Two weeks have passed since Vincent's visit. Alan was discharged from the hospital three days ago, his leg still in a cast, his ribs still tender but stable enough to leave. I choose to meet him in a basement café—dark, enclosed, away from sunlight even though it's evening. I need spaces that accommodate what I am now.
Alan arrives on crutches, moving carefully, and comments on the odd choice of venue. "Couldn't we have met somewhere with, I don't know, windows?"
His attempt at lightness falls flat. He looks worried, exhausted, and the way he settles into the chair across from me—wincing slightly—reminds me why I did what I did. Why I killed for him.
He doesn't waste time. "Did you see the news?"
My enhanced hearing catches the acceleration of his heartbeat, the slight tremor in his voice. "Which news?"
"The warehouse." He leans forward, voice dropping. "The one that burned down. Where Vincent—where those guys operated from."
I keep my expression neutral, though every muscle in my body goes still. "I heard something about a fire."
"Four bodies, Tess." His hands shake as he pulls out his phone, shows me the news article. "They identified them through dental records and jewelry. Vincent was one of them. The cops are saying it's gang violence, rival operation, maybe a deal that went bad. But—" He stops, swallows hard. "I borrowed money from those guys. What if the police trace it back to me? What if they think I had something to do with it?"
I experience the conversation from behind a wall of cold detachment. I watch my brother panic about my crime and feel nothing—no guilt, no fear, just analytical distance. Like I'm observing a problem I need to solve rather than sitting across from someone I love.
"You paid the debt," I say calmly. "Right?"
"You paid it." He looks at me desperately. "You said you'd handle it, and then suddenly Vincent stops coming around, and now he's dead, and—"
"I delivered the money to Vincent personally," I interrupt, my voice steady and certain. The lie flows like truth because I've had two weeks to practice it in my head, two weeks to prepare for this exact conversation. "He was alive when I left. He took the cash, confirmed the debt was settled, and I walked away. Whatever happened after that was between him and his associates."
"You're sure?" The hope in his voice is painful. "You're absolutely sure?"
"I handed him eighty-three thousand dollars in cash. No paper trail, no witnesses, no connection to either of us. As far as anyone knows, you paid your debt days before that warehouse burned. You have nothing to do with what happened there."
Alan wants to believe me. I can see it in the way his shoulders start to relax, how his breathing evens out slightly. He needs to believe me because the alternative—that his sister might be connected to four deaths—is unthinkable.
"The news said it looked like arson," he says quietly. "Accelerant everywhere. Someone wanted to destroy evidence."
"Sounds like the kind of thing criminals do to each other." I keep my tone matter-of-fact. "Drug deals, money disputes, territorial wars. You know how these things work. You were unlucky enough to borrow from bad people, but you got out. You're safe now."
He studies my face, searching for something—reassurance, maybe, or confirmation that I'm still the sister he knows. I wonder what he sees. If he can detect the fundamental shift in me, the way my stillness isn't calm but the absolute absence of breath and heartbeat, the way my skin doesn't flush or pale because there's no blood to move beneath it.
"You're different," he says finally.
My throat tightens. "Different how?"
"I don't know. Harder, maybe? More..." He gestures helplessly. "You used to worry about everything. Now you seem so sure."
"Recent events put things in perspective," I lie. Actually dying puts things in perspective, but I can't tell him that.
We talk for a while longer—about his recovery, about physical therapy, about our parents who still don't know the full extent of what happened. The conversation feels normal on the surface, but underneath, I realize how vast the distance has grown between us. He sees his sister. I see a human who can never understand what I've become.
When Alan finally leaves, exhausted and still anxious but marginally reassured, I sit alone in the basement café and let the guilt crash over me.
Four people dead. Not just Vincent—three others who might have been just as guilty or might have been low-level workers in the wrong place at the wrong time. I burned their bodies. Set fire to evidence. Created a crime scene that could haunt my brother for the rest of his life if anything goes wrong, if the investigation shifts, if someone connects dots I can't control.
And I lied to him. Smoothly, easily, without hesitation.
The worst part isn't that I feel guilty. The worst part is how little guilt I actually feel, how easily the detachment comes, how the murders that should horrify me feel more like a problem I solved than a sin I committed.
I go to the office for my shift because routine is all I have left, because stopping would mean acknowledging how completely my life has changed. But the guilt—what little there is—makes me careless.
I can't focus. The numbers blur on my screen. I break a keyboard when my fingers press too hard, vampire strength surging when frustration spikes. A coffee mug shatters in my hand, glass cutting into my palm and healing within seconds, but not before a coworker sees the blood and the impossibly fast regeneration.
My distraction is obvious, dangerous.
Whitney notices first. Of course she does. Whitney has always had a predator's instinct for weakness, and I'm bleeding vulnerability into the air like chum in the water.
"You okay, Knight?" Whitney's voice cuts through my spiraling thoughts. "You seem... off."
I look up to find Whitney watching me with that particular expression—not concern, but interest. The kind of interest a cat shows a wounded bird.
"I'm fine."
"Really? Because you've made more mistakes tonight than you have in the last six months combined." Whitney perches on the edge of my desk, too close, invading space with practiced ease. "And that thing with the coffee mug? I could've sworn I saw—" She pauses meaningfully. "Well. Maybe I was seeing things."
The threat is subtle but clear. Whitney saw something. Doesn't know what it means, but she saw.
"I cut myself," I say flatly. "It happens."
"Does it?" Whitney tilts her head. "Did you hear about that warehouse fire? The one at the docks?"
My hands go still on the keyboard. "Vaguely."
"Four guys burned alive. Crazy, right?" Whitney's tone is conversational, but her cold blue eyes are sharp. "Makes you think about how dangerous this city is. All the things that can happen when you're not careful."
The words land like an accusation disguised as small talk. Whitney doesn't know—can't know—but she senses something, and she's probing for reaction, testing boundaries, looking for cracks in my facade.
"Terrible," I manage.
"Isn't it?" Whitney stands, smooths her skirt. "You know what else is terrible? When people think they can hide things. Eventually, everything comes to light."
She walks away, but I feel her attention like a weight. For the rest of the shift, every time I look up, Whitney is watching. Not obviously, but there—peripheral, persistent, predatory.
When I finally leave the office, dawn threatening the horizon, I realize my guilt is going to expose me. Not because I'll confess, but because trying to carry this secret is making me sloppy, visible, vulnerable in ways that could destroy everything.
Whitney leans against the building's exit as I approach, blocking the door. "I've been watching you, Knight," she says quietly. "Something's wrong with you. Something's changed. And I'm going to figure out exactly what it is."
The promise hangs in the air between us, and I understand with terrible clarity: my guilt isn't just a burden. It's a weapon Whitney is sharpening, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.