Page 12 of The Arbiter
“He grabbed me. Covered my mouth. He was in the autopsy wing,” I say, the words tumbling out in a frantic rush.
“That’s not possible,” he says firmly, already turning toward his monitors.
My jaw tightens.
“Check the cameras, Bryan. Now.”
He sighs but pulls up the footage. We watch in suffocating silence. There I am on the screen. Walking down the corridor. Stopping. Turning. Running. Alone. No shadow behind me. No figure in black looming over my shoulder. No cigarette ember glowing like a warning in the dark. Just me. Looking panicked. Looking insane.
Bryan leans back in his chair, his expression softening into pity.
“Mali… there’s no one there.”
My stomach drops again, a cold stone falling into an abyss.
“That’s not—“
I shake my head violently.
“Rewind it.”
He does. Same thing. Empty corridor. Empty space. Bryan exhales slowly, reaching out as if to steady me.
“You’ve been buried in that Arbiter case for weeks. You’re exhausted. Your mind is playing tricks on you.”
No. No, it isn’t. I can still smell the faint, acrid scent of smoke on my collar. I touch my neck, and the skin is still warm and tingling from where his hand had been clamped just moments ago. I didn’t imagine that. Did I?
After a long, hollow conversation with Bryan, I head back to my floor.
He doesn’t believe me. How can I judge him? There was literally nothing visible on the cameras. Not a single trace of a shadow, let alone a man. But I know he was here. I’m not crazy.
Back in my office, I lock the door. I don’t usually lock it. Tonight, the click of the bolt is the only thing keeping me from shattering . The room is exactly how I left it. Nothing disturbed. Nothing broken. Nothing real. Except for the smell.
It clings to the fabric of my coat when I pull it off. Cigarette smoke. Not faint. Not imagined. Real. My stomach tightens into a hard, painful knot. I don’t smoke. No one here smokes.
I bring the sleeve to my nose again. It’s there. He’s there. Even when he isn’t. He’s lingering in the fibers, a ghostly reminder that he can touch me whenever he pleases. I glance toward the corner of the ceiling where the security camera sits. It feels different now. Not protective. Observant. Like it isn’t here for me. Like it’s here because of me.
The tiny red indicator light blinks once. Slow. Almost deliberate. I stare at it longer than I should. It’s probably nothing. Probably.
My body finally begins to relax only after I intentionally bury myself in a different case. The glow of the computer screen becomes something steady. Predictable. Safe. Outside my office, the hallway lights reflect perfectly in the glass walls. Too perfectly.
For a moment, I swear I see something shift in the reflection. A darker shape moving where nothing should move. I turn sharply. Empty space.
I exhale slowly through my nose.You’re exhausted, Mali, that’s all. I tell myself as I refocus on the screen. Autopsy photos. Documentation. Evidence I can measure. Facts I can trust. But the feeling doesn’t leave. It crawls. Slowly. Up the back of my neck. Like fingers. Like eyes. Watching.
I glance at the camera again. The tiny red light is steady now. Unblinking. My pulse picks up anyway. This floor used to feel clinical. Neutral. Now it feels like a stage. And I don’t know exactly who’s behind the curtain.
A faint sound echoes somewhere in the hallway. Metal. Soft. Like a door shifting on its hinges. I freeze. Listen. The building settles sometimes. Expands. Contracts. I know that. I catalog the noises logically, desperately trying to anchor myself to reality.
Another sound. Closer. Footsteps. Slow. Measured. Not running. Approaching. My heartbeat slams so hard I can hear it in my ears, a frantic drum in the silence of the office.
No, he wouldn’t… he can’t be back already. The footsteps stop right outside my office. Silence presses in from every direction. The handle moves. Slowly. I stop breathing, my hand hovering over the heavy glass paperweight on my desk. It’s locked. He can’t get in.
Then, I hear the unmistakable jingle of keys. Fuck. The door swings open.
“Ready to stab someone, Madeline?”
Bryan smirks.
