The symbol materialized in the air between them—a geometric impossibility that hurt to look at directly. It was a concentric inverted spiral trapped inside a three-eyed, closed triangle. Each eye was rendered in disturbing detail, the lids frozen in a perpetual closed state, yet somehow still watching. From beneath each sealed eye, a dark substance dripped downward—whether ink or blood, Elijah couldn't tell—forming teardrop shapes that never quite fell, suspended in the space like frozen rain.
Around the entire symbol, a handprint pressed outward from behind, as if someone was pushing through reality itself. The hand was almost human, five-pronged in the basic structure, but wrong in execution. Six fingers splayed outward instead of five, each digit too long, too thin, ending in points rather than nails.
And at the center of it all, where the spiral's heart should have been, was the head of the form itself.
The reddish-black whips that composed the figure's body converged at its neck, weaving together into something approximating a face. The tendrils never stopped moving, writhing and coiling over each other, but they maintained the suggestion of features—a suggestion that was somehow more horrifying than if it had been completely formless. Two darker voids indicated where eyes might be, though they reflected nothing, absorbed everything. And that mouth—that terrible, impossible grin—stretched across the lower portion of what passed for its face, a crescent slash of deeper darkness that curved with malicious delight.
The entire form stood roughly seven feet tall, humanoid in basic shape but alien in every detail. Its shoulders were too broad, its limbs too long, its joints bending at angles that human anatomy would never allow. The reddish-black whips that formed its body pulsed with their own internal rhythm, like veins carrying some dark substance instead of blood.
Elijah stood before it, and his body betrayed him completely.
His legs shook so violently that his knees knocked together, the sound barely audible over the rushing in his ears. His hands trembled at his sides, fingers twitching spasmodically. Cold sweat poured down his face, stinging his eyes, dripping from his chin. His breath came in short, sharp gasps that never seemed to bring enough oxygen, leaving him dizzy and lightheaded.
His heart hammered against his ribs so hard it felt like it would break through his sternum. Every muscle in his body was locked in a state between fight and flight, achieving neither, leaving him frozen in place like prey before a predator.
A small sound escaped his throat—a whimper, pathetic and childlike, the kind of noise he hadn't made since he was five years old and afraid of the dark.
The humanoid figure responded to his fear like a flower responding to sunlight. Its form seemed to grow, to expand, filling more of his vision. The reddish-black whips extended outward, reaching toward him with grasping motions. The grin widened impossibly further, until it seemed like the creature's entire head would split in two from the sheer width of that smile.
"N-no..." Elijah managed to whisper, the word catching in his throat.
Another whimper escaped him, this one more pronounced, more desperate.
And with that sound, the figure enlarged again, swelling to fill the entire laboratory, its presence pressing down on him like a physical weight. The whips that composed its body multiplied, hundreds becoming thousands, creating a writhing mass that blocked out the ceiling, the walls, everything except that grinning face at the center.
Elijah wanted to run. Wanted to scream. Wanted to do *anything* except stand there shaking like a leaf in a hurricane.
But then his body began to move.
Not of his own volition. His muscles contracted and released in patterns he didn't command, his nervous system hijacked by something external. His arm lifted, turning palm-up toward the containment cylinder behind him. His fingers spread wide, and he felt something flowing through him—not blood, not electricity, but something else, something that burned cold in his veins.
The Core responded instantly.
The reddish-black hues within the cylinder flared, brightening from their sullen glow to something approaching daylight. The light intensified rapidly, growing brighter and brighter until the soft glow became a brilliant glare. White light poured from the containment unit, flooding the laboratory, washing out every shadow, every dark corner, every surface.
The lab seemed to disappear inside the glow. The walls became indistinct, the equipment fading to mere suggestions of shape. Even the horrifying figure before him was bleached out, its reddish-black form barely visible against the overwhelming brightness.
Elijah squeezed his eyes shut against the glare, but the light seemed to penetrate even his closed eyelids, turning his vision red with the blood vessels visible against the brilliance.
Then, just as quickly as it had intensified, the light dimmed.
The brightness receded like a tide pulling back from shore, contracting back into the Core, leaving behind normal laboratory lighting that seemed dim by comparison. Elijah's eyes adjusted slowly, spots dancing in his vision, shapes gradually becoming clear again.
Everything returned to normal—or at least, to a different normal.
The machines around him beeped steadily, their readings displaying stable values. The hum of the ventilation system was audible again. The sterile smell of the laboratory filled his nose. But something was different. Something fundamental had shifted.
The surrounding had changed. He was no longer in the memory of building the Core in some isolated laboratory session. The walls were different, the layout altered, the lighting more ambient and less clinical.
