She sent a quick message to Maya: Car following me. I will transmit the report from the federal office. Her fingers trembled slightly as she typed.
She reached for the ignition, but headlights flared at the far end of the narrow lane, shining straight toward her from the opposite direction. A second black car.
Eliza rested one hand on the steering wheel and inhaled slowly. She understood now: this was not one tail, this was an entire system moving to stop the truth before it could breathe. The engine ahead growled to life—a low, predatory sound reverberating through the concrete canyon of the warehouses. Holston reminded her once more that the bruises on Brooks's body were not the only marks the city had tried to hide. The living left marks, too: marks of fear, of silence, of those who decided whose truth survived. And tonight, the city was moving to protect its own scars.
At the police station, Ali sat alone in the locker room, the flickering fluorescent lights casting a sickly pale green across his face. His phone lay on his thigh, replaying the recording he had already listened to dozens of times: Hale's voice, dry and metallic, each word striking like a hammer on iron: "Write the report I gave you. Anyone who strays deals with it themselves."
Sweat slid down Ali's temple in neat lines, completely at odds with the frigid air rattling from the aging vent overhead. He shut his eyes, but the sentence carved itself deeper into his mind, as if it had been written for him specifically.
He lifted his head and stared into the mirror. The police uniform on his body had once been his pride, something he dreamed of wearing when he was just a boy watching patrol cars roll down his street with bright, admiring eyes. Now it felt like rusted armor. Every stitch, every patch of fabric seemed sewn with the stifled cries of people he had watched suffer while he stayed silent. He adjusted his collar, but the more he adjusted, the more it felt like he was tightening a fist around the throat of the better version of himself he once hoped to become.
The locker room door swung open, making him jump. Another officer walked in, coffee cup in hand, sipping as he eyed Ali through the mirror. "Nervous, kid?" he asked with a thin smirk, the kind worn by men who'd grown too comfortable with fear in others.
Ali nearly dropped the USB hidden in his pocket, his heart slamming against his ribs. He shook his head quickly, forcing his voice to stay level: "Nothing's wrong."
The man shrugged, walked off, leaving behind the sour scent of cheap coffee and a cloud of suspicion thick enough to choke on.