the boy.

“Before the flame,” he says. “Speak the burden.”

The boy swallows. For a moment, he says nothing.

“I killed it.”

My fingertips press into the damp cloth.

“She was my sister’s. A birthday gift. Small and white and soft.”

The boy’s eyes flick up, meet Jonas’s, then drop.

“She cried when I said it escaped the hutch. But it didn’t. I took it behind the shed. I wanted to see what would happen if something that soft… stopped moving.”

Jonas steps forward, placing a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “And does it ache now?”

He nods.

“Do you still feel the blood on your hands?”

The nod again. Smaller. Jonas turns—to me.

“Then she will carry it.”

The pendant glows dull orange, its spiral burned into the air between us. I hand the wet cloth to one of them women in white and step forward before the hesitation can catch up, fingers closing around the chain, metal hot enough to sting through my calluses. I raise the pendant.

One second.

Two.

I press it just below the collarbone, where he is pointing. His breath catches but he stopped crying. The skin sizzles, the burn hissing like truth and when I pull back, the flesh is angry, raw, spiral rising like a brand. Jonas speaks above the chant beginning to stir behind us. “The burden now has shape. The shape now has pain. The pain now has meaning.”

The boy exhales like something has left him.

“Let it be witnessed. The vessel carries what we cannot. The vessel suffers for our salvation.”

The chant rises, low and unnatural. Voices folding over one another in a rhythm too steady for real prayer. I step back, releasing the pendant back into the held out bowl.

I find my place in the circle again, hands slick with sweat, breath caught in my chest. My fingers still burn faintly from the pendant, even though I let it go minutes ago. I keep my expression slack. Eyes low. Inside, I’m fraying at the edges.

“You have witnessed devotion,” Jonas continues his weird sermon. He paces the fire’s edge slowly, gaze passing over each of us—not long enough to challenge, just enough to make you feel seen. “Go now. Rest. Reflect.”

The crowd begins to move, loose lines of bodies dissolving into the trees, voices hushed, feet soft. No one talks. I hold back, waiting until the bodies thin, until the eyes move past me. Until the tension that’s stitched into the night finally starts to release. I curl my fingers into a fist and tuck them into my sleeves as I leave the glade.

I can feel Elias in the dark. I don’t look for him, just keep walking, back through the trees, each step a little faster than the last until the firelight is a memory and the clearing is behind me. The cold hits harder out here, wind threading through the trees like it’s chasing me.

I keep walking, making sure I’m the last person in the group so I can slip into the forest and disappear. I can’t stop hearing the boy’s voice.

I wanted to see what would happen if something that soft… stopped moving.

CHAPTER 12 >>

WHAT REMAINS UNSPOKEN [CH10]

ALL CHAPTERS HERE.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘ PREPARATION // ELIAS ⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

We spent the week preparing like it was war.

Quiet tension stretched over six days, sharp as a guitar string. A slow erosion of normalcy disguised as logistics—burner phones, untraceable vehicles, and the art of becoming someone else. As I’m standing in the precinct’s back office, staring at a coffee ring bleeding into a stack of useless memos, everything in me feels like it’s running two beats behind.

Kelsi’s voice echoes from the server room, a muffled swear and the clatter of keys. She’s been living off energy drinks and spite since Monday, building a backstopped digital identity we can’t afford to screw up. The fake Facebook persona—Claire Reeves—is Kelsi’s masterpiece after all: vulnerable enough to be believable and desperate enough to turn up at a cult party.

And Dalia... She’s changed. I watched her dye her hair in the office bathroom four nights ago, her signature platinum blonde tips vanishing under a coat of chestnut brown. Soft, warm, forgettable. She wore plastic gloves and the kind of expression that dares you to offer sympathy. Her reflection in the mirror almost looked younger, eyes shining brighter with hope for what the future may hold. Someone halfway between who she was and who she’d want to be.

Dalia scrubbed herself out in layers, piece by piece. Neutral colors. Thin, lived-in clothing. Faded denim. A canvas bag with frayed straps. She even practiced how Claire might walk—shoulders slightly hunched, like she was afraid to take up space. Voice pitched softer, less command, more need. I watched her rehearse three different greetings to strangers and I couldn’t say a word. Because it worked.

And that scares the hell out of me.

I shift into a chair, stretch out my leg. My knee pops. Another reminder I’m not twenty anymore, another thing I won’t say out loud.

Desks hum with screensavers and dying hope. It’s so bloody quiet I can hear the hiss of Kelsi’s monitors and the slow tick of the analog clock on the wall. Each second lands like a drop of water from a faucet you thought you fixed months ago. Then the door opens for what I’ve been waiting for.

Dalia walks in, and every thought in my head stops. She’s completely transformed into Claire now. Her jeans are faded like they’ve seen a few too many laundromat cycles. The hem of her cream-colored tee pokes out beneath a muted pink cardigan, a mother’s softness stitched into something tactical. Her eyes find me and don’t flinch—it’s in those hazel eyes that I still feel her, the way she looks at me with soft familiarity, every blink a reassurance she will be alright. There she is. My Dalia.

The steel beneath all that fake cotton.

“Morning,” she says. It’s barely a breath, but it carries more weight than it should because she says it like Claire would.

I nod, hands slightly trembling. “Morning.”

She scans me, pausing for a second at the crooked line of my collar. “Did you sleep?”

“Define sleep.”

She half-smiles in a friendly way. Her bag slips off her shoulder with a whisper of worn canvas and lands with a soft thud. I want to say something—to offer her a line, a tether, something steady—but the words snag in my throat. Instead, I watch her inventory the day. I know this routine.

“Claire Reeves has two kids,” she says, almost idly. “One ten, one six. She lives outside town and works nights. Likes candles. Doesn’t drink. She’s been in three spiritual groups in the past year, all for grief support. Lost her mom to breast cancer. Used to believe in God. Not anymore.”

I know this of course, it’s just more rehearsal, more drilling, more making sure there aren’t any hiccups. I exhale. “Sounds like someone I’d believe.”

“That’s the point,” Dalia says.

Footsteps approach and Kelsi rounds the corner, holding a tablet like it’s made of glass and bad intentions. Her hair’s tied up messily, still wearing yesterday’s hoodie.

“We’re good,” she says without preamble. “Tracker’s live. The burner’s synced.”

Kelsi hands over the burner phone. “No signal in the Dunhaven Glade area, so stay visible until you’re in.”

I glance at Dalia. “We taking the rental?”

She nods. “Keys are in my jacket.”

We don’t talk as we move toward the exit. The sky is still bleeding light—navy blue giving way to dull gray. The world feels unfinished. At the car, she hands me the keys.

