It’s been a week since Locke started treating me like a pet project.
The mornings begin early now, but not because of the case—though God knows it never sleeps. It’s because I can hear Dalia before I see her. The soft whisper of socks against cheap motel carpet. The muted click of the bathroom door closing, sometimes paired with the droning hum of a hair dryer that sounds like it’s dying a slow death.
She moves like someone walking the edge of a cliff in thick fog—willing to trust the next step even if it leads nowhere.
I wake to find her already halfway dressed, perched on the edge of the bed pulling her sleeves down over her wrists with methodical precision. Her black blazer hangs over the back of a chair like a uniform she’s reluctant to put on, and her service weapon glints on the nightstand—a constant reminder of the double life we’re living.
I let my head sink back into the pillow for another stolen moment, soaking in this quiet space that belongs to us. I want to ask her how she slept, whether the nightmares came again. Whether she woke up gasping Wren’s name into the darkness.
“You want to stop for actual coffee?” I ask instead.
Her eyes flick to me, and there’s the ghost of amusement there. “We’ll be late.”
I stretch, feeling the familiar ache crack down my spine from sleeping on a mattress that’s probably older than both of us combined. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”
She doesn’t smile, not exactly, but something softens at the corners of her mouth.
By the time we step outside, we’ve slipped back into the careful performance we wear in public. We don’t touch. We don’t walk too close. We become the version of ourselves that won’t raise questions.
We park two blocks from the precinct and walk into a coffee shop with the smell of burnt cinnamon clinging to the air, chalkboard menus written in careful cursive, soft jazz drifting from the speakers. Dalia orders black coffee, like always. I get a double shot drowning in oat milk and sugar.
“You ever going to admit you like oat milk?” Dalia asks as we step back into the morning cold.
“Oat milk? I’m not sure what you mean,” I say, fighting a grin.
Her lips twitch, and there it is again—that flash of something real, here and gone before I can properly catch it. I’d trade years of my life to make that expression stay.
The walk to the precinct is quiet except for the city waking up around us—distant sirens painting urgency across the dawn, a man having what sounds like a philosophical debate with his dog, a woman conducting a heated phone argument on the corner loud enough to wake the dead. All of it becomes white noise when I’m walking beside her.
I catch her looking at a bus stop advertisement as we pass—a smiling couple selling grief counseling apps with taglines about “moving forward together.” Dalia’s expression hardens like she’s personally offended. I don’t ask.
The true transformation happens the moment we step through the precinct doors. We become detectives again. Partners in the professional sense, not… whatever this thing between us is becoming.
Locke’s already stationed in the briefing room when we arrive, barely lifting her eyes from her paperwork. “Seven-oh-two.”
I hold up my coffee cup. “Worth it.”
She doesn’t respond, just makes another notation on her clipboard. Kelsi’s claimed her usual chair, fingers already flying across her laptop like she’s conducting a digital orchestra. Dalia slides into the seat beside her with practiced ease, and I position myself near Locke’s shoulder like the good little liaison I’ve been trained to be.
Because that’s what I am now—Locke’s bridge to cooperation. Her diplomatic solution. The one who keeps things smooth so we don’t get yanked off the case entirely.
I hate every second of it.
Locke starts her usual mantra. The same photos of faces that haunt our sleep. The same half-names that lead nowhere. The same dead ends dressed up as progress. She talks strategy while Kelsi makes barely audible sounds of skepticism and Dalia takes notes in the same worn notebook she’s carried since day one. I watch her pen move in the margins—tiny, precise spirals.
I study her profile, the careful mask of attention she wears, but something’s different. This isn’t her usual professional detachment. There’s a weight to her stillness that makes my chest tight with worry.
Locke drones on about financial threads—shell companies, potential offshore accounts, money trails that disappear into legal smoke—and I try to focus. Try to care about the details that might break this case open. But all I can see is the way Dalia’s hand grips her pen too tight, the way her eyes aren’t really tracking the evidence board.
I want to reach for her under the table. Want to press my palm against her knee and remind her she’s not alone in this.
When Locke finally wraps up her presentation, I flash her my most charming smile and offer something appropriately supportive about the new leads everyone in the room knows will lead nowhere. She responds with a nod that might qualify as approval, and I feel the heat of Dalia’s gaze on me as I perform this careful dance. I don’t look at her. I’m not sure I want to see what’s in her eyes right now.
Because this whole arrangement? It’s borrowed time.
And borrowed time always comes due.
Each day bleeds into the next like watercolors in rain.
We arrive at work separately now—fifteen-minute intervals. We exchange polite nods in the hallways, professional acknowledgments that give nothing away. Locke barely notices us anymore unless there’s an update to discuss. Kelsi keeps her head down and her observations to herself.
I keep playing the part Locke needs me to play. I bring her coffee sometimes, make small talk about case developments, laugh at her dry attempts at humor. Dalia grows sharper at work, more distant. If anyone bothered to notice the shift, they’d assume we were growing apart instead of tangling ourselves deeper into something we can’t name.
But every night, we return to that motel room where pretense falls away like discarded clothes.
Dalia spreads her unauthorized investigation across every available surface—maps marked with red ink, photographs connected by string like a spider’s web of obsession. She mutters theories under her breath while brushing her teeth, works out timelines while eating cereal straight from the box. I fall asleep to the sound of her breathing, steady for once, and wake up with her hair tickling my nose.
On the fifth night, her burner phone lights up just past midnight, casting blue shadows across the ceiling. I feel her slip from the bed like smoke, and when I wake up again, she’s hunched over the small table in an oversized hoodie, scrolling through crime scene photos.
