19:47 PM | Dursley's Apartment, South Metro
The hallway was a tomb, mildew and nicotine layered thick enough to stick to skin and memory alike. Fluorescent bulbs overhead flickered in erratic pulses, their dying light crawling across Adrian's nerves, twisting them tight like piano wire.
Somewhere in the building's guts, pipes rattled a warning. The faded wail of a baby threaded through the walls, a sound that had probably been going on for hours, maybe days. Nobody in South Metro listened anymore.
Adrian knocked twice on 402, the sound firm and certain, not cruel. Just official. Just we need to talk.
Behind the door, nervous footsteps shuffled. Then the metallic scrape of a chain drawn taut, signals of anxiety as old as the city itself.
A slice of light. The door opened an inch, cautious as a prayer.
Orren Dursley's face appeared: balding, mid-forties, glasses streaked with nervous fog that suggested he'd been sweating for a while. Brown eyes darting like a small animal calculating routes to safety. Black hair unkempt for days, maybe weeks, the hair of someone who'd stopped believing grooming mattered.
Behind him, a television painted blue static over a landscape of disaster. Empty noodle tubs stacked like modern art installations. Papers curled and yellow, bills sticky with the sweat of financial panic. The entire apartment smelled like desperation had a scent.
"I don't know you," Dursley croaked, voice strung tight as wire about to snap.
Adrian displayed his badge, steady and measured. His worn brown leather jacket, scarred and creased from actual use, shifted as he moved, moving easier than it probably should. Under it, a black shirt that had been fresh maybe thirty hours ago, now rumpled in that particular way that came from not sleeping and chasing ghosts. His brown hair was messy, the kind of messy that suggested he'd stopped caring about grooming somewhere around midnight last Tuesday. Black jeans, surprisingly loose, the kind that let you move fast when you needed to run.
"Adrian Cole. Nemesis Protocol Unit." He tilted his head slightly toward the hallway, where Aveline waited like a shadow that refused to be ignored. "This is Agent Aveline from C.R.I.M.E. division. We need to talk about Nexo Pharmaceutical."
The name hit like a physical slap. Dursley went pale, not the pale of surprise, but the pale of someone whose worst fears had just materialized in the hallway with a badge and a problem.
His fingers whitened on the doorframe.
"I don't work there anymore," he whispered, making it sound like an incantation, like saying it enough times might make it true.
Aveline smiled, warm, almost reassuring. The kind of smile that made you want to trust her. "We know. That's precisely why you're still alive. Nexo already assumes you're compromised. If they wanted you dead, you'd be dead."
She tilted her head slightly, that smile never wavering. "But you're here, breathing. Which means we have a window. A small one."
She said it like they were discussing the weather, chatting over coffee. Like his mortality was a scheduling problem they could solve together.
Dursley made an abortive movement to close the door.
Aveline's boot drove forward before the thought finished forming. The frame shuddered; the chain squealed its protest.
"We're coming in," she stated. Not a request. Not even really a threat, just mechanics. Just what was about to happen. "Easy or hard. The outcome's identical."
Dursley hesitated, lost a battle with his own survival instinct, and stepped aside.
Inside: a box of air filled with dust, sweat, and the ghost of a thousand cheap takeout meals. The ceiling bulb flickered overhead like a dying star. Pill bottles fought for space with old mail atop a kitchen table that had probably been white once.
Adrian noted worn linoleum, the edge of mold spreading like a stain by the sink, the apartment of someone who'd stopped believing anything mattered.
Dursley retreated toward the kitchen, hand hovering near a drawer. Adrian recognized the calculation in his body language: is there anything in there that could help? A weapon? An escape?
Adrian opened his palms, speaking slow and kind, the way you talk to animals that are about to bolt. "We're not here to hurt you. We need your testimony. About Nexo. About the work."
Dursley's laughter erupted — bitter and dark, burned around the edges, a spasm of dread. "Testimony? That's signing my own death warrant."
