The apartment was quiet. Too quiet.

Nicholas stood in the dead center of the living room, his gaze sweeping across the space in a sharp, practiced arc. Couch. Laptop. Blanket. Everything sat exactly where it was supposed to be.

Except Avinash.

His eyes locked onto the front door. Unlocked. A cold, heavy weight dropped straight into the pit of his stomach.

"...Avi?"

Nothing. He tried again, his voice cutting through the stagnation, louder this time. "Avinash."

Only the hum of the air conditioner answered.

He moved. Bedroom first-empty. Bathroom-empty. Balcony, laundry closet-empty, empty. His movements remained strictly measured, textbook efficient. One room to the next, clearing angles, processing data. His breathing hadn't changed yet. He wouldn't let it.

He returned to the living room, where the laptop screen still cast a faint, blue glow over the cushions. The cursor blinked inside the encrypted messaging client, right beside a half-finished search query. The ceramic coffee mug sat on the table. Nicholas picked it up.

Cold. Completely drained.

Ten milligrams. Enough to force an exhausted body to sleep through sunrise. Enough to dull reflexes, sluggish the judgment, and fundamentally wreck a person's balance. But evidently, not enough to stop someone running on sheer, desperate adrenaline.

"...Nick?" Oriane's voice crackled through the headset he'd completely forgotten he was wearing. "You there?"

"...He's gone."

A sharp intake of breath on the other end. "...Gone?"

"He left."

"How? Nick, you said-"

"I don't know."

Nicholas was already at his desk, fingers flying across the apartment's secure panel. He bypassed the local encryption, pulling up the building's hallway camera. Nothing. Lobby. Nothing. Garage. Nothing.

"...Feeds cut?" Oriane asked, her tone shifting into a lower, tighter register.

"No," Nicholas murmured, his eyes scanning the timestamps. "They're clean. Too clean."

His pulse climbed another volatile notch. The tunnel vision was starting-the familiar, suffocating narrowing of the world that usually preceded a disaster.

"Pull the hospitals," he ordered flatly.

"What?"

"Hospitals. Emergency admissions."

"...Nick-"

"Now, Oriane."

The line went silent on her end, replaced by the furious, frantic clatter of her keyboard.

Nicholas grabbed his personal phone. He dialed one contact, then another, then another. No answer. Negative. Nothing. He called three different narcotics units, two patrol officers he kept on payroll, a forensic supervisor, and an emergency dispatcher he'd traded a massive favor with six months ago.

Nothing. No unidentified admissions. No street assaults. No traffic collisions. No John Does. No university student matching the description of Avinash Patel.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

The apartment walls suddenly felt like they were pressing inward, constricting his chest. He couldn't stay still. He walked into the hallway. Back to the kitchen. Hallway. Living room. Bedroom. Hallway.

He was pacing. The exact same predatory, trapped loop he had watched Avi track hours earlier.

He stopped, staring at the front door again. Unlocked. He had locked it. He remembered the precise turn of the deadbolt. He always locked it. The ghost of an old, deep-seated failure flared to life in his chest, a phantom ache that tasted like gunpowder and funeral flowers.

"...Nick," Oriane's voice broke through the static in his head. "I've run every emergency admission within a twenty-kilometer radius."

His throat felt entirely dry, like swallowing glass. "...And?"

"...Nothing."

He closed his eyes, the darkness behind his eyelids offering no relief. Nothing was worse. Nothing meant Avinash wasn't safe in a triage room. Nothing meant he could be anywhere, completely unprotected.

"...I've also got the municipal traffic feeds coming up," she added hesitantly.

"No."

"You sure? If he took a cab-"

"If someone took him, the traffic feeds are the first thing they'd erase," Nicholas snapped, his voice sharp with a rising, ugly panic. "We already established that."

"...Right." A heavy pause stretched over the line. "...Nick."

"What?"

"You sound..." She trailed off, unable or unwilling to name the raw edge in his demeanor.