“You want me driving?”

She slides into the passenger seat without answering. “You chew your lip when you’re nervous.”

I stare at her. “You notice that?”

“Of course I do.”

I don’t reply, just start the engine. The road hums beneath us, low and steady, as we pull away from the precinct and toward the dark line of woods beyond the horizon.

Claire Reeves has never been to Dunhaven Glade. But tonight, she walks into something none of us can name.

And I’m not sure if she’ll come out whole.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

The road narrows as the woods thicken. What passes for a shoulder is just churned-up dirt, flecked with old beer cans. Pines rise tall and close, their trunks straight as prison bars, needles whispering in a language I don’t trust. I keep one hand on the wheel, the other loose in my lap. Dalia doesn’t speak but her eyes track the trees like they might peel themselves open and let something out. She’s doing that thing again—inventorying without moving, counting every turn, every shadow, every gap between branches.

I glance at her once, quickly.

The dye’s darker in this light. Brown verging on auburn, tucked into a messy twist that could pass for rushed or indifferent, depending on who’s watching. Her jaw is set, lips twitching faintly with whatever thought she’s refusing to say out loud.

The road curves left. Then again.

We’re nearly there.

The GPS dies just before the marker, but we find it anyway—the turnoff is unpaved, a break in the tree line marked by a wooden post with the numbers 436 burned into the grain. No signage, just a gravel path swallowed by foliage. I slow the car. The tires crunch as we roll over broken stone and half-dead leaves. Up ahead, a long rectangular cabin sits back from the road, low to the ground, camouflaged by time and rot. Windows glazed with road dust and the kind of grime you can only get from disuse.

Wind brushes the trees and makes the building groan.

“This is it?” I ask.

Dalia nods. “Yeah. It’s under the fake name.”

She’s already unbuckling before the car fully stops. I kill the engine and step out into a silence too clean to trust, only the dull percussion of the wind and a single bird somewhere high above, calling once, then vanishing into the hush. The air smells like damp earth and pine sap. There’s a taste to it—like rain that hasn’t fallen yet.

I pop the trunk. Dalia shoulders her bag like it’s nothing. Her eyes linger on the treetops for a beat too long.

“What’re you thinking?” I ask.

She shrugs. “Thinking about how fast things vanish out here.”

Well, that’s reassuring.

We walk up the creaking steps together. She has the keys. Slides one into the lock, jiggles it once, twice—then the door clicks open.

Inside, the cabin smells like dust and cleaner, the kind of chemical freshness that covers up everything except time. The main room is sparse. A couch that’s seen too many summers and a table with two chairs that don’t match. The floorboards flex under our weight. A kitchenette sits to the right—no microwave, but there’s a two-burner stovetop and a fridge humming faintly. There’s a window over the sink. It doesn’t look out at anything but trees. Creeps me out.

Dalia drops her bag near the wall, then disappears down the hallway, her boots quiet on the floor.

I stay where I am. The couch groans as I lower myself into it, elbows resting on my knees. I reach into my coat for the burner phone. I scroll back through the Facebook group posts. Most are generic pictures of gatherings—people in loose clothing standing in groups, their faces blurred by dusk and distance. The captions are always vague:

“He moves through us.”

”The cleansing begins with surrender.”

And always that phrase.

“The vessel suffers for our salvation.”

I don’t know what they’re expecting Claire Reeves to bring to this, but it’s more than a desperate prayer or a notebook full of grief. Dalia reappears a few minutes later, pulling her hoodie off and tossing it onto a nearby chair.

“One room’s clean enough,” she says. “Water runs. No signal, like I said.”

I nod once. “Cozy.”

“We’ve stayed worse.”

She’s right, we have. Motels where the light flickered nonstop and the carpet smelled like mildew. Cases that dragged us through corpses and suspects and nights we couldn’t wash off. But this is different. Dalia doesn’t sit, just pulls her phone from her pocket and checks it instinctively, like maybe the rules will have changed in the last five seconds.

Then she glances at me. “What?”

I shake my head. “Just wondering when we became the kind of people who pack for cult retreats.”

She exhales something like a laugh. “We’ve got this. Still have time to scope the grounds, learn the terrain.”

I nod, pushing up from the couch. “And if you go in?”

“When I go in,” she corrects.

Her eyes find mine.

That’s all I get. That’s all I need.

Outside, the woods sway like something sleeping with one eye open.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

The night settles like smoke in the lungs.

I sit at the small table by the window, staring into the trees. Dalia hasn’t said much since dinner—if reheated canned soup and dry crackers count as that. She’s mentally building a map of the glade and every point of potential entry. Her version of comfort.

I lean back in the chair, let my eyes lose focus on the glass. My hand hovers near the burner phone. Still no signal.

Dalia emerges from the bedroom, hoodie swapped for a loose black t-shirt and worn sweats. She moves like she doesn’t want to disturb the air. Her hair’s down—messy from running her hands through it too many times—and she carries a folder tucked under one arm.

She sets it on the table. Sits.

“Floor plan,” she says. “Best I could make out.”

She sketches it fast with a pencil, enough detail to outline the glade’s clearing, the slope behind it, the old fire pit, and two smaller trails leading into the trees.

“There’s no fencing,” she mutters. “But they’ve been using stone markers.”

I study the crude map. She says everything like it’s only logistics. This is what unnerves me about her—how easily she moves between fear and function.

“Do you think they’re planning something violent?” I ask.

She looks up. Her eyes are dark in the half-light. “I think if they weren’t, they wouldn’t hide.”

That lands hard. She leans forward, fingertip tracing the drawn trail. “We won’t get close without them seeing. The way they’ve laid it out… it’s a funnel. Forces you into the open.”

“We’ll adjust.”

She leans back. “I’ll have to go in blind.”

I hesitate. My mouth opens. Closes.

Say something.

Instead, I grab the flashlight from the counter and stand. “I’m going to do a walk of the perimeter.”

She doesn’t stop me. There is a hum of faint acknowledgment, already studying the paper again.

Outside, the air is colder. The trees are louder now, wind shifting through the branches like breath over bone. I walk slow, sweeping the beam of light across the underbrush, watching for prints, for trash, for signs of anyone else moving through here.

There’s nothing. But that’s what bothers me.

By the time I return, Dalia’s dozed off on the couch. Not fully asleep—her breathing’s too shallow, her posture too tense—but her eyes are closed. The folder’s still in her lap. I ease it away gently and place it on the table. I stand there for a minute, looking at the shape of her jaw softened by exhaustion. That ever-present tightness between her brows finally relaxed. There’s something about this version of her—unguarded in the flicker of the cabin’s yellow lamp—that makes something shift in me.