He was back in the museum. Or rather, in a strange overlay of the museum and something else. The cylindrical glass containment unit stood before him, the Core pulsing within it with that familiar rhythm. But the space around him seemed fluid, uncertain, as if reality itself couldn't quite decide what it wanted to be.
And Elijah himself felt wrong.
His perspective was shifting, rising and falling in a rhythmic pattern that made his stomach lurch. He watched the floor approach, then recede, then approach again—not like he was walking, but like he was floating, bobbing up and down on invisible waves. The movement was gentle but relentless, beyond his control, making him feel simultaneously weightless and heavy.
He elevated upward smoothly, rising a full foot off the ground, his shoes no longer in contact with the floor. His arms drifted out to his sides for balance even though there was no balance to be found, no physical law he could use to orient himself. Then just as smoothly, he descended, his feet touching down for a moment before the cycle repeated.
Up. Down. Up. Down. Like a puppet on strings being tested by an amateur puppeteer still learning the motions.
Terror seized him as he realized he had no control over his own body, over his own position in space. He tried to move his legs deliberately, to step back from the containment unit, from the Core that pulsed in time with whatever was happening to him.
His body finally obeyed, but the movement felt delayed, like there was lag between his intention and his muscles' response. He stumbled backward, his legs shaky and unreliable, and barely caught himself before falling.
As he moved, he felt it—something beneath his skin, just under his collarbone on the left side of his chest.
A warmth that quickly became heat. A pressure that quickly became pain.
He looked down, pulling at his collar to see, and his breath caught in his throat.
Beneath his skin, clearly visible through the layers of dermis and muscle, a faint glow had started to form. It was small at first, no larger than a dime, pulsing with a soft light that matched the rhythm of the Core behind him.
*Thrum-thrum... thrum-thrum...*
The glow intensified, spreading outward in branching patterns that looked disturbingly like veins or roots. Each pulse brought more light, more heat, more *pain*.
Elijah pressed his hand to the spot instinctively, trying to—what? Push it back in? Stop it from spreading? He didn't know. He just knew it was wrong, wrong, *wrong*.
The moment his fingers made contact with the glowing patch of skin, agony exploded through his nervous system.
It wasn't like any pain he'd experienced before. Not the sharp pain of a cut, not the dull ache of a bruise, not even the burning pain of a hand touching a hot stove. This was deeper, more fundamental, as if every cell in the affected area was being simultaneously torn apart and rebuilt, destroyed and reformed.
The pain radiated outward from his collarbone, shooting down his arm, up his neck, across his chest. It felt like lightning was coursing through his veins, like acid was eating through his muscles, like something foreign and alive was burrowing into his body and making a home there.
A scream tore from his throat—raw, primal, born of agony that transcended words. It echoed through the space, bouncing off walls that might or might not be there, filling his ears until he couldn't hear anything else.
"AAAAHHHHHHHH!"
The sound that came from him was barely human. It started as a scream but devolved into something more visceral—a howl of pure suffering that went on and on, his lungs emptying themselves completely, his vocal cords straining to the point of damage.
His legs gave out, the strength simply leaving them as if a switch had been flipped. He collapsed forward, catching himself on his hands and knees, his body shaking with the aftershocks of pain that was finally, mercifully, beginning to recede.
Fatigue crashed over him like a wave. Every muscle felt like it had been worked to exhaustion. His arms trembled, barely able to support his weight. His head hung down, chin nearly touching his chest, as he gasped for breath.
Sweat dripped from his face, forming dark spots on the floor beneath him. His vision swam, dark spots appearing at the edges, threatening to expand and consume everything.
He was dimly aware that he was kneeling on the ground, his body folded in on itself in a posture of complete defeat and exhaustion.
And then he felt it—that presence, that terrible attention focused on him again.
He forced his head up, his neck muscles screaming in protest, and saw the humanoid figure standing directly before him. Closer now than it had been before, close enough that if it had been corporeal, he could have reached out and touched it.
The reddish-black whips that composed its form writhed with what could only be described as happiness. They coiled and uncoiled in patterns of excitement, moving faster than before. And that grin—oh god, that grin—somehow managed to convey satisfaction and anticipation simultaneously.
"Excellent, boy," the figure said, its voice resonating from everywhere and nowhere, bypassing his ears entirely and speaking directly into his consciousness. The tone was warm, almost paternal, which made it infinitely more disturbing. "This here is just a fragment you forgot of the memory about the Aethernova Core."
The figure leaned closer, and Elijah could see—or sense, or feel—the way its form shifted and changed, never quite settling into one configuration.
