Soren #2
There it is again, my name in his mouth like a plea he's trying to keep professional.
I hate him for it for half a second. Not because he's done anything wrong, but because fear needs somewhere to go, and Hugo is standing directly in front of me with careful hands, sincere eyes, and three bodies his department wants to bury under paperwork.
"It means I don't know yet," I snap. "Which is different from it meaning something useful."
Hugo doesn't back down. "You went quiet."
"I'm capable of silence."
Aven makes a small sound from the end of the counter, and I point at him without looking. "Don't."
"I said nothing."
"You thought loudly."
"I'm very gifted."
Hugo's gaze flicks between us, then returns to me. His voice drops lower, stripped of almost everything except exhaustion. "There are families at the precinct who know these weren't natural deaths. They're being told to go home and grieve quietly. I don't know what to tell them."
"Try the truth. Humans find that refreshing when it's not actively ruining their lives."
"I don't have enough truth."
"No one ever does."
He looks at me for a long moment, and I hate that he doesn't push. I hate more that he looks like he wants to, and he's choosing not to because something in my face has finally convinced him the answer might be worse than the question. He slides the scan across the counter and leaves it there.
"Keep the copy," he says. "In case you remember something. Or in case it becomes something you can't ignore."
"Hugo—"
"If there's another body, I'll call." His fingers are steady when he gathers the folder, until he reaches the photographs. Then they slow. "Please don't do anything reckless."
"Detective, reckless is practically my governing principle."
His mouth almost smiles, but it doesn't survive the attempt. "I know."
That shouldn't land softly. It does, and I resent both of us for it.
Hugo leaves with the folder tucked under his arm, shoulders slumped beneath the trench coat, and the bell above the door chimes with a cheerful, mocking sound that makes me want to smash it with a hammer.
The silence that follows isn't empty. It's full of Cain, Ira, and Aven all knowing I'm full of shit and deciding, in three different terrible ways, whether to say so.
Aven sets the polishing cloth down and comes closer, not all the way, just enough that I can feel the shape of his concern without having to look directly at it. "Your detective brought homework from the murder office," he says. "And you hated the assignment."
"Not my detective."
"Sure."
"If you say that again, I'm feeding you to the mandrake roots. They're ambitious, and I believe in nurturing growth."
His mouth curves, but the expression fades too quickly. Cain reaches for the scan, and I slap my hand down over it before his fingers touch the paper. His eyes lift to mine. He says my name gently, which is infinitely worse than if he'd said it like an order.
"No," I say.
"I only want to see the symbol."
"I said no."
Ira's voice comes from behind me, low and even. "What did you recognize?"
"Nothing." Aven's mouth tightens. Cain's expression doesn't change.
Ira simply waits, which is worse than interrogation because he's weaponized patience into a personal flaw.
I pull the scan off the counter and fold it once, carefully enough that my hands have something to do besides shake.
"It's old language. Probably ceremonial.
Possibly bureaucratic. Definitely ugly. That's all. "
"That isn't all," Ira says.
"No, but it's all I'm giving you while I still have the option to be charmingly evasive."
"Soren."
I whirl on him because Ira's voice in that register always makes me feel like I'm being guided away from a ledge, and today I'd rather jump out of spite. "Don't use the command voice on me. I'm not one of your field reports."
His jaw shifts. He doesn't apologize, but his hands loosen at his sides.
Aven watches that too, because of course he does.
Aven watches anything that looks like control because he's still learning where the locks are in every room.
The realization makes me angrier, not at him, never at him, which means the anger goes everywhere else.
"I need Vera's library," I say.
Cain's gaze sharpens. "Alone?"
"Yes, alone. That's the traditional way to be alone."
"You're frightened."
"I'm annoyed."
"You're both," Aven says.
I point the folded scan at him. "You've been working here three days. Don't start accurately reading me. It's inappropriate workplace behavior."
His expression softens just enough to make my throat hurt. I leave before any of them can say something kind.
Vera's library accepts me with its usual warmth and its usual judgment.
The heavy oak door closes behind me, muffling the shop until the world narrows to old paper, dried lavender, beeswax, and the faint stubborn trace of my grandmother's perfume caught in the upholstery.
The room smells like secrets organized by someone who loved me enough to lie.
Usually, that makes me feel safe. Today, it makes my skin prickle.
The scan trembles once in my hand before I force my fingers still.
I go to the high shelves at the back, the ones Vera told me never to touch unless I was prepared for the answers.
She said it like a joke the first time, standing on a ladder with a pencil stuck through her hair and dust on her cheek.
I was fifteen, arrogant, and convinced every closed door existed to become more interesting once I opened it.
I told her I could survive anything if the answer was good enough.
She laughed until she cried.
I don't laugh now.