I take the folded throw blanket from the back of the couch and place it over her gently.

The woods are still awake.

So I stay awake, too.

CHAPTER 11 >>

WHAT REMAINS UNSPOKEN [CH9]

ALL CHAPTERS HERE.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘ FAITH // DALIA ⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

Online, everyone believes what they want to see.

It’s early—early enough that the rest of the precinct still smells like overnight coffee and unspoken exhaustion. There is no chatter or paperwork rustle, just the low buzz of machinery and the sharp click of a keyboard in motion. Kelsi’s already here. Perched on her rolling stool like a vulture in a graphic tee, black nail polish chipped, red roots overdue, she doesn’t look up as I enter. She just keeps typing, fingers flying like the keyboard offended her personally.

“I thought you slept in shifts now,” I say.

She snorts. “I did. Ninety minutes. Long enough to dream about servers catching fire and someone asking if I’d turned them off and on again.”

The room hums low around us—rows of monitors, half-lit server racks, cords twisted like nerves across the floor. The air’s dry and cold and carries the metallic scent of overworked electronics. Processors rattling, internal fans threatening to revolt. I sit beside Kelsi’s desk, drag my fingers over my temple.

Elias walks in, coffee in hand, collar crooked. He looks like he got dressed in the dark and skipped a shave on purpose. He doesn’t meet my eyes. The tension from yesterday still clings to us like static—faint, buzzing, inconvenient.

“Alright. Are you ready?”

Both me and Elias lean forward, unconsciously synced.

“The profile’s clean,” Kelsi continues, flipping a pen between two fingers. “Female. Mid-30s. Bookish. Single mom. No red flags.”

Elias raises a brow. “Why a woman?”

Kelsi sighs. “Because online cult spaces are more likely to engage with women who seem vulnerable. Single mothers, women seeking community, grief groups—that’s their sweet spot. Men draw suspicion. You look like a cop or a troll, and you’re out.”

It always comes down to who looks breakable.

“The account’s been warming for a while,” she adds. “I’ve joined about a dozen spiritual groups over the past three months. Yoga meetups, crystal healing, parenting support. I even commented on a few prayer threads so it wouldn’t seem too clean. The algorithm thinks she’s lost and searching.”

“Perfect,” I say, impressed with Kelsi.

Elias gives her a crooked grin. “Remind me to never cross you.”

She smirks. “Too late.”

Kelsi spins back to her monitor and pulls up Facebook. The screen blinks, then loads the Church of Reclamation’s private Facebook group.

Closed Group

Followers: 213

Group Rules: No hate, no doubt, no disruption. We speak light into the darkness.

The request to join is already pending under our fake account.

“Shouldn’t take long,” Kelsi mutters. While we wait, Elias shifts his weight beside me. His coffee’s cold. I know that because he hasn’t taken a sip in five minutes. He’s just holding it like something solid might anchor the moment.

“Let’s lay it out again,” I say. “Everything. In order.”

Elias doesn’t argue. Kelsi hums faintly in the background, probably to stay awake. Every few minutes I check the screen. Nothing.

Then it happens. A soft ping.

Request Approved.

The fake account is now a member. Posts load in reverse order, newest at the top. Most of them are vague quotes, grainy photos of gatherings, or questions about upcoming “Communion Circles.” The comments are riddled with praise-hands emojis and odd phrases.

Kelsi lets me take the mouse and I scroll slowly, methodically, fingers hovering.

Upcoming Gathering

“🌒 The faithful will convene beneath open sky. Our next Guidance Night is set:

Friday. 8:00 PM.

Location: Dunhaven Glade, Riverbend County

Dress light. Bring only what you can carry.

No doubt. He moves through us all. 🌘”

— J. Vale

Elias reads it over my shoulder and his sudden closeness startles me. “Dunhaven Glade?”

I nod, eyes trained on the screen. “Probably middle of nowhere. It says beneath open sky.”

We both stare at the post a moment longer. There’s no RSVP list or contact number.

Kelsi turns in her chair. “Want me to try tracing the group’s admin? J. Vale?”

“Jonas. Let me know if you find anything useful,” I respond to Kelsi.

Dunhaven Glade. Friday, one week. This gives us time. Not much, but enough to prepare. I reach for my phone and make a quick note.

Then, as we stand to leave, I feel Elias’s gaze flick toward me—something thoughtful behind it.

“What?” I ask.

He shrugs. “Just wondering how I’m going to pack for a cult retreat.”

I give him a small smile.

We say bye to Kelsi and move into the meeting room to discuss strategy. It’s one of the smaller ones on the second floor, barely larger than a break room, walls washed in that nauseating shade of beige. The table’s warped in the middle, chairs unmatched. There’s a single whiteboard in the corner, stained with the ghosts of past notes no one ever really erased.

I’ve got the laptop open, map spread beside it, flyer from the community center pinned under my phone. Dunhaven Glade—also called North Hollow Grounds, according to the county records—sits twenty miles into the rural edge of Riverbend County. Forest-bound. Seems to be off the grid.

“People rent it for yoga retreats and rustic weddings,” I say, scanning the bookings history. “But not much activity in the past year. Local group handles bookings.”

Elias traces a finger along the dirt road that cuts through the trees. “Isolated. Perfect for a cult meetup.”

He exhales slowly through his nose. The sound is more a warning than a breath. “We can’t just walk in. If they realize we are cops, we compromise the case. Worse—we don’t know what these people do behind closed doors.”

“I’m not suggesting we walk in guns blazing,” I say, sharper than I mean to be.

“You want to go in.”

He says it flat, but the edge beneath the calm gives him away.

I sigh. “You know we won’t get a warrant on Jonas Vale’s property. If it’s all talk and singing under the stars, the DA won’t care. We don’t have concrete evidence tying him to Ruth. But if we go in and see something—hear something…”

His jaw tenses. He turns, paces a few steps, then swings back around.

“It should be me,” I add quietly. “If they see you, they will see a cop.”

“You think you’re less visible?” he asks, his hands in a fist.

“No. I think I’m better at being what they want to see.”

His eyes search my face, but I keep it blank. There’s too much truth under the surface, and I don’t trust myself not to spill it.

Finally, he nods. Once. “We prep for entry. But not alone. You go in and I stay close. If you so much as blink wrong, I’m dragging you out.”

“You’ll spook them.”

“I’d rather spook them than lose you.”

I open my mouth then think better of it. Instead, I gather the papers, slip the flyer into the folder, shut the laptop a little too hard.

