His final words followed me into the clouds. After so many hours of questioning, I still had no context for or explanation of them.
Who was her? What deal? And why tell me, a stranger who happened to be in the wrong place?
The jet hit turbulence, a pocket of rough air that sent my glass skittering across the table. Outside the window, darkness swallowed everything. I couldn't see stars or the moon. It was only black emptiness.
While the jet smoothed out the ride, I pulled my phone from my pocket. It connected to the plane's WiFi and notifications flooded in like water breaching a broken dam.
My brothers tried to contact me. I had missed calls from Marcus and text messages from Matthew and Miles.
Notifications gave me news alerts with my name in bold type. The world had continued spinning while I sat in that sweltering interview room, and it had spun stories where I was either the villain or victim, depending on the source.
I scrolled past them all until I reached my contacts. And there he was—Alex.
My thumb hovered over his name. What would I even say?Sorry, I killed someone after our one night together. Hope that doesn't color your memory of me.
He'd sent a message asking how I was. There was no simple answer.
I stared at his name for a long time.
Not calling. Not texting.
Staring.
I hovered over "Delete Contact." My finger trembled, its pad brushing the screen like a trigger I couldn't quite pull.
The action should have been simple—clinical, even. It would be a digital amputation to prevent infection from spreading, the kind of clean break I'd always been able to make before.
This wasn't before. This was after Alex. After his hands on my skin and the weight of his grief had somehow made room for mine. After I'd watched him sleep, his breath steady against my chest in a rhythm that had briefly made the world feel less hollow.
He didn't need me complicating his life. That much was certain. Still, something in me rebelled against erasing him completely. It would be like cutting out a vital organ because it might someday fail.
I closed my eyes, and his face appeared with perfect clarity. He had a slight dimple in his left cheek when he smiled, and his eyebrows furrowed when he concentrated. His beard tickled my chin when we kissed.
What did he think now? Had he watched the grainy videos circulating online? Had he believed them?
Would he remember how my hands traced patterns on his back as he slept, or would he only remember the knife in my hand and the dead man consumed by flames?
I backed out of the delete menu. Tried again. Paused again.
Then, I did the one thing that felt like control: I archived the thread. Swiped it into silence. Buried it under layers of digital dust.
Not gone. Only out of sight.
Out of the way.
But still there—just in case.
The wheels hit the runway with a dull double thump, hard enough to rattle my teeth. Outside the cabin window, dawn smudged the horizon in bruised grays and pale blue. No fanfare. No sunrise. Only the colorless quiet of a city not quite awake.
Seattle.
I hadn't slept. Couldn't. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the dock again. The knife. The mask. His voice.
Tell her the deal's off.
The jet taxied to a private terminal far from the main concourse. No windowed jet bridges or bustling crowds greeted me, only a narrow service ramp and a black town car idling at the bottom.
The driver leaned against the hood, checking his phone like it was any other Tuesday pickup. His jacket didn't quite fit.