"For I'm the one who made you build it."
The words hit Elijah like physical blows. His eyes widened, his mouth falling open in shock and horror and confusion all mixed together. His face contorted through a rapid series of expressions—denial, then dawning realization, then a desperate hope that he'd misunderstood, then finally settling into an expression of deep, bone-chilling fear.
His eyebrows drew together, creating deep furrows in his forehead. His mouth worked soundlessly, trying to form words, questions, denials, but nothing came out. His eyes darted back and forth, searching the figure's non-face for some sign that this was a joke, a trick, anything other than the truth.
But the figure just kept grinning, kept radiating that terrible satisfaction.
"Don't get too ahead of yourself," it continued, straightening up to its full height. "There are dozens more pieces like you who were guided to craft their own cores. And very soon, you will encounter and face them in combat."
Combat. The word echoed in Elijah's mind, heavy with implications he didn't want to contemplate.
"Where if you lose," the figure said, its tone becoming almost conversational, as if discussing the weather rather than life and death, "I doubt your life will continue. The upcoming battle will be different than those that occurred in past centuries. This time, technology will play the key, and the victor will be my vessel, boy."
The figure circled around him slowly, and Elijah found himself turning his head to follow it, unable to look away despite every instinct screaming at him to close his eyes, to deny what he was seeing and hearing.
"The stunt you did has taken you to their radar, and they will be coming for you. So prepare yourself." The figure paused, letting that sink in. "And your only path to survival is the Aethernova Core."
Then it laughed.
The sound was like nothing that should have come from any throat, human or otherwise. It started low, a rumbling chuckle that vibrated through the air, then rose in pitch and volume. It was the sound of breaking glass mixed with nails on a chalkboard, of children crying mixed with metal scraping on metal, of every unpleasant sound condensed and amplified.
"Heh... hehehehe... HEHEHEHE..."
The laughter went on and on, filling Elijah's head until he thought his skull would crack from the pressure. He wanted to cover his ears, but his arms wouldn't respond, still too weak from the earlier ordeal.
The figure stopped directly in front of him again, looking down at him with what he could only interpret as the gaze of someone examining an interesting toy—a tool to be used, a thing rather than a person.
"Oh, and if you try to run away," the figure said, its tone becoming mockingly sweet, "well, you won't be able to. He he he..."
Another laugh, shorter this time but no less disturbing. The reddish-black whips that formed its body coiled tighter, as if hugging itself in amusement at its own joke.
Then, with deliberate slowness, the figure lifted what passed for its right arm. The limb extended, the whips composing it stretching and intertwining until they formed something approximating a hand—a hand with six fingers, just like the symbol's handprint, each digit ending in a sharp point.
It raised this hand above its head, fingers spread wide.
And then it closed them into a fist.
The surrounding—the strange overlay of memory and reality that Elijah had been trapped in—responded immediately.
The walls began to melt. Not like ice melting into water, but like reality itself was losing cohesion. The solid surfaces rippled and flowed, their colors bleeding together like wet paint. The effect spread from where the figure stood, radiating outward in waves.
The melting walls took on a disturbing hue—reddish, like lava, but darker, more organic. They flowed downward in thick rivulets that looked more like blood than stone, more like flesh than architecture. The sight was nauseating, wrong on a fundamental level that made Elijah's stomach turn.
The floor beneath him rippled like water disturbed by a stone, and he felt himself sinking slightly, as if the solid ground was becoming liquid. He pressed his hands down harder, trying to maintain some stability, but his fingers pushed into the surface like it was mud.
The reddish lava-like substance consumed everything in its path—the laboratory equipment, the walls, the ceiling, even the air seemed to warp and distort as reality itself was rewritten. It flowed like a living thing, seeking out every corner, every edge, transforming the impossible memory-space into something else.
As the transformation reached its peak, everything went dark for a moment—a complete absence of light and sensation that lasted just long enough for panic to set in.
Then, like a curtain being pulled back, the darkness lifted.
Elijah found himself back in the museum hall.
The transition was jarring in its completeness. Gone was the laboratory, the equipment, the strange floating sensation. The polished marble floor was solid beneath his hands and knees. The ambient lighting of the museum cast familiar shadows. The murmur of voices reached his ears, though they sounded distant, muffled, as if he was hearing them through water.
He was still kneeling on the ground, his body drenched in sweat that soaked through his dress shirt and made his hair stick to his forehead. His hands left damp prints on the marble where they pressed down, trembling with the effort of holding up his own weight.