“It’s a week away,” I say. “That gives us time. Research, supplies, hotel. I’ll reach out to the local sheriff’s office, quietly. Let them know we’re running something out there, just in case.”

Elias doesn’t respond right away. He’s looking down at the floor, brow furrowed.

“You think Ruth made it out there?” he asks finally.

“No. I have little hope Ruth is still alive.”

Elias straightens. “We go in together. But I mean it—one wrong sign, and I pull you out.”

I meet his gaze. “Fine.”

I’d rather spook them than lose you.

CHAPTER 10 >>

WHAT REMAINS UNSPOKEN [CH8]

ALL CHAPTERS HERE.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘ CONTROLLED BURN // ELIAS ⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

The tie sits on the back of the chair, daring me.

I stare at it from the kitchen. It’s a dull charcoal blue, the one Dalia once called almost-nice in that half-sarcastic, half-serious tone she uses when she doesn’t want to admit she’s being kind. I haven’t worn it in months. It feels like a uniform for someone else’s job, someone with clean hands and a less complicated heartbeat.

Dinner with her husband. What a fucking brilliant idea.

I drink. It doesn’t help.

My apartment is still dim, even with all the blinds up. Early spring light creeps along the hardwood in slats, brittle and reluctant. Dust motes drift through it, trying to disappear. I left the TV on mute—some old rerun flickering silently in the background. White noise without the white. I should have left already, but I keep circling the table like there’s something I forgot to pick up.

There’s something about Markus that grates. The kind of man who picks out sympathy cards like they’re part of a presentation. He smiles with precision. He dresses like he’s trying to look effortless. I’ve seen him maybe four times in person, and each one left me with the itch of something off, like a painting hung slightly crooked. I haven’t found the crack in the canvas yet, but I know it’s there.

And now I’ve been invited to their home. Dalia’s voice was calm when she asked. A little too calm, like reading from a script. It’s easier if we all stop pretending this case isn’t bleeding into everything.

She didn’t say please. She didn’t have to.

I slam the beer glass into the bin. It doesn’t break, but the sound spikes loud through the apartment. I don’t care.

She wants me to see it, the inside of her life? The house with the front porch and the family photo by the fireplace. Can you do your job, sit across from my husband, and not let the truth slip from your mouth? Truth like: I’ve imagined your skin pressed against mine more nights than I’ve slept.

I tug on the collar of my shirt. No tie yet. Still resisting. The bathroom mirror catches my reflection in motion. I look tired. Not just the usual detective kind—this is something deeper. A weariness that settled in after we opened that file on Ruth Quinn and found a ghost instead of a victim. Ruth. The spiral. The phrase on the flyer. The vessel suffers for our bloody salvation. It circles like a vulture. I haven’t stopped thinking about it and I know Dalia hasn’t either. Even if she won’t say it aloud.

I button the shirt slowly. Rhythm of fabric over skin, tight across my chest where the tension lives.

I remember the last time I saw her truly undone. That night in the motel room is still driving me crazy—I can’t let go of the way she looked softer than I’d ever seen her.

I knot the tie. It feels wrong. Too formal, like I’m preparing for a hearing. Which, in a way, I am.

A line from her sticks with me—“He hasn’t been the same since Wren disappeared.” She said it like it excused everything, like grief is a shield you can wear indefinitely, even when the war is over. But grief doesn’t perform like Markus does. Grief bleeds. It rages. It weeps at inconvenient hours and wrecks your appetite. Markus just… smiles.

I grab my keys and wallet, shoulders set like I’m walking into court.

Tonight isn’t about the case. It isn’t about the Church of Reclamation or Jonas Vale or the spiral etched in gold foil.

As I hit the stairs, I mutter to myself. “Dinner with the family.”

It sounds like a threat.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

From the outside, her house looks like any other middle-class home on a street lined with old maples and memories. Two-story, pale gray siding, white trim curling slightly from sun exposure. Someone’s tried to plant tulips by the front walk, but the soil’s too dry and half of them lean like they’re trying to crawl back underground. I stand there with my fists in my coat pockets for longer than I should, staring at the door. It’s red. That kind of curated suburban red people pick when they want to seem bold, but not loud. Dalia didn’t choose it.

I knock.

The porch creaks under my weight. Some part of me registers that the light overhead buzzes the same way the one in our evidence room does. I count to five. Then the door opens.

Dalia stands there in jeans and a deep green sweater, sleeves pushed up to her elbows. Her hair’s down tonight, brushed back over one shoulder, catching the warm light of the hallway behind her. She looks… beautiful.

“Hey,” she says, a smile playing on her lips. It lands softer than usual.

“Hey,” I pray I sound like my usual self.

She steps aside so I can enter, and I move through the doorway like someone crossing a line they’re not sure they’ll come back from. I reach into my coat pocket and pull out the small paper bag—neatly folded, plain brown. Nothing fancy, just enough to feel like effort.

“I brought something,” I say, a little awkwardly. “Thanks—for the invite.”

Dalia raises a brow but takes the bag. Her fingers brush mine, and it’s quick, barely a spark. She opens the bag slowly, like she’s bracing for a joke, pulling out a glass jar. Dark plum jam from the Saturday market, handwritten label curling at the edge. She stares at it for a moment too long and my heart is hammering inside my chest.

“This is…,” she starts.

“Jam?” I offer, letting a nervous laugh slip by. “Figured it might taste like something good.”

Her throat works around a swallow. She nods once. There’s subtle shift in her posture—the way her shoulders drop half an inch, letting her guard rest for one breath.

“Thank you, Elias.”

Then she turns and keeps walking, holding the bag a little too carefully. I follow.

The inside of her house smells like roasting meat and garlic. The floorboards are polished wood, lived-in but clean. There’s a framed photo on a side table—a child, maybe four, all gap-toothed grin and tangled dark hair. Wren. My chest tightens.

“Dinner’s almost ready,” she says ahead of me.

I follow her through the hallway toward the kitchen. It’s warm here. The walls are painted a soft gray-blue. A corkboard to my left is pinned with sticky notes, appointment reminders, and a faded Valentine’s Day card with a pink heart drawn in glitter pen. I don’t let myself look at it too long.

The kitchen is open and bright. Pale tile. Cast iron pans hanging from a rack. The dining table sits to one side, already set. Three places, decorated with white ceramic plates. Silverware that doesn’t match. A folded napkin at each setting. Markus is at the stove, stirring something in a pan. He’s dressed like he stepped out of a department store catalogue—dark slacks, crisp white shirt rolled to the forearms. Polished watch glinting under the overhead light. At least I don’t feel overdressed. When he turns, he smiles at me.

