"They're here."
Rohit's whisper had been almost soundless, yet the words smacked Ava as hard as if he'd actually slapped her. She turned about, wide-eyed, her chest freezing in its track. The stillness all around them for an instant felt wrong—something that the very building was suspending its own breath for.
Thunder boomed above, rattling the thin glass windows of the vacant building. Rain outside pounded more loudly now, nearly frantic. And then, footsteps—slow, measured, muted by damp floors, but unmistakably genuine—rang down the corridor below.
"Who's here?" Ava's voice trembled more than she had meant to say.
Rohit did not respond immediately. His gaze was intent, hearing, measuring. His hand dropped to the inside of his jacket—no gun, but his fingers grasped something hard. A flashlight. He flicked it on, the thin beam slicing through the shadows.
"I don't know," he replied. "But they were tailing this building before you got here. I saw a van outside. Same one that's been tracking me for weeks."
Ava's heart skipped a beat. "Are you being followed?"
"No," he replied without turning to her. "They're following your uncle's work."
The creak of the front door opening downstairs startled Ava.
"We need to move," Rohit whispered.
He turned, taking her down a hallway that creaked with each step. Her boots squelched on the water-soaked carpet, her breath misting in the chill air. The building smelled of mold and secrets left unspoken. She'd only been here once before as a kid. And now, it seemed like a tomb.
"Where are we going?" she whispered.
"There's a lab upstairs. Secret. Your uncle used it when he didn't trust people anymore."
Ava's chest constricted. She didn't even know he owned a lab. In fact, she hardly knew him. He was always a ghost in their family—there, but aloof, and then disappeared for years. She only began reconnecting after her mother died last year.
They made it to the second floor. Rohit shoved open a door at the end of the hall, showing a thin stairwell behind a false wall of bookshelves. Ava darted in just as voices came faintly from behind them—male, frantic.
Someone was in the building.
They took the stairs rapidly. The stairwell gave onto a small room, windowless, cluttered with dusty equipment, books, notes, and machines that seemed to be from another era.
The second Rohit locked the door behind them, silence wrapped around the space like a shroud.
Ava collapsed into the nearest chair, gasping. "Why are they after us?"
Rohit didn't sit. He moved to a cluttered desk in the corner, pushing aside old journals. "They're not after us. They want something your uncle left behind. And we're the only ones stupid enough to come looking for it."
Ava gazed at him. "Why are you here, Rohit? You vanished years ago."
He hesitated, then moved to stand facing her.
"Because he was the last one who knew the truth about what had happened to my family."
There was a silence between them—thick, heavy. Not uncomfortable. Just. with unspoken things.
Ava didn't press him for clarification.
She didn't need to.
[𝗙𝗹𝗮𝘀𝗵𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸 - 𝗔𝘃𝗮 | 𝟱 𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀 𝗔𝗴𝗼]
Ava sat at the edge of the university library's rooftop, legs swinging over the side, a cold energy drink in hand and a journal in her lap. She wasn't supposed to be up there. No one was. But she always liked the quiet.
And he always found her there.
"You're going to fall one day," Rohit said behind her.
She didn't look up. "Better than failing this semester."
He chuckled, and the sound did something strange to her chest. "That's the most dramatic thing I've heard all week."
She finally turned to him. His hoodie was pulled low, hands buried in his pockets. Back then, he was different—still quiet, but lighter. Like there wasn't a storm constantly hovering around him. Like he hadn't yet seen what he would.
"You always find me here," she said softly.
He shrugged. "It's the only place quiet enough to think."
A silence. Then she said, "And do you ever think of me?"
He didn't respond. But he sat down next to her anyway.
...
[𝗙𝗹𝗮𝘀𝗵𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸 - 𝗥𝗼𝗵𝗶𝘁 | 𝟲 𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀 𝗔𝗴𝗼]
The screaming wouldn't end.
It was a fire alarm. At least, that's what his mind was telling him it was. But the noise mixed with something else—the screech of metal, the breaking of glass, his mother's voice yelling his name.
He was 17. And he had blood on his hands. Not his own.
The house had exploded. That's what the news would later report. A gas leak. A technical malfunction. Nothing suspicious.
But Rohit had already discovered the symbol prior to the fire. Chiseled inside his father's safe. Incised on metal.
He never trusted in coincidence after that.
.....
Ava slowly stood up in the lab. "What's that symbol you talked about?"
Rohit glanced over. "You'll understand soon enough. Your uncle left breadcrumbs. He knew they'd try to get to him sooner or later."
"Then why not call the police?"
"Because it's not murder," Rohit explained. "It's control. This is deeper than either of us realized."
Ava made her way to a table against the wall. She brushed away dust from a shrouded box, and underneath, she saw old research reports and a crumpled leather book. Her fingers lingered before she picked it up.
Her uncle's handwriting glared at her.
𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐄𝐂𝐇𝐎.
𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐝: 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝟐𝟎𝟎𝟏
𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐬: 𝐀𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐝.
"What the hell is this?" she whispered.
Rohit stepped next to her, reading over her shoulder. His jaw clenched.
"They didn't murder your uncle to put an end to his research, Ava," he whispered. "They murdered him because he 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙘𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙙 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜 ."
She spun around to confront him.
Their gazes met—her questioning, his filled with memories he refused to share.
For one heartbeat, they didn't feel like enemies. Not strangers. Not former near-maybe-somethings.
Two people standing at the threshold of a truth too vast to contain.
.........
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