Joan's office had smelled like char and old ink.
Seven bearer files, zero survivors, the longest lasting three months and four days.
She'd let him read every page before she burned the folder.
Her thumb had pressed against his wrist while their hands sat on the same file and neither of them moved away.
Bureau-trained.
Forty-two years old.
Running a soft play on him since the day she arrived.
But she'd burned a file that could have kept her career alive because the alternative was giving someone a reason to let him die.
That wasn't nothing.
Now it was past midnight and the room was dark.
Yara was sitting on the edge of his bed in humanoid form.
She'd been there when he came back.
Just there, as if she'd been waiting since before he left.
She was looking at his hands.
Soren sat down across from her. She didn't look up.
"The ones before you," she said. "I told you what happened to them. The distances, the timelines, how close I got."
"You did."