“Detective Wexler,” he says, like he’s greeting an old friend. “Glad you could make it.”

I nod, ignoring the pulse in my jaw. “Thanks for the invitation.”

“Can I get you something to drink? Beer, wine?”

I shouldn’t drink. “Water’s fine.”

Markus moves to the fridge like it’s a stage cue. Dalia steps between us, heading for the oven. Her shoulders are tight, like she’s caught in the gravitational pull of two opposing moons.

“You didn’t have to go all out,” I say.

Dalia shrugs. “It’s just chicken.”

Markus hands me a glass of cold water, then returns to the pan, and I watch him stir.

“How’s the case coming?” he asks casually, as if we’re talking about the weather.

I exchange a glance with Dalia. Her expression is unreadable.

“Slow,” I reply. “But we’re getting closer.”

Markus hums, nods. “Dalia told me it’s been intense. Long hours. Not much sleep.”

His tone is neutral, but the implication hovers like smoke. Dalia clears her throat.

“I need to pop upstairs,” she says. “Markus, can you finish plating?”

“Of course.”

She slips out of the room, and the air shifts the moment she’s gone. Whatever truce we’ve all agreed to suddenly lost its mediator.

“She’s been different lately,” Markus says. Still smiling, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “More distracted. Less herself.”

“She’s under pressure,” I respond, voice even. We are under pressure.

“Yeah. That’s what I figured.”

I know my dislike for Markus may seem like it stems from jealousy, but it’s more instinct than anything. Everyone likes this guy, yet there is this unexplainable aura around him that rubs me the wrong way. He sets a plate on the counter.

“I appreciate you looking out for her. I know she doesn’t always make that easy.”

There it is again. The performance of the careful, calculated empathy, the play of the good, concerned husband. He knows the right beats to hit but not what they mean.

“She doesn’t need looking after,” I say, sharper than I meant to.

Markus tilts his head slightly. “No. I guess she doesn’t.”

Dalia reappears and the tension in the room lifts, just barely. She notices it, of course.

“Everything good?” she asks.

“Dinner’s ready,” Markus answers, sliding the final plate into place.

Dinner starts in halting rhythms. Conversation stitched together with neutral topics—recent cases, the precinct budget cuts, weather patterns that might explain half the disappearances we can’t. Dalia stays mostly quiet, focused on cutting her food into deliberate, perfect bites she doesn’t always eat. Markus, meanwhile, fills every silence with polished ease.

His hand reaches across the table and lands on Dalia’s. She doesn’t pull away, but she doesn’t close the space either. It’s contact without connection. A gesture meant to be seen.

Something in my chest tightens.

“So how long have you two worked together now?” Markus asks, eyes too sharp behind the wineglass.

“Three years,” I answer. “Give or take.”

“Long time,” he muses. “Must be hard not to bring the job home.”

I take a long sip of water. There’s no one to take it home to.

Markus excuses himself to clear plates. Dalia rises to help, but he waves her off.

“You cooked. I’ll clean.”

I help Markus dry the plates. He thanks me like a host bidding a guest farewell, but I can see the flicker of something else behind his smile—mistrust, maybe. We engage in more small talk in the living room, controlled, easy going. Markus doesn’t bring up our work again, instead he complains about his own like he is practicing a comedic routine. I try to relax and disappear into the folds of the leather couch.

“So,” he says, “great news from work. I learned I’m now expected to run two departments, manage a grant we didn’t ask for, and teach a parenting workshop with absolutely zero additional pay. But, hey, at least the printer jammed for forty-five minutes this morning and threatened to burst into flames.”

I give a dry smile, unsure whether he’s waiting for sympathy or applause.

He props one ankle on his knee and points at me with the neck of his beer bottle. “You know, I used to think being a social worker meant helping people. Turns out, it mostly means being ignored by people in meetings who think Excel spreadsheets count as progress.”

Dalia sits on the armrest, glass in hand, eyes somewhere off beyond the window. Her expression is part amusement, part tight-jawed endurance.

Markus isn’t done.

“I’m now the unofficial IT guy, the janitor, and probably the office therapist. Last week, I found someone crying in the supply closet next to the copier. Didn’t even work in our department. Just said it felt like a safe space.” He swigs his beer. “Can’t argue with that.”

It’s easy to let him talk, to let the sound fill the space. My gaze drifts toward the wall behind the couch.

That’s when I see them.

Three simple frames. Children’s drawings, done in crayon, arranged with too much care for something most people shove on the fridge. One shows a field of red grass under a yellow sky, with three stick figures in it. Mom, Dad, Wren. The second one seems like a purple unicorn. I blink. Lean forward just slightly.

“Wren drew those?” I ask, nodding towards the wall.

Markus chuckles. “Yeah, apparently it’s her long lost kingdom. Or queendom, I guess. She loved pretend playing to be a Disney princess.”

He is talking about the third drawing, showing a green hill beneath a blue sky. On the hill stands a narrow building with no doors, only a staircase leading upwards, pink clouds surrounding it. On the top of the roof, there are some scrawls. One of them reminds me of an eye. I’m convinced it’s actually just random doodles and it’s the exhaustion catching up with me.

Dalia offers a soft shrug. “She’s always had a big imagination.”

“Sure,” Markus is nodding along. “but when your kid tells you the flowers in her dream talked in backwards voices, you start wondering if screen time’s doing something to her brain.”

My fingers tighten slightly around the glass.

Markus waves a hand into the silence. “She also claimed fairies were real.”

Dalia doesn’t laugh. Neither do I. I bet it all seemed innocent at the time, yet after her disappearance one can’t help but wonder if the signs were there all along. If it was one of the “fairies” that took her on the day of her disappearance. I’m sure Dalia thought about this already and exhausted all the leads.

I let Markus shift the conversation again for a little bit before I stand, careful with my glass, and set it on a coaster that reads “World’s Okayest Dad.” A little worn at the corners. Honest in a way that makes my throat tight. Dalia follows the movement with her eyes, like she’s been waiting for me to go.

“You heading out?” she asks, voice soft.

Markus lifts his hand in a lazy wave. “Good seeing you, man. Don’t be a stranger.”

I force a smile. “Thanks for having me.”

Dalia walks me to the door and retrieves my coat. Her hand brushes mine again.

Outside, the night has turned cold. She doesn’t step out, just leans lightly against the doorframe, arms crossed over her chest.

“Thanks for coming,” she says. “Drive safe.”

I step out onto the porch, hands in my jacket pockets. The door doesn’t close right away.

