Page 103 of Stay Scared

Ash looks toward the rear cabinets. “The physical projection plans may be stored back there.”

Cade shifts away from his injured side. “I’ll watch the corridor.”

Ash looks at the darkening edge of his dressing. “You’re bleeding through that. Come with me.”

Cade looks at me.

I hold his stare. “Go. I’ll still be here when you come back.”

His mouth eases before he can hide it.

Then he pushes away from the door. “Don’t let Owen make this weird.”

Owen glances toward the tripod. “That instruction arrived several months too late.”

Cade points at him. “Exactly that shit.”

Ash catches Cade by the good shoulder and turns him toward the archive. “Move.”

Cade follows, looking back once before the door closes.

Owen waits until their footsteps disappear. “You promised to stay.”

“I promised Cade I’d be here when he comes back.”

“That is a narrower promise.”

“You’re learning.”

The extraction timer reads 10:21.

Mark remains upright.

I look at Owen. “Show me when you first found Rook.”

He sits at the terminal and opens the earliest archive folder.

The first photograph shows Halden Coffee across a wet street, morning traffic blurred between the lens and the front window. I sit at my usual table while a man waits near the bus shelter with his hood pulled low.

“He appeared four mornings that week,” Owen says.

“You photographed him before you photographed me.”

“He never boarded a bus.”

The next image catches the same man beside a delivery van. His coat has changed, but he stands the same distance from my window with the same posture. Another photograph shows the storefront reflection near my apartment entrance while I unlock the door.

Owen enlarges it.

A dark shape extends beneath the hood.

“I thought he was photographing you.”

“Was he?”

“I never saw a camera.”

“You followed him.”