"I'm fine."

His eyes drifted back to the empty mug in his hand. Ten milligrams. He had stirred it into the dark roast himself. Because Avi had looked like a ghost ready to collapse. Because the kid had been awake for nearly thirty-six hours. Because Nicholas had arrogantly assumed he could solve the entire goddamn problem before the civilian ever woke up.

Professional judgment. Risk mitigation. Protect the asset. That was the clinical lie he'd told himself.

Instead, he had intentionally drugged a civilian and left him entirely defenseless in a city where a professional clean-up crew had just executed a man for looking at the wrong addresses.

His fingers tightened around the ceramic. The pressure built in his palm, a physical manifestation of the tightening vice in his chest.

Crack.

A sharp, sudden fracture split the white porcelain, crawling across the surface like a spiderweb.

"None of this means he's hurt. Avi is smart. He could've just gone after another lead on his own. He could've-"

"He can barely stand," Nicholas cut her off, the words tearing out of his throat before he could stop them.

Silence descended on the line.

"He drank all of it," Nicholas whispered. His own voice sounded distant. Wrong. "H-he drank all of it."

Silence answered him.

"Ten milligrams." His breathing shortened. "His central nervous system's suppressed. Reflexes... slower. Reaction time... seconds behind. Balance compromised."

"Nick-"

"If someone grabs him..." His throat closed. "If someone corners him..."

The sentence died there. It didn't need finishing.

He moved. Keys. Wallet. Gun. Tablet. Phone.

No. Keys first. He grabbed them. Turned toward the door. Stopped.

"...Where's the tablet?"

"It should still be on your desk."

He looked down. The tablet was already tucked under his arm.

"...Right."

He shifted it into his left hand, reached for his jacket-

"...Phone."

Back again. The charger. He yanked the cable free too hard. The phone slipped. Hit the floor.

"Shit."

"Nick."

He bent to grab it, stood too fast, clipped the corner of the desk with his shoulder. A stack of case files slid off the edge. Paper exploded across the hardwood.

"Leave them."

He ignored her. Keys. Where-where were the keys?

"...Your right hand."

He looked. They were clenched so tightly in his fist his knuckles had turned white.

"...Fuck."

He shoved them into his pocket and reached for the holster. The pistol slipped from his trembling fingers. It hit the floor with a heavy metallic crack.

"FUCK!"

The sound echoed through the apartment. For one awful second he just stared at it. Breathing. Not moving.

"Nick."

Nothing.

"Nicholas Damine. Listen to me."

His fingers finally closed around the grip.

"You're not seventeen anymore."

Everything stopped.

Nicholas could feel his throat closing up. He gulped hard around the forming lump. "I know. I'm fine."

He stumbled out of the apartment and down into the darkness of the garage. Slipping into the driver's seat, he blindly slammed the key into the ignition.

The engine roared to life, a violent vibration that echoed off the concrete walls of the garage. Nicholas threw the sedan into reverse, tires screeching against the oil-stained floor, before jamming it into drive and tearing out into the midnight streets.

He sped through the first intersection. Then the second.

On the third, a police cruiser, sirens silent but emergency lights blazing, rolled through a cross-street three blocks ahead. An ambulance followed close behind.

Blue. Red. Blue. Red.

Nicholas's vision blurred, the darkness closing in around the edges.

Suddenly-he was seventeen again.

Blue. Red.

"I'm just going for an hour." His mother's voice echoed in the cavern of his mind, so clear it made his throat lock. "Nicholas. I'll be back before dinner. Your father's making your favorite. I promised Daniel we'd race."

"Nick-"

The front door closed.

Blue. Red.

The bicycle skidded across wet pavement. He had laughed. He was seventeen. Stupid. Young enough to believe parents waited forever.

Blue. Red.