I turn back just before it does. “You ever want to talk—”

“I know,” she says, quiet. “Goodnight, Elias.”

The door shuts with a soft click.

And I’m alone again.

CHAPTER 9 >>

WHAT REMAINS UNSPOKEN [CH7]

ALL CHAPTERS HERE.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘ FALSE PROPHETS // ELIAS ⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

Ridgepath isn’t far. Twenty minutes east, maybe less with lights. Smaller than I expected—quieter, too—but not in the peaceful way. More like silence that’s been forced into corners and bolted down. The streets are too wide for how few cars crawl them. The houses huddle close together, a patchwork of rusted gutters, sagging porches, and paint the color of old teeth. Yards bleed into each other, fences half-finished or never started, a kid’s scooter abandoned on a lawn that hasn’t been mowed since last summer.

Every damn place we have visited so far feels abandoned or neglected.

We roll through on four wheels and tinted windows like we’re something foreign and unwelcome, and the town watches us back through fluttering curtains and cracked blinds. Dalia is flipping through a bunch of files in the passenger seat. Her face is unreadable, but I know she is lost in her flow state, eyes locked on Ruth Quinn’s photo like she’s trying to memorize every tiny detail.

The GPS tells us we’ve arrived before we see the place. I park across from Ridgepath Community Center, though calling it a center is a little generous. It’s a single-story building set between a boarded-up laundromat and a liquor store that advertises two-for-one tallboys on Thursdays. The exterior is beige, a crooked ramp leading up to the front door. The windows are painted with outdated Christmas scenes—hand-stenciled snowflakes that’ve melted into themselves in the spring heat. A rickety wooden sign hangs over the door, swaying slightly in the wind.

RIDGEPATH COMMUNITY CENTER

Clothing Drive Mondays — Bible Study Fridays

The F in Fridays is backward.

Dalia exits first, her boots hitting the pavement like punctuation. I follow, shrugging my jacket closed against the damp in the air. We climb the ramp in step, wood groaning under our weight. A bell jingles when I push open the door—a meek, apologetic sound, like even it knows it’s not welcome here. There’s no music playing inside, only the sound of our footsteps echoing on linoleum and the faint tick of a wall clock that’s running five minutes behind.

A folding table serves as the front desk. Draped in a faded cloth with sunflowers stitched along the hem, it holds a plastic box labeled LOST & FOUND. Behind it sits a woman who looks like she was born in that chair—white curls, thick glasses, a sweater weighed down by an army of mismatched cat brooches. She looks up slowly but her expression doesn’t change.

“Can I help you?”

I flash my badge first. “Detective Wexler. This is Detective Rowe. We’re following up on an ongoing investigation. Wondering if we could ask you a few questions about an event hosted here last year.”

The woman squints, sits back slightly. “Depends on the event.”

Dalia steps forward, pulling out the pamphlet piece. “A religious gathering. Would’ve been last spring, possibly early summer.”

The woman’s brows knit. Her hand, seemingly on reflex, shifts toward the rosary looped around her wrist, fingers brushing the beads.

“Oh,” she murmurs, voice dropping like a stone into water. “You mean those Reclamation people.”

Dalia stiffens beside me. Subtle, but I feel it. A taut wire suddenly pulled.

“They went by that name?” she asks. “Church of Reclamation?”

The woman nods, slow and reluctant. Her lips thin into a flat line, as though saying the name out loud leaves a bad taste.

“That’s what they called themselves,” she confirms. “Showed up around October. Always Fridays, just before dark. Paid in cash. Walked in, held their little sermons or whatever they were, and left like smoke.”

“Did they ever distribute flyers?” I ask.

“They handed one to me, once,” she mutters. “Didn’t post it, though. Should’ve listened to my gut then. But we needed the rental money. Times being what they are.”

Dalia tilts her head, gentle but focused. “What made you uneasy?”

“They didn’t pray,” she says. “Couldn’t hear no Scripture, no verses. No hymns. Some phrases they said over and over, like they were casting something. I stood outside the door one night. Thought I’d pop my head in but glad I didn’t.”

Her voice hitches—barely. “Made my skin crawl. I’m Catholic, you see. That—whatever they were doing—it wasn’t worship.”

A chill creeps under my collar.

“Do you remember who led the group?” Dalia asks.

The woman leans forward a little, voice dropping.

“He smiled too much, but it never reached his eyes. I caught him once, watching me lock up through the glass, standing there like… A statue. His name was Jonas. Vellum? Voss? No... Vale, I believe.”

Jonas Vale.

“Do you happen to still have that flyer?” I ask.

She sighs, then swivels in her chair with the huff of someone reluctant to revisit something better left buried. Drawers creak open. Paper rustles. Metal clicks. Finally, she pulls a folder from beneath a stack of outdated newsletters and gently extracts a single piece of cardstock. She passes it across the desk with two fingers. Doesn’t look at it.

I reach for it. The paper feels thick, almost waxed. There’s no clutter, no design—just a spiral, pressed in gold foil, perfectly centered. Beneath it, in sharp serif:

The Vessel Suffers For Our Salvation.

Then, in smaller print:

Church of Reclamation

Fridays at 7PM — Ridgepath Community Hall, Rear Entrance

Led by Jonas Vale

No website. No contact info. No branding.

“Did they leave anything behind when they stopped coming?” I ask, turning the paper in my hand for any clues. The woman’s jaw clenches.

“No.”

I hand the paper to Dalia and she runs her thumb along the edge of the flyer. “Mind if we hold onto this?”

The woman doesn’t hesitate. “Take it.”

She shifts her eyes back to her rosary. Clutches it tight, like she is praying.

Outside, the door creaks open just as we step toward it. Wind rushes in behind us, sharp and sudden, slamming it shut with a noise too loud for the space it came from. Dalia slips the flyer into her jacket.

“We’ve got a name,” she murmurs.

I nod. “Jonas Vale.”

It’s colder now, the kind of bite that gets into your bones. The clouds have thickened while we were inside, folded over the sky like cotton candy spun too thick. Ridgepath’s gravel parking lot still stretches empty around us—just our car, some sagging parking signs, and one crooked bench with a “No Loitering” notice duct-taped to its side.

Inside the car, Dalia gives me a reassuring smile, flicks the heat dial up, and we both pull out our phones in synchronicity.

The name on the flyer—it doesn’t sit right. Jonas Vale. Sounds made up. It’s the kind of name you give yourself when you want people to remember it, want it to roll off tongues like a warning dressed in civility. I type it into the database. Nothing official comes up, but then again I really don’t think Jonas is his real name. No database profile.