She looks up when she notices me watching, and something soft moves across her face. “Couldn’t sleep.”
“Bad dreams?”
“No dreams.”
The night before our borrowed week ends, we sit cross-legged on the floor in front of her makeshift command center. The motel lamp hums like a dying insect, and the air smells like Chinese takeout. Her eyes move from photograph to photograph, connecting dots that exist only in her mind, weaving patterns from fragments and ghosts.
Dalia turns to me then, her fingers finding mine in the space between us.
“It’s official now,” she says quietly. “Markus signed the acknowledgment of service. Sixty days and it’s done.”
The words settle between us with the weight of a door closing on one life and cracking open another.
I nod, feeling something shift inside my chest. Quietly. Permanently.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“I’m not,” she whispers, and there’s steel in her voice now. “I needed to make space for something else. Something real.”
She looks down at our joined hands like she’s trying to figure out where her fingers end and mine begin. Then she kisses me—fierce and hungry and desperate, but she pulls back before I can lose myself completely, maintaining that careful control she needs.
“I meant what I said before,” Dalia murmurs against my lips. “I can’t cross that line yet. Not all the way.”
I nod, understanding even as it tears something loose in my chest.
“If I give myself something too good now, I won’t be able to leave it behind. I’ll choose it over doing what has to be done.”
I reach out, tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “You’re still planning to go in.”
“Not planning,” she says. “Preparing.”
My stomach drops like I’ve missed a step in the dark. She hasn’t said it directly, not since that night she first kissed me and turned my world inside out. But I’ve seen the signs—every encrypted message on that burner phone, every time she looks at me like she’s committing my face to memory.
“You won’t go in without telling me,” I say, and it comes out more like a plea than a statement.
“I won’t,” she promises.
I don’t push, not tonight. Tonight is one of the good ones, and I’m selfish enough to want to keep it that way.
Later, we fall asleep tangled together on the narrow bed. Dalia’s hand rests on my chest, light as a whispered secret. I stay awake longer than I should, watching shadows move across the ceiling, listening to the world spin on its axis outside these thin walls.
She’s already stepped out of one life. There’s this underlying frequency humming beneath everything we do—the knowledge that this case will resolve one way or another, and I’m terrified she won’t make it back to see how it ends.
The morning after arrives with sunlight bleeding through the blinds. I feel the cold space where her body should be before I even open my eyes, the cheap sheets still twisted around my legs from restless sleep.
Dalia moves through the kitchenette like she’s been awake for hours, every motion deliberate and controlled. Black turtleneck. Dark jeans. Her hair pulled back in a tight braid.
“Didn’t mean to wake you,” she says, not looking up from her coffee mug.
I sit up slowly, working the kinks out of my neck. “Didn’t mean to sleep that long.”
She offers me a smile, but there’s distance in it, like she’s already gone, and only her echo is still here with me.
“Kelsi mentioned Locke’s heading to the DA’s office this morning. Something about logistics permits and subpoena language. Sounds thrilling.”
I nod.
“I’ve got things I need to handle,” she continues, and the careful neutrality in her voice makes my chest tight.
“Here?” I press gently.
“No. Not here.”
I swing my legs over the edge of the bed, plant my feet on the carpet. She busies herself with her phone, her coffee, anything that isn’t me.
“Is it about Raina?” I ask.
Her gaze snaps up then, sharp and slightly surprised that I’ve connected those dots. “Yes.”
Dalia sets down her mug with deliberate care, then moves to grab her duffel bag—that black canvas companion she never fully unpacks, only rearranges like she’s always ready to run.
“You’re not sleeping well again,” I observe.
“I’m fine.”
Her hands pause on the zipper.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I offer, knowing she won’t but needing to ask anyway.
“No,” she says, quieter now. More honest.
She crosses to me and presses a kiss to my temple. Her lips linger there for just a heartbeat longer than necessary, and I close my eyes, trying to memorize the warmth of it. Then she’s gone, leaving only the faint scent of her shampoo and the echo of the door closing behind her.
The rest of the day unfolds like a badly written script.
At the precinct, Locke is her usual sharp edges and efficiency. She’s got fresh printouts of Amberfield’s routing logs spread across her desk and a highlighted list of shell companies with potential ties to Vale, but nothing that connects the scattered pieces into something resembling proof.
I nod in all the appropriate places. Bring her black coffee when her cup runs dry. Make supportive noises about the progress we’re making.
Dalia never shows up.
Kelsi doesn’t comment on the absence, but I catch her glancing at the clock more than once. Locke doesn’t seem to notice or care—she’s probably assuming Dalia’s running late again.
I keep checking my phone. The last message from Dalia was a simple thumbs-up emoji in response to some case files Kelsi had sent the night before. Nothing since then. Nothing to indicate where she’s gone or when she’ll be back.
When Locke starts discussing warrant applications and surveillance strategy, I can barely force myself to listen. My mind is miles away, following Dalia through whatever dangerous path she’s chosen to walk alone.
That night, I return to a dark motel room.
Her coffee mug sits exactly where she left it that morning, cold and abandoned. Her duffel bag is gone, along with any pretense that she’s coming back tonight.
I sit on the edge of the bed in the darkness, phone clutched in my hand. The pillow still smells like her shampoo—citrus and something distinctly her that makes my chest ache with her absence.
I wait for my phone to buzz. For a text, a call, anything to tell me she’s safe, that she’s still thinking about coming back.
It stays silent.
And I know—even before I find the note she’s left tucked under the lamp. Even before the sun rises on another day without her—I know.
Dalia’s gone.
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