The street was choked with yellow tape. Neighbors were standing on their lawns, whispering, casting horrified glances toward his front door. Someone was holding him back-a heavy, faceless uniform pinning his arms to his sides.

"DON'T LOOK," a voice shouted above the noise, but he was already looking.

He saw his bicycle lying twisted on the grass. He saw his mother's sensible leather shoe resting completely alone in the middle of the flowerbed.

Blue. Red.

A policeman's heavy hand gripped his shoulder. "You can't go in."

"My parents are in there."

"I'm sorry, son."

"No."

"I'm sorry."

"No!"

He had fought. He had screamed until his throat bled. Someone-three people, four-held him back. And somewhere inside the house, a stretcher rolled past the entryway hallway. Covered. White.

Blue. Red.

He had shoved through the crowd. "Lucy!"

Lucy wailing behind the garden wall, her entire face covered in dried blood that wasn't hers. "I'm so scared, Nick. I'm so scared.-"

Brake.

Nicholas's foot slammed down on the pedal with terrifying force. The sedan's tires locked up, smoking and screaming against the asphalt as the car fishtailed wildly. It missed the back of a delivery truck by mere inches.

A deafening car horn shattered the night air, blaring in a long, furious note.

The sound dragged Nicholas violently back to the present. He was stopped dead in the middle of a dark intersection, his chest heaving, the steering wheel groaning under the lethal grip of his hands.

He was shaking. His hands were violently shaking, vibrating against the leather wrap of the wheel.

Nicholas sucked in a breath so violently his ribs ached. He hadn't shaken like this in years.

His forehead dropped heavily against the steering wheel.

Hard.

No. No. Not again. Not another person. Not because he made the wrong decision.

He'd thought he'd done everything right. He had assessed the threat. He had built a tactical plan. He had calculated the risks, drugged the coffee, and protected the civilian. And somehow... somehow, by trying to prevent history, he had recreated the worst day of his life.

His breathing came too fast, shallow and useless.

I drugged him...

The edges of his vision darkened into black tunnels.

I wasn't home...

He pressed both palms against his temples, pushing hard, as though he could physically force the fractured pieces of his mind back into order.

Please don't... Please don't...Please don't...

He couldn't do this. He couldn't drive. He couldn't navigate the streets when his own eyes were lying to him.

Throwing the car into park right there on the shoulder, his legs gave out before he even realized he had opened the car door.

If something happens to Avinash it's because of me... If I'd been home mom and dad wouldn't have died...

He collapsed into a crouch beside the sedan on the cold, damp concrete, elbows on his knees, both hands gripping the back of his neck hard enough to leave bruises.

He couldn't think straight. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't-

His phone vibrated against his thigh.

Unknown User.

He stared at the glowing screen. Once. Twice. Three times. The ringing stopped, then immediately started again. With completely numb, unresponsive fingers, he swiped the screen and brought it to his ear.

"...Hello?"

Silence. Static. The faint, ragged sound of shallow breathing.

"...Nic-Nicholas?"

The voice was so small, so devastatingly fragile, he almost didn't recognize it.

Nicholas let out a shaky, desperate inhale. "Avinash? Avinash, is that you?"

Another ragged breath on the other end. "Nicholas, I..."

"Avinash, where the fuck are you?" Nicholas snapped, the sheer terror in his chest exploding outward as raw, jagged authority.

Avinash stopped speaking entirely.

Nicholas closed his eyes, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the phone. "Talk to me."

Nothing.

Avinash sounded as if he was suffocating on his own throat, trying with everything he had left not to cry.

"Are you hurt?" Nicholas demanded, his heart hammering against his ribs as he tried to swallow his own panic, desperately forcing his voice to drop into something steady, something grounded. "Talk to me, you fucking idiot. Are you okay?"

But all that answered him was the muffled, frantic stifles on the other end.

Nicholas drew a deep, agonizing breath, trying to calm his trembling nerves for the kid's sake. "Avinash, please--"

The kid on the other end started to cry.