Ali stood, pulled out his phone. His fingers trembled so violently that it took three tries to type the message: I have something you need, but we must meet alone.
One second, two—the message sent, and his heart thundered wildly, as if the whole building would collapse the moment anyone read it.
Maya replied within seconds, short and sharp: Name the place and time. Just five words, yet enough for Ali to understand he had crossed the point of no return.
That night, he walked to the abandoned lot behind the market, where the streetlights had been dead since 2018. A lone neon sign flickered off in the distance, painting the cracked ground with jittery patches of light and shadow like a disturbed lake surface.
Maya stood leaning against an old car, hands tucked in her jacket pockets, eyes following him as he approached. "Are you sure you want to do this?" she asked. Not harsh, not soft—simply verifying his final chance to back out.
"I..." Ali's voice faltered. He swallowed the tight knot in his throat. "I can't keep pretending I don't hear anything." He looked straight into her eyes, fighting to keep his own voice steady. "Everyone on the team knows something's wrong, but they choose silence. I..." He inhaled deeply. "I can't be like them."
Maya regarded him for a long moment, her gaze free of judgment, more like she was seeing pieces of him he had never spoken aloud.
He handed her the USB, his hand trembling so hard the tips of his fingers had gone white. "If anyone finds out I gave this to you—" he began, but didn't finish. He didn't need to: the death of Brooks hovered like a wordless warning he carried with him every day.
Maya closed her hand around the USB, feeling its tiny weight heavy as an indictment against an entire corrupted system. "No," she said slowly, her tone low and solid. "You aren't ending your life. You're starting another one."