جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 20

LIVIAI lock the archive door after he leaves. Not because the archive needs protecting—nothing down here is worth stealing in the way most people steal—but because the sound of the lock sliding into place makes my hands stop shaking for half a second. It gives me the illusion of control. A clean click. A boundary. A line.Outside the room, the building settles into night with slow groans and quiet pops of old stone contracting. Somewhere above, a janitor’s cart squeaks down a hallway. A distant elevator hums. Rome keeps breathing. Inside the archive, the air is cooler. Still. Watchful.I stand with my back to the door for a moment, palm pressed against it, eyes closed, counting my pulse the way you count steps when you’re trying not to fall. One. Two. Three. My heartbeat doesn’t slow. Because Evan Hart’s mouth was almost on mine. Because I saw the moment his restraint cracked—saw it in the way his hand lifted, the way his eyes dropped to my mouth like gravity had finally won. Because

EVANLeah keeps talking, and I keep answering, and my voice keeps sounding like mine. That’s the strangest part. That I can lie from the same mouth that promised her I wouldn’t disappear. That I can say “I’m here” while sitting in a dark back room of the archive with Livia’s hair still on my shirt and my guilt sitting so high in my throat it feels like I could choke on it.“I didn’t know who else to tell,” Leah whispers. “I didn’t want to call Jenna again. She’ll do the script voice. She’ll tell me it’s stress. Everything is stress.”“I’m glad you called me,” I say, and it’s true enough to cut.In the dimness, I can barely see my own hand gripping the phone. The cot creaks softly when I shift, the sound too intimate, too domestic. Livia lies beside me, still as a held breath, her eyes on the ceiling like she’s trying to leave her body without moving. I force myself to focus on Leah’s voice—on the cadence I know, the slight wobble she gets when she’s trying not to cry.“What else did t

EVANThe archive smells wrong when I arrive the next morning. Not wrong in a way I can name—no smoke, no rot, no obvious disturbance—but off, like a room that finally let the breath out while no one was looking.I stand just inside the doorway longer than necessary, my hand still on the handle, listening. Nothing. No footsteps. No hum of the desk lamp. No quiet movement among the shelves. Just the low, institutional silence of a building that assumes it will outlast everyone who passes through it.“Livia?” I call, softly.My voice sounds intrusive here, like I’m speaking in a chapel. No answer. I step inside and let the door close behind me. The latch clicks with a dull finality that sends a small spike of unease through my chest. I tell myself it’s nothing. That I’m early. That she’s late. That adults are allowed to be late without it meaning

EVANLeah is sitting on the edge of the hotel bed like she doesn’t trust it to hold her. The room is too bright for late afternoon—Roman sunlight slanting through the thin curtains, cutting the air into clean rectangles that make everything look sharper than it should. The light lands across her hands, and I can see how hard she’s gripping the paper in her lap. White knuckles. A tremor she’s pretending isn’t there.The paperwork is spread out on the duvet between us. Aurelia letterhead. Clean fonts. Calm language that makes my skin crawl. And the code. H–47. It sits at the bottom of the pages like a signature, like a brand.I stand near the door because I don’t know where else to put myself. Standing feels safer than sitting. Standing feels like I might still have options. Leah looks up at me. Her eyes are clear—too clear. Like she&r

EVANThe message stays on my screen like a bruise you can’t stop pressing.DELAY NOTED. ADAPTATION IN PROGRESS.Leah has read it three times now without moving. Her eyes track the letters with the careful stillness of someone watching a snake in tall grass—knowing if she reacts too suddenly, it might strike.I lock my phone and set it face down on the table like that will mute it. It doesn’t mute anything. Leah’s hands are clenched in her lap. The knuckles look almost white. Her breathing is controlled in that way I recognize too well—controlled like she’s making a deal with herself. Don’t fall apart. Don’t give them the reaction. I don’t know who “them” is anymore. I only know the pronoun has weight.“You think they can see us right now?” she asks, voice steady but thin.My