His vision swam, the room tilting and spinning around him. Nausea rolled through his stomach in waves, and he had to swallow hard several times to keep from being sick right there on the pristine floor.
Drowsiness hit him like a physical force, pressing down on his eyelids, making his head feel impossibly heavy. His arms weakened further, his elbows beginning to buckle.
The last thing he registered was the floor rushing up to meet his face—
And then darkness claimed him completely.
He collapsed onto the marble, unconscious before his body fully settled, sprawled in an ungainly heap that spoke of complete system shutdown.
"Elijah!" Multiple voices called out simultaneously, footsteps rushing toward him from different directions.
Dr. Harrison reached him first, his knees cracking audibly as he dropped down beside the fallen young man. "Someone call medical! Now!"
Professor Chen was right behind him, her champagne glass abandoned somewhere along the way, forgotten in the crisis. She checked his pulse with practiced efficiency, her fingers pressing against his neck. "Pulse is elevated but steady. He's breathing."
More people crowded around, their faces ranging from concerned to frightened to morbidly curious. Someone had indeed called for medical assistance—the announcement echoed through the museum's PA system, calm but urgent.
Through all of this, Mallory Lare stood slightly apart from the gathering crowd. She hadn't rushed forward like the others. Hadn't gasped or exclaimed. She simply stood there, her arms still crossed over her chest, watching the scene unfold with an expression that was difficult to read.
There was concern there, certainly—one of her facility's employees had just collapsed during a major event, and that reflected poorly on everyone involved. But beneath the concern was something else. Something that looked disturbingly like calculation.
Her eyes were narrowed slightly, her head tilted just a fraction of a degree to the side. She was analyzing, processing, connecting dots that others wouldn't even notice were there to be connected.
She'd seen that frozen stillness earlier, when Elijah had stopped responding mid-conversation. She'd seen the way his eyes had fixed on the Core with an intensity that went beyond mere focus. And now this—collapse, complete system failure, sweat-drenched and unconscious.
Her gaze shifted from Elijah's prone form to the cylindrical glass containment unit standing a few feet away.
The Aethernova Core floated within its magnetic field, suspended in the shimmering coolant. And as Mallory watched, it flickered.
The usual gentle pulse of reddish-black hues stuttered, like a candle flame in a breeze. The colors intensified dramatically for a split second—so dark they seemed to absorb light rather than emit it—then returned to normal. Then flickered again.
And then, slowly at first but gaining speed, the Core began to rotate.
Not the gentle drift of an object in fluid, but deliberate rotation, as if being turned by invisible hainvisible hands. It spun faster, the magnetic field adjusting automatically to maintain containment, the coolant swirling in response to the movement.
The reddish-black hues within the Core intensified further, until they were the color of dried blood mixed with shadows, of dark things that should remain unseen. The light—if it could be called light when it seemed to darken rather than illuminate—pulsed in time with the rotation, creating a hypnotic effect.
Mallory stared at it for a long moment, her expression still unreadable, though her lips pressed together in a thin line.
Then she turned away, pulling out her phone with practiced ease, her fingers already typing a message to someone. The content of that message remained visible only to her, but the urgency with which she sent it spoke volumes.
Behind her, the Core continued its strange rotation, a dark heart pulsing with purposes unknown, mysteries still waiting to be uncovered.
Crestwood PD Headquarters
Office of the Chief of Police
10:47 AM
The office was exactly what one would expect from a police chief who'd earned her position through merit rather than politics, though it acknowledged the realities of modern law enforcement. The walls were painted a professional gray, decorated with framed commendations and photographs of various ceremonies—handshakes with mayors, ribbons being cut, officers receiving medals. A large window behind the desk offered a view of downtown Crestwood, the city sprawling out in its orderly grid pattern.
The desk itself was solid oak, its surface organized with military precision. A computer monitor sat at the perfect angle, flanked by neatly arranged file folders, a desk calendar with appointments written in precise handwriting, and a nameplate that read: CHIEF GENEVIEVE GRAY.
Genevieve herself sat in the high-backed leather chair with perfect posture, her uniform immaculate. The chief's attire consisted of a dark navy blue jacket with gold buttons running down the front in two parallel lines, each button bearing the Crestwood PD seal. Gold epaulettes adorned her shoulders, displaying four stars on each side—the insignia of her rank. Her collar bore gold oak leaves, and various service ribbons decorated the left breast of her jacket, each one earned through years of dedicated service.
The uniform shirt beneath was crisp white, with a perfectly knotted tie in the same navy blue as her jacket. Her badge was pinned precisely above the ribbons, polished to a mirror shine. A utility belt rested at her waist, though in the office setting it held only her service weapon and radio, the more practical equipment reserved for field work.
