6. Skylar
Skylar
By the sixth hour of staring at the footage this morning, the man in the dark jacket still hasn’t had the decency to turn his face.
I drag the clip back again and pause on his shoulder.
The angle’s useless, the pixels get worse the longer I stare, and the alley feed still jumps right where I need it whole.
One second, Emrys is coming into frame. The attacker moves out of the shadows.
Then the footage skips, and by the time it steadies again, Kade has Emrys wrapped against him and patrol is about to come in hot with the wrong story already waiting for them.
The corridor camera shows Kade leaving his apartment, but there’s no timestamp to tie it cleanly to the exterior footage, which means I’ve got enough to know something’s wrong and not enough to make everyone else stop pretending this is just messy.
“Come on,” I mutter, leaning closer until the screen blurs. “Just turn your face a little. Fucking hell.”
The figure keeps his head down because, apparently, he’s committed to making my life worse.
I type another note, stop, and read the last three.
They’re all the same concern wearing different pants.
The call came in too early. The feed skipped too neatly.
The corridor footage backs Kade’s statement, but can’t lock the timing.
Chief Morrison stood in the briefing forty minutes ago, called the footage incomplete, restated that the protective order appropriate, and moved on before Miles could finish saying the cut looked deliberate.
She smiled when she said that all of this was just procedure, and that’s the part I can’t make fit.
Nothing about this shit is procedure.
A strained chuckle rumbles through me as I open a parallel file for the case. With years in the police force, I’ve learned to keep a separate, secret file with all of my true thoughts, concerns, and details that would never hold up with the officers, let alone the chief.
Mostly because I’m always accusing someone or connecting dots people don’t want to see. I add one line under the morning briefing note.
Morrison continued to frame Rourke as the primary threat despite the victim's statement, timing concerns, and footage irregularities.
Then I type her name under internal concerns, sit back, and stare at it until the letters stop looking like a decision I can take back.
Reyes sets a coffee beside my keyboard and reads the screen without asking.
Her face doesn’t change when she sees Morrison’s name, but her hand settles over my notebook before I can reach for it again.
“You’re not going to solve this by sitting here until the pixels confess.
If you keep pushing at it like this, it’s going to start looking personal even where you’re right.
Go outside, get coffee that didn’t come from this building, and come back when you can read your own notes without looking like you’re about to fight the monitor. ”
I glance at the paused figure on the screen, then at the coffee she brought me. It smells like the machine downstairs has started brewing evidence from cold cases. “For the record, the pixels started it.”
Reyes gives me a look that has no patience left to spend. “Outside, Sky. Walk. Eat something. Call it casework if that makes you feel better, but leave the building before you write yourself into a corner Morrison can use against you.”
That lands because Reyes doesn’t waste worry.
She can be blunt, dry, and painfully allergic to encouraging my worst habits, but she knows when I’m circling something instead of working it.
I save the file, lock the drive, and grab my coat from the back of the chair.
On the way out, I lift the coffee she brought, smell it one more time, and set it down with care.
“Tell the machine I’m not angry. I’m just disappointed and chemically afraid. ”
Reyes’s mouth twitches. “I’ll tell it you were dramatic.”
I just shake my head and head out of the building, jogging down the steps with no particular destination.
My mood sours a little, finding Ansdale to be gray, wet, and determined to soak through the seams of my coat.
Rain falls in thin, steady lines, turning the sidewalk dark and slick under passing shoes.
“Fucking weather showed sunny. I guess that was bullshit,” I mutter to myself, stuffing my hands in my pockets, my badge tucked out of sight for once. A courier swears at a bike chain near the curb.
I take a sharp turn toward the small bakery the scent of butter, yeast, honey, cardamom, and something citrus reaching my nose.
My stomach tightens, and I remember that half a stale mint from Reyes’s desk isn’t breakfast no matter how many times I tell my body we’re being efficient.
Ardor sits on the corner with fogged windows and gold lettering across the glass, warm light spilling over the wet sidewalk.
I know the address from the case file. I didn’t forget it.
I also didn’t leave the station with a plan to come here, which is the kind of technicality I’d mock if someone tried it on me during an interview.
I stop under the awning and look at the door. “Coffee,” I say under my breath. “Just here for coffee and maybe a bagel.”
The bell above the door gives me away the second I step inside.
Warmth wraps around me first, followed by the rich smell of bread and sugar and espresso.
Ardor is narrow but bright, with dark wood shelves, a glass case full of rolls and loaves, and small tables tucked along rain-streaked windows.
A girl with pink hair stands behind the counter, stacking paper bags with the grim focus of someone one bad fold away from violence.
She looks up, asks what she can get me, and I order coffee before my eyes betray me toward the honey-cardamom rolls.
Before she can reach for the tongs, the kitchen door swings open.
Emrys comes through carrying a tray of lemon loaves dusted with sugar.
He stops when he sees me, the tray dipping a fraction before he steadies it with both hands.
The bruise along his cheek has darkened into purple-red beneath his golden-brown skin, and the small bandage by his lip makes my jaw tighten before I can stop it.
His curls are pushed back beneath a hair net, his apron is dusted with flour, and he looks like someone who should only ever have to worry about ovens and whether the glaze is too thin.
His scent reaches me through butter and warm bread, softer than it was in the station because fear isn’t choking it now. Emrys glances at me, a smile spreading across his lips as recognition takes over, then at the cup the girl has ready. “Black coffee?”
I lift my eyebrow. “That obvious?”
A little color rises beneath the edge of his bruise. He looks down at the tray as he sets it on the counter. “You look like someone who drinks coffee like punishment. Which means black with no cream and sugar.”
The pink-haired girl tries and fails to hide a laugh. Emrys looks briefly horrified that he said it out loud, which makes it harder not to smile.
“That’s fair,” I say. “I’ve made it part of my personality, so I can’t complain when strangers notice.”
“You’re not really a stranger.” He says it quietly, then seems to realize how that sounds. His fingers tighten on the edge of the tray. “I mean, you are. Sort of. But not in the same way.”
There’s a soft stumble in the words and I have to bite back a laugh of my own to keep from further embarrassing him. “I know what you mean.”
The girl with pink hair slides the coffee toward me and adds a honey-cardamom roll without asking, which either means she’s good at sales or I look easier to read than I’d prefer.
Emrys watches me pay, then glances toward the table by the window where rain keeps hitting the glass.
“I have a break in a minute. If you’re staying for the coffee, I can sit for a second.
That’s not me being weird. Priya said if I keep rearranging the same tray, she’s going to make me sit down anyway, so technically this is me avoiding management intervention. ”
“I’d hate to interfere with bakery discipline,” I muse, keeping the answer easy because his blush deepens when he offers the explanation. “I’ll be by the window.”
I take the table with my back to the wall and the cup warming both hands. Emrys disappears into the kitchen long enough for me to tell myself leaving would be better. Then he comes back with his own mug and sits across from me, angled slightly toward the window instead of directly facing me.
“How are you?” I ask before anything else can get between us.
He looks down at the mug in his hands, his thumb rubbing slowly along the rim.
The color under his bruise returns, softer this time, like being asked directly has made him unsure what to do with his face.
“I’m okay. Or I’m doing a very convincing impression of okay, which feels almost as good.
I came in for a short shift because staying home felt worse, and Priya is watching me like I’m one wrong blink away from being wrapped in bubble wrap.
She might be right, but I’m trying not to give her the satisfaction. ”
“Being somewhere familiar makes sense after what happened. So does letting someone watch you for a while, even if she’s being smug about it.” I tilt my head to the side, studying the Omega, realizing how much softer his features are up close. He’s kind of... cute. Fuck.