Aveline leaned back against the wall, arms folded, expression utterly neutral. When she spoke, there was no cruelty in her voice cruelty required emotional investment. "Nexo marks their loose ends. You're already scheduled for disposal. Helping us doesn't change that timeline. It just changes whether your death accomplishes something besides feeding the city's landfill."
Adrian glanced hard at her. Not helping was practically a physical presence in the room.
So he softened, stepped closer, tried the angle that actually worked on humans. "We can protect you."
Dursley's eyes sparked, and for a moment Adrian saw the man underneath the fear someone angry, someone who'd been betrayed, someone who knew exactly how this story ended.
"Like you protected Marcus?"
The silence that followed was flat, airless. Adrian's breath stuck in his throat.
"I know you tried," Dursley continued, voice shaking with the force of accumulated terror and rage. "But Marcus trusted you. He's dead. And now you think, what, I should step into the same grave? That I should walk into your protection and come out in a body bag?"
Adrian tried one last time, leaning in, his brown hair falling into his eyes as he spoke low and genuine. "You know Marcus deserved better. But if you don't help, more workers die. Janitors. Kitchen staff. People who can't afford secrets. People like you people nobody notices until they're dead."
Dursley shook his head, arms wrapped around himself. "People like me are already dead, Cole. We just don't know when."
A darting hand to the drawer. Out came an old revolver, scratched and worn, shaking in fingers that had never held violence before. Fingers that didn't know how to be steady with a gun.
"Get out," he spat, voice cracking. "Both of you. Now."
"Dursley," Adrian tried, but the man shouted louder.
"OUT!"
The gun fired. The sound was sharp, deafening in the small apartment a crack that seemed to split the air itself. The bullet slammed into the wall beside Adrian's head, plaster exploding in a small white cloud. A fragment caught his left cheek hot, sharp, opening a thin line. Not the bullet itself. Just debris. Just the wall trying to eat him.
He pressed fingers to the wound. Crimson marked him. Blood trickled down his jaw, warm against cold skin.
Somewhere in the building, a dog started barking. A neighbor shouted something muffled — "Keep it down in there!" — then went silent. Nobody came to check. Nobody ever came to check in South Metro.
"Oh God," Dursley whispered, recoiling, horror replacing rage. "Oh God, I didn't —"
Aveline's gun was up again, programmed reaction, muzzle poised at Dursley with the finality of execution.
Adrian's grip stopped her — twice in one night. Hand wrapping her forearm, pushing the barrel away with more force than was strictly necessary.
"Stop."
Her eyes met his. Clinical. Cool. Calculating.
"He fired on a federal agent," she stated. "Justified lethal force. Protocol permits."
"He's terrified. He missed. We leave."
She nodded once, the way a machine acknowledges a command. "Suboptimal resolution, but within acceptable parameters."
She turned to Dursley, voice sharp as a blade. "You have twenty-four hours. After that, you're irrelevant. And when Nexo realizes you're still breathing, they'll correct that oversight with considerably less mercy than we would have."
Gun holstered, she marched to the door.
Adrian touched his cheek again, looked at the blood on his fingers, then at the bullet hole in the wall still smoking faintly, still close enough to have been his skull.
"Twenty-four hours," he said quietly. "Don't waste them."
Then he followed Aveline out.
In the Hallway
"What was that?" Adrian hissed, his voice echoing off the grimy walls as they descended the stairs.
"Threat protocol was engaged. Target displayed aggression."
"You were going to kill him. Twice. Without hesitation."
She replied evenly, taking the stairs like they were just another tactical problem to solve. "Hesitation costs lives."
"He's just afraid. He's not a killer."
"Scared civilians kill as efficiently as professionals. Fear removes the variable of conscience."
He stared at her, exhausted in a way that sleep wouldn't fix. "Do you feel anything? Empathy? Guilt?"
She seemed to genuinely weigh the question, head tilted slightly. "I feel... efficient when variables align correctly. Frustrated when they don't." She paused, dark eyes studying his face. "Is that relevant?"
He shook his head, jaw clenched. "Jesus Christ."
