Elena didn't like patterns she couldn't break.
And Marcus Hale was becoming one.
She stood in the operations room, eyes fixed on the screen as the footage replayed again.
Same corridor.
Same timing.
Same outcome.
Nothing out of place.
And for Elena, that wasn't good enough.
"Run it again," she said.
The analyst hesitated. "We've gone through it"
"Run it again." Elena repeated.
The video reset.
Marcus walked in.
Steady. Unhurried.
Everything about it looked right. Too right.
Elena leaned forward slightly, bracing her hands on the desk.
Watching not just the movement, but the space between movements.
People made mistakes in the gaps.
Marcus didn't.
Her brows drew together.
"He's not hiding anything," the analyst said carefully.
Elena didn't respond immediately.
Because that didn't feel true.
But it also didn't feel wrong.
Her phone buzzed against the desk.
She ignored it. Focused on the screen in front of her.
"There," she murmured.
A fraction of a second.
A pause so small it almost didn't exist.
"Did you see that?" she asked.
The analyst leaned in. "That could just be lag."
"No," Elena said quietly.
Because it didn't look like a glitch.
It looked like hesitation.
Her phone buzzed again.
This time, she glanced at it.
"You disappeared." The message read
Her gaze lingered on the message for a second longer than it should have.
Then she looked away.
"Slow it down," she said to the analyst.
The footage dragged frame by frame now.
Marcus moved. Stopped. Moved again.
Clean.
Still clean.
Elena exhaled slowly, straightening.
"Check internal override logs," she said. "Anything that doesn't show up properly."
"That's deep access." The analyst responded
"I know."
Another buzz.
She didn't look this time.
Didn't need to. She already knew what it was.
The analyst started typing.
Lines of code filled the screen.
Elena folded her arms, shifting her weight slightly.
Waiting.
Her phone buzzed again.
This time she reached for it before she could stop herself.
Unlocked it.
"You disappeared."
"Again."
Her lips pressed together slightly.
"I'm working."
The reply came quickly.
"You always say that."
Elena leaned back against the desk.
"Because it's usually true."
A pause.
"You don't sound busy."
Her brows pulled together faintly.
"You can hear that through text now?"
"Not really.
"But I notice when you're somewhere else."
That made her still for a second.
"And where do you think I am?"
A short pause.
"Half here."
"Half trying not to be."
Elena exhaled quietly.
That was annoyingly close.
"You assume a lot."
"You don't correct me."
She shook her head slightly.
"Maybe I don't feel like explaining myself."
" You don't have to."
"Just don't vanish mid-conversation."
Her fingers hovered over the screen.
That line felt different.
Less like observation.
More like preference.
"You keep track of that?"
"Only when it's you."
Her chest tightened slightly.
She stared at the message.
"That's a strange habit."
"You haven't told me to stop."
A small breath escaped her.
"Would you?"
The reply took a second longer this time.
"No."
Elena looked away from the phone for a moment.
That answer was too simple.
Too easy.
And somehow that made it harder to ignore.
"Miss Voss?"
She looked up immediately.
"Yes."
"We found something."
Her focus snapped back.
"Show me."
The screen shifted.
A buried log.
Deep.
Almost hidden.
Elena stepped closer.
"What is that?"
"Unregistered override," the analyst said. "Didn't show up in standard logs."
Her eyes narrowed.
"That's not Marcus."
"No."
Silence.
Because that changed everything.
Elena's pulse picked up slightly.
"Trace it."
"Working on it."
She leaned in, watching as the system processed.
Her mind moved fast now.
Marcus wasn't clean.
But he wasn't alone.
Her phone buzzed again
She looked at it immediately.
"You're quiet."
" I said I was working."
A pause.
"You usually say more than that."
She frowned slightly.
"You're paying a lot of attention."
"You make it easy."
Her lips pressed together.
" That doesn't even make sense."
" It does to me."
Silence.
Elena stared at the message.
Something about the way he said things, not trying too hard, not explaining too much.
It made her think.
More than she wanted to.
"You always this persistent?"
" Only when I don't want the conversation to end."
That caught her off guard.
Her grip on the phone tightened slightly.
"And you don't want this one to end?"
A pause.
Then his reply came
"No."
Her chest tightened again.
This time she didn't look away.
"Trace complete," the analyst said.
Elena blinked, forcing her attention back.
"What did you get?"
"A masked access point. Internal. Restricted."
Her expression hardened.
"Pull everything tied to it."
"Yes, ma'am."
Elena straightened slowly.
Two access paths.
One clean.
One hidden.
Not random. Coordinated.
Her phone buzzed again.
She glanced down.
"You're still here?."
She didn't hesitate this time.
"So are you."
A beat.
"Yeah."
" I am."
That felt steady.
Grounding, in a way she didn't want to examine too closely.
Elena locked her phone and set it down.
"Expand the trace," she said. "I want everything."
Because now, this wasn't just a leak.
It was something bigger.
And somewhere inside it, someone had made a mistake.
Elena's eyes narrowed slightly.
"Let's see how long they stay careful."
But even as she said it, a small part of her attention stayed elsewhere.
On a conversation she hadn't ended.
And for the first time, she actually didn't want to.