By three a.m., the world feels thin.
The strip lights over the legal help desk hum like they’re the only thing keeping the ceiling from caving in. The office smells like burnt coffee and dust and other people’s panic. It’s the hour where the calls either stop entirely or turn feral.
I’m halfway through a stale vending machine granola bar when the red light on Line 4 starts blinking.
Line 4 is criminal emergencies.
My spine goes rigid before my brain catches up. Muscle memory. Survival instinct. All the things that have kept me breathing for the last four years.
I swallow cardboard crumbs, wipe my fingers on a napkin, and put on the headset.
“Nightline Legal,” I say, voice steady by practice. “My name is—” I catch myself a split second too late and reach for the alias instead of the one that still feels like broken glass in my mouth. “—Kayla. How can I help you?”
Silence answers me. Not static, not a butt dial.
Just breathing.
The office around me is a half-lit graveyard of beige cubicles and screensavers. The only other person on shift, Elena, is on the far side of the room arguing softly with a landlord over unpaid rent. Her laugh carries just enough to feel almost normal.
“Hello?” I try again. “If this is an emergency, I need you to speak so I can connect you to—”
“Riley.”
The voice is deep, smooth, and razor-sharp. It slides through my ear and straight into my bones, a sound I’ve heard exactly once and never stopped hearing since.
My hand goes numb around the pen I’ve been twirling. It clatters onto the desk, loud as a gunshot.
No. It can’t be.
“You’ve gotten better at lying,” the voice continues, amused in a way that makes my stomach twist. “But you still hesitate on your own name.”
I can taste metal. Old memories whip through me—sirens in the distance, a floor slick under my bare knees, the heavy weight of a man’s body and a stranger’s breath at my ear.
You’re going to be quiet now, little ghost. You’re going to forget. And when you’re smart enough to understand, I’ll come back.
The room tilts.
“Wrong number,” I rasp. My thumb hunts blindly for the disconnect button.
“If you hang up, they pick you up in…” There’s a rustle, like fabric sliding over fabric, paper being checked. “…nine minutes. Give or take. The warrant’s already drafted. I thought you preferred a little warning.”
The world narrows to the red light blinking on my console and the cold sweat breaking across my back.
“Who is this?” I hate how thin my voice sounds.
“You know who it is.” The amusement vanishes, replaced by something steel-hard. “Say it.”
I see nothing but a cuff at my eye level, dark wool soaked at the edge, a hand braced against the wall above my head, shielding me from the view of uniformed bodies barreling down the hallway. A man I couldn’t see clearly, the outline of a suit, the press of a gloved hand over my mouth.
Dante.
My throat closes. I push the name back down where it’s lived for years, under lock and sedation.
“You have the wrong person,” I whisper instead. “My name is Kayla Med—”
He cuts me off with a low, quiet sound that feels like a warning more than a laugh.