“Got something,” Dalia murmurs with a smile, victory plastered all over her face. I give her an easy smile back.

“Show me.”

She tilts the phone my way. While I was looking at the police database, she went straight to Google.

A Facebook group, request to join type. The cover photo shows a black spiral carved into wood. The name just reads: Reclaimers. Beneath it, the administrator: Jonas Vale.

“Looks like he keeps it tight,” I say, frowning. “We could use a fake account to join and view the posts.”

Dalia leans closer, nodding. She smells like wind and leather and the tension she’s worn since sunrise. “We could ask Kelsi from IT for one.”

The wind outside picks up again, howling low between the side mirrors.

I start the car, ready to head back and dig deeper. “You think Ruth was part of the group?”

“I think it’s the best lead we’ve had. And that phrase...” She glances down at her phone again. “The vessel suffers for our salvation. It’s a belief system. If we are looking at religious cult-type activity, it could explain why Ruth felt paranoid. Sects like that won’t let their followers go easy.”

I drive us out of the Ridgepath lot, gravel popping under the tires. In a few minutes, we merge onto the highway, the town falling behind us. The horizon flattens out again, fields and scrub and bones of old barns scattered like the remains of a story no one wanted to finish.

I don’t know why I glance at her then. Maybe just instinct. She’s looking out the window, fingers twitching slightly where they rest on her thigh. Like she’s working something out. Or holding something in.

I almost ask but then she turns to me.

“I was thinking of cooking dinner tomorrow,” she says, sudden. “Come by after shift?”

It throws me off-balance. “Dinner?”

“Sure. Markus said he will serve up his famous bread pudding.”

Ah. So it’s that.

I manage a neutral nod, but the knot that tightens behind my ribs doesn’t budge. “Alright.”

“He asked about you.”

“What’d you tell him?”

“That you’re my partner.”

“Right.”

The word feels too small in my mouth.

“He’s not…” She trails off, then sighs. “He’s just not great with this part of my life.”

“You mean the truth?”

I can’t help it. We’ve been partners for three years and I’ve met Markus on office parties before. We get on fine, but I can tell he doesn’t like me.

I’ve never been over for dinner.

It feels like a test I’m not sure I can pass.

CHAPTER 8 >>

WHAT REMAINS UNSPOKEN [CH6]

ALL CHAPTERS HERE.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘ TICK-TOCK // ELIAS ⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

The second cup of coffee tastes worse than the first.

It’s burnt. Slightly sour. The kind of office brew that’s been left on the warmer too long and now tastes faintly of metal and regret. I sip it anyway.

The precinct is still half-dark. Early enough that the streetlamps outside are just starting to flicker off, but not fast enough to pretend it’s morning. Just me and the hum of the overhead fluorescents, a distant copier somewhere warming up like it’s trying to remember how to exist. The clock on the far wall ticks louder when the building’s this empty.

I sit at my desk, shoulders stiff, trying to make sense of the lines I’ve already scribbled into my notebook. Nothing concrete. Just words I keep circling. Spiral. Eye? Ruth Quinn.

Markus.

His name creeps in like a parasite, uninvited, and too damn stubborn to shake. I’m not jealous or at least I keep telling myself that, like if I say it enough times it’ll be true. This isn’t about wanting something that’s not mine. I've met him at a couple of office parties: there’s a slickness to him, a well-practiced smile. The polite way he says Dalia’s name, soft like it’s breakable. The casual possessiveness tucked behind every word.

I stretch my legs under the desk and roll my neck, cracking something near the base of my skull. Markus's voice is still ringing in my ears from the call last night. Not the words—those were forgettable. You didn’t come home. I stopped by the station. Innocent enough. On paper, at least.

The tone was off, like he was trying to sound like a concerned husband, but not actually concerned, like he was reciting what concern should sound like. Polished, practiced. Performed. I’ve spent enough time in interrogation rooms with Dalia playing good cop, bad cop to know the difference. I'm surprised she doesn't notice.

I’m not an idiot. I know the line, and I know I haven’t crossed it. But the way he says her name—low, possessive, too soft—makes something under my skin itch.

I think about her in the motel bed. Lying next to me, curled toward me, her breath feathering the cold air between us. The motel comforter pulled halfway up her back, one shoulder bare, dotted with the faintest freckle I hadn’t known was there. I remember the slope of it. Her light brown hair had come loose in places, a few strands pressed against her cheek. In the dull yellow light, she didn’t look like someone who spent her days chasing the worst the world had to offer. She looked… softer. I’d never seen her like that. Probably never will again.

I could’ve reached for her. Just an inch, just to let her know she wasn’t alone in it. Whatever “it” even was.

I slam my coffee cup on the desk just as the door swings open.

Dalia walks in like she didn’t get caught trespassing in a government institution—shoulders squared, eyes sharp, steps that don’t apologize for taking up space.

But it’s the details that undo me. Black slacks, the tailored kind that hang just right over her boots, worn at the soles from too many crime scenes. A dark green blouse buttoned to the collar, sleeves rolled halfway up like she’s already preparing to dig into something ugly. Her hair’s pulled back into a loose braid today, but strands have escaped, curling around her jaw, messy in a way she would hate if she saw it. I want to fix it for her—tuck them back, drag my knuckles against her cheek like it’s an accident.

And that, more than anything, is the problem.

Her eyes scan the room once before landing on me. I give her a nod. She doesn’t return it.

Fine. I'm still furious over her little stunt anyway.

She drops her bag at her desk, opens a drawer, doesn’t say a word. There’s a thousand things I want to ask. What she was thinking. Why she didn’t tell me. What the hell she thought she’d find buried in those archives. We both know what this morning is. It’s fallout.

She turns towards me, eyes suddenly intense and I can tell she is about to say something when the door at the far end creaks open.

Captain Everett.

“Rowe. Wexler.” His voice cuts across the bullpen. “My office. Now.”

None of the very few people scattered across the office look up. Dalia, eyes still trained on me, turns quick and quiet. I follow, the space between us tight and loaded. We move in step, like we always do, even when we’re on opposite sides of something we haven’t named.

Captain Everett’s office smells like old coffee and tired authority. The blinds are drawn, but slats of the early morning sunlight still manage to cut across the space like prison bars. Every surface is covered in controlled chaos—case files stacked like barricades, a whiteboard ghosted with marker lines that never fully erased, half a sandwich wrapped in a napkin near his mousepad, untouched. I stand beside Dalia, arms loose at my sides, fingers twitching once before I still them. She says nothing either. She knows the game—don’t speak until spoken to, don’t give him more fire than he’s already stoked.

