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Gillian

S omething’s wrong with the light.

Too bright. Flat. Like someone scrubbed the depth out of it.

The apartment’s clean. Not my-clean. Their-clean. The remote sits at a perfect angle. The coffee table is wiped. No mug in the sink. No throw blanket crumpled on the couch. I haven’t lived like this in months.

I don’t remember coming back to this apartment.

I sit because standing feels like asking for trouble.

The journal is on the table.

I don’t remember writing in it, but I know it’s mine. Corners bent. Elastic stretched thin. A fingerprint on the first page—mine, maybe—in something that looks like blood.

I open it.

The handwriting is mine, but frantic. Angled. Like I was racing. Or trying to outrun something worse.

I flip through quickly, too quickly—memories I don’t recognize, warnings I can’t place, something about a panic room, something about his left eye. Dates, but no logic. Just me screaming at myself across a gap I can’t close.

The words hit hard, like a siren I meant to silence.

And then—footsteps.

I don’t remember unlocking the door. I don’t remember letting anyone in.

But I don’t move.

Whoever it is already knows I’m here.

Andra enters like the place belongs to her. No knock. No hesitation. Just the unshakable confidence of someone who’s done this before and already knows how it ends.

Her eyes move fast—scanning, assessing, confirming. She doesn’t look at me so much as through me. Like a damaged item in inventory.

Her heels make no sound on the floor, but somehow it still feels like I’m being marched toward sentencing.

She’s in full regulation gray. Blazer sharp. Hair pinned. No jewelry. Not because she’s minimalist. Because she doesn’t need the distraction.

I clutch the journal tighter.

And that’s when I know.

She’s not here to check on me.

She’s here to collect.

Her expression never changes. “This has been a difficult week,” she says, like it’s a weather report. “We’re all adjusting.”

Her voice is smooth, but it doesn’t soothe. It lands like sedative-laced blame.

Her eyes flick to the journal, then back to mine. “You understand, I hope, how dangerous internal documentation can be. Especially when it lacks context.”

I don’t answer. I can’t.

My grip tightens. I don’t mean to.

She steps closer, calm and coiled. “Especially when it ends up in the wrong hands.”

I flinch. “I didn’t—I didn’t tell anyone.”

Her smile is the kind you give someone when you’re about to close a door on them—final and dismissive. ”No one’s accusing you, Gillian.”

But they are. She is.

“I don’t even remember writing it.”

“That’s common,” she says. “That’s why systems exist. To catch what slips through.”

She takes another step. My heart kicks. There’s something in her expression. She’s come here to kill me. For sure.

“You know we don’t typically intervene,” she adds. “But these are unusual circumstances.” A pause. “And misinterpretations can create liabilities.”

My fingers lock tighter around the journal.

Her voice drops—soft, even—but now there’s something new in it. Pressure.

“We’ve all worked hard to get where we are. Some of us have built things that can’t afford another misstep. I’m sure you understand how serious that is.”

My heart races, and my palms sweat, but I can’t look away from Andra. Every step she takes feels like it’s pushing the air out of me.

Oh god, this is not how I wanted to die.

My stomach seizes. I search for a way out, a way around her. I don’t see one. The only way out is through.

“I’m sure you understand what’s at stake. People disappear over less.”

She smiles, just slightly. “But that’s not what we want, is it?”

Her hand extends. Not fast. Not demanding. A choice that isn’t one.

I don’t let go.

At first.

It’s not defiance. It’s instinct.

She waits. One breath. Two. Then, with razor-thin restraint: “Come on, Gillian. Let’s not escalate.”

I don’t want to die, and yet, I know that look in her eyes. She’s not leaving without the journals.

I let go.

She doesn’t rip it away. Just folds it under her arm like it belongs to her now.

As though I never had a claim to it at all.

At the door, she turns. Not to look at me. Just to make sure I hear her.

“I’ll note your cooperation,” she says. “In the event that it still counts for something.”

The door clicks shut.

I know I should move. Get out of here. She’ll be back. I know this even though I don’t know why. But I can’t force myself to take action.

The journals are gone. So is the warning. So is the record.

But the tension remains—lodged in my throat, behind my eyes, under my ribs.

I don’t know what I wrote—not all of it.

But I know what it meant.

It was my story, my truth. My memories.

And now they’re gone.

They took everything again.

But this time, they left something behind.

Not memory. Not rage. Not clarity.

A target.