She tilted hers. "Is that affirmation or rhetorical invocation?"
He didn't answer. Just walked ahead, his loose black jeans moving easily with each step. She followed in perfect step, a shadow that refused to fall behind.
Driving North | The Ride
Aveline drove because apparently she drove everything, hands perfect at ten and two despite the rain hammering against the windshield. Adrian sat in the passenger seat, Aveline pressing a Hello Kitty bandage to his shallow graze, staring out at the city bleeding past in streaks of neon and wet darkness.
The car reeked faintly of gun oil and citrus the scent of Aveline, basically.
She stayed focused ahead, but occasionally she glanced his way, inspecting the wound as if searching for weakness, or maybe damage she was responsible for. At a stoplight, when the world briefly stopped moving, she reached over and nudged his chin gently, examining the graze with clinical scrutiny, fingers barely touching.
"It's superficial. Good adhesion," she said, her fingers brushing the bandage with a touch that bordered on tender, which was somehow more unsettling than violence. "You won't scar unless you prefer dramatic effect."
He snorted despite everything. "Oh, I'm sure the office will absolutely appreciate the kindergarten chic."
She smirked, an actual, genuine smirk, a thin line of amusement that made her look almost human. "You look ridiculous. Like a five-year-old facing disciplinary action from a very disappointed parent. The left side really brings out the desperation in your eyes."
"Glad I can brighten the morale."
Silence stretched, comfortable in a way that made Adrian deeply suspicious. The city lights bled through streaming water on the glass, making everything outside blur and shimmer like a dream someone was in the process of forgetting.
Adrian broke the quiet because the silence felt dangerous. "Why Hello Kitty?"
"Bulk purchase. Cost-effective. The cartoon imagery doesn't affect the medical function, though the psychological impact appears significant based on your current humiliation." She kept her eyes on the road, but he could see the corner of her mouth twitch. "Aesthetics and efficacy are not mutually exclusive."
"Only my dignity gets mutilated in the process."
She offered a rare, dry laugh, actual amusement, which somehow made the night feel less terrifying. "Dignity is a luxury item. Most people can't afford it. Certainly not when they're actively bleeding."
The drive continued, slow and precise, the kind of driving that suggested she'd calculated every turn in advance. She didn't ask where to drop him. She already knew. Of course she already knew.
21:20 PM | Adrian's Safehouse, North Metro
She parked outside his building, engine idling. The night was cold and wet, the city breathing rain, everything slick and uncertain.
With uncharacteristic gentleness, Aveline reached over and checked the bandage once more, fingers ghosting along his left cheek, not quite an apology, not quite a warning. Just a moment that existed outside protocol, outside efficiency. Almost human, which was somehow worse than the violence.
She let out.
The city's rain pressed in, cold and immediate. He couldn't read her expression through the windshield, just the outline of her face, composed and still, watching him like she was cataloging a memory.
"Ciao," she said through the half-open window.
Adrian stepped back onto the wet pavement. A cab was already waiting, engine already running, pulled up like it had been summoned by pure force of will. Aveline slipped inside, and the door closed almost silently.
The cab dissolved into the rain-slicked night, gone like she'd never been there at all.
Adrian entered his apartment, slumping heavily on the couch. The leather of his jacket creaked as he settled back. His loose black jeans rode up slightly, bunching at the ankles — they'd been baggy before the blood and rain, and now they just looked sad. The wound on his left cheek stung, but the Hello Kitty bandage was holding, flawless despite everything.
His phone buzzed. Elias.
Tell me how it went.
Adrian stared at the message, thumb hovering over the keyboard for a long moment. Finally, he typed:
Complicated. I'll explain tomorrow.
He let the phone fall onto his chest, watching the neon light from the blinds cast bruised color across the room. Sleep pulled at him, not rest, just a city's promise that tomorrow would always be harder, always more uncertain, always requiring more blood than yesterday.
Outside, South Metro breathed like a dying animal. Inside, Adrian pressed his fingers to the graze on his left cheek and wondered how many times he could bleed before there was nothing left.