Everett finally lifts his head. He is in his early fifties, balding. Bit of a podgy man, hasn't done field work for the past ten years and rumour has it even when he did, he was shit at it. His eyes land on Dalia first, then on me. He leans back in his chair like it pains him to sit upright. The leather creaks beneath him.

“What the hell were you two thinking?”

No preamble or fake pleasantries, he goes for the throat. I open my mouth, but Dalia beats me to it.

“Elias didn’t know,” she says, voice steady. “I acted alone.”

Everett snorts and it's not from amusement. “You expect me to believe that?”

“I’m telling you how it happened.”

I want to defend her. Want to tell him she only broke protocol because the place was trying to hide something, that there was no time. But there’s no oxygen for that kind of nuance here. There are rules in place, rules we have to follow. Everett taps the edge of his desk with the back of his pen. The sound is maddening. “Do you know who called me this morning, Wexler?”

I don’t answer. It’s rhetorical.

“The head of admin from Whitmoor,” he growls. “Told me one of my detectives impersonated federal clearance to access a private psychiatric archive. Just a fucking badge and a damn good poker face.”

His gaze cuts to Dalia like a scalpel. “That sound about right?”

She doesn’t look away. “More or less.”

“Jesus Christ.”

He throws the pen down like it insulted him. It bounces once, rolls, and drops to the floor with a dull click. No one moves to pick it up.

“This case is already radioactive,” he mutters, rubbing the bridge of his nose with two fingers. I feel Dalia’s tension beside me. It’s not visible, not exactly, but I’ve worked beside her too long not to sense it. She’s bracing for the impact. “You think this department can afford your stunts right now? You think Internal Affairs isn’t watching every move we make after that farmhouse scene?”

Dalia’s lips part, but Everett barrels on. “One more stunt like this, and the case gets reassigned.”

I lift my head. “To who?”

“Major Crimes Task Force.”

I exhale sharply.

“They’ll close it in a week. Two, if they’re feeling theatrical. They’ll slap a motive on it, bury the inconsistencies, and spin the story into something the public can swallow without choking. No nuance, loose ends. And no answers.” Everett continues. He's right and we both know it. It hits harder than I expect. We’ve seen what happens when Task Force steps in—evidence vanishes, narrative gets rewritten, nuance gets paved over for the sake of closure. They’re not bad at what they do and they definitely don’t care who they flatten to do it.

“You’ve got two weeks,” Everett says, voice low now. “I don’t care what theories you’re chasing, give me something that matters. Something I can show upstairs that justifies keeping you both on it. Otherwise, it’s out of your hands.”

No one speaks. Everett leans forward again, elbows on the desk, fingers steepled like he’s praying for us to screw this up. “And Rowe?”

Dalia meets his eyes.

“You pull a stunt like that again, I don’t care what your record looks like. You’re off my floor. Clear?”

“Clear,” she replies, calm as a lake before the lightning hits.

“Get out of my office.”

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

We sit in the records room with a thousand bureaucratic ghosts crammed into metal cabinets, quietly molding in the corners.

No one talks at first. The fluorescent light's hum sets my teeth on edge. I’m halfway through organizing case notes when she reaches into her jeans pocket and slides something across the table. I unfold it carefully. It’s cheap printer paper, slightly crinkled at the corners. No handwriting—just a short phrase, barely visible like it had been scanned and then printed by a machine running out of toner.

THE VESSEL SUFFERS FOR OUR SALVATION.

“Where’d you get this?” I ask, but I already know.

“The discharge box,” she says quietly. Whitmoor. She’s not looking at me—just down, like the paper might turn into something else if she blinks. I watch her for a moment longer than I should. Then I refocus.

What an odd phrase.

My pulse jumps. I press two fingers into the edge of the table, grounding myself. I’ve read that phrase before. Some religious group phrase?

"Seems like it's from a pamphlet type of thing."

She nods once. "I have done some digging at home."

After dinner. With Markus. "Yeah?"

She flips through a binder with fast fingers, pages whispering past. Tucked inside a plastic sleeve, she pulls out a page half-crumpled from water damage, handing it to me.

The cover reads: HEAR THE CALL.

With the same phrase stamped beneath an image of a figure kneeling inside a ring of light.

Dalia leans forward. “There’s an address on the back.”

I turn it. Ridgepath community center. February of last year. Not long ago. Close enough to still be warm.

She pulls her phone and snaps a photo of the pamphlet without comment. I can feel the questions building behind her eyes, but she doesn’t say anything yet. She’s doing that thing again—holding tension so tight it makes her still. And I can’t stand it anymore.

“You should’ve told me,” I say quietly.

She looks at me like I just accused her of murder. “About what?”

“About the risk you took. You could’ve been arrested, Dalia. You could’ve gotten me suspended by proximity.”

“I wasn’t thinking about protocol.”

“That much is obvious.”

My voice is sharper than I want it to be. I pull back, sliding a hand down my face. I'm not really angry, just wound tight. She exhales through her nose, the sound brittle. Then, her hand moves—just slightly—toward her hip, where the holster rests like a promise she never breaks. Her fingers tap once against her belt, then go still.

“I didn’t tell you,” she says finally, “because it wasn’t just about Ruth.”

I wait.

“My daughter,” she says. “Wren. She disappeared six years ago.”

It punches the air from my chest.

“She was six years old,” Dalia continues, voice barely a whisper. “We were in the yard. I stepped inside for ten minutes to get water. When I came back, she was gone. No noise. No struggle. Just… vanished.”

There’s no tremor in her voice. No tears, just pure iron. That’s how you survive this job—you forge yourself into something that won’t rust when the grief hits.

I can’t speak. Not yet.

“Markus fell apart,” she says.

Don't give a fuck about Markus.

I reel it back, balling my hands into a fist. All the tension from the case is unravelling me, my feelings threatening to burst out of me. I need to be better.

“Started blaming everything on the job. On me. I took every case I could get. Burned through assignments like they’d give me something to chase. Something to find.”

She turns the paper over again like maybe the phrase will say something different this time.

“I know Ruth’s not Wren,” she continues. “I know that. But something about her case… Set me off."

She finally looks at me. “Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe it’s me. But I need this, Elias. I need to believe we can find Ruth.”

I want to reach across the table. Not to fix anything, but to remind her she’s not alone in this. That she doesn’t have to carry the whole weight of Ruth, and Wren, and the woman in the farmhouse with the stitched-on hands. That someone is here, sitting in the wreckage beside her, willing to help hold the roof up even if it all comes crashing down anyway.

CHAPTER 7 >>

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AURORA LANCASTER