Her hair was pulled back in a tight bun, not a single strand out of place. Her makeup was minimal but professional—just enough to look put-together without being ostentatious. She looked every inch the professional law enforcement officer, someone who commanded respect through competence and presence rather than intimidation.
Across from her desk sat Lieutenant Owen Kessler, and his posture told a completely different story.
His head was down, chin nearly touching his chest, shoulders slumped in a way that suggested he wished he could sink through the floor and disappear entirely. His hands were clasped in his lap, fingers twisting together nervously. He looked like a student called to the principal's office, except the consequences here were far more serious than detention.
A file folder sat on Genevieve's desk between them, its contents visible from her position but mercifully hidden from Owen's current angle. The tab read: INCIDENT REPORT - PUBLIC RELATIONS DISASTER.
Genevieve's expression was calm but stern, the look of someone who'd had to have this conversation before and found it tedious every time. She leaned forward slightly, her fingers steepled in front of her.
"Lieutenant," she began, her voice carrying that particular tone that supervisors everywhere perfected—disappointed authority, "your little stunt back in downtown has caused a lot of scandal, which is causing the public to be breathing down our necks again. This time they're trying to question our legitimacy."
Owen's jaw tightened, but he didn't raise his head. A muscle in his cheek twitched.
Genevieve reached for her phone with one hand, unlocking it with practiced ease. A few taps brought up what she was looking for, and she turned the screen to face Owen.
"Look at this."
Owen reluctantly raised his head, his eyes meeting the screen, and immediately wished he hadn't.
The video playing was from VTube, one of the popular video streaming platforms. But it had been altered—heavily edited with graphics and effects that would have been impressive if they weren't being used to mock him so thoroughly.
In the video, Owen's face had been superimposed onto a clown character, complete with red nose, oversized shoes, and rainbow wig. The granny from the downtown incident had been rendered as a stern authority figure, and she was chasing the clown-Owen around with a broomstick, landing hits that produced cartoon sound effects—BONK, POW, WHAM.
The hashtag at the bottom of the screen read: #OwenKesslerIsAClown and below that, in smaller text: #Exposed.
The view count was in the hundreds of thousands. The like ratio was... not favorable.
Owen's face flushed red, his ears burning. His hands clenched into fists in his lap.
Genevieve scrolled to the next video without comment.
This one was somehow worse. Owen's face had been placed on a monkey's body—a realistic CGI creation that moved with disturbing fluidity. The granny was now portrayed as a park ranger, holding a banana just out of reach while the monkey-Owen jumped and reached for it desperately, making exaggerated chimp sounds.
The hashtag: #OwenKesslerDoesMonkeyWork.
The comment section was filled with crying-laughing emojis and variations of "this is gold" and "can't stop watching."
At that exact moment, a sharp knock on the door interrupted them.
"Come in," Genevieve called without looking away from her phone.
The door opened to reveal a young man in his mid-twenties, clearly one of the administrative secretaries. He wore slacks and a button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, his visitor badge clipped to his belt. He carried a manila folder that presumably needed to be delivered to the Chief's desk.
He entered with professional efficiency, his eyes on the folder, already forming the words of his brief explanation for the interruption—
Then he glanced at the phone screen still visible on Genevieve's desk.
The monkey video was paused mid-jump, Owen's face clearly visible on the simian body, mouth open in a ridiculous expression.
The secretary's professional demeanor cracked immediately. His lips pressed together hard, trying to suppress it, but a snort escaped anyway. Then another. His shoulders began to shake.
And then he laughed—a genuine, uncontrollable laugh that he tried and failed to muffle behind his hand.
Owen's head snapped up, his eyes locking onto the secretary with a look that could have melted steel. His entire face had gone from red to a deeper crimson, his jaw set so tight it was amazing his teeth didn't crack. His eyes narrowed into slits, and if looks could kill, the secretary would have been atomized on the spot.
The secretary saw that look and his laughter cut off mid-chuckle like someone had flipped a switch. His eyes widened, genuine fear replacing amusement. Color drained from his face as he realized he'd just laughed at a superior officer while said officer was being disciplined by the Chief of Police.
"I—I'm sorry, sir, I just—the folder—" He practically threw the folder onto the edge of Genevieve's desk, nearly missing entirely in his haste. "I'll just—excuse me—"
He backed toward the door, practically bowing, his eyes still wide with the realization of his mistake. The door closed behind him with a soft click that sounded very final.
Silence filled the office for a long moment.
Then Genevieve, without any change in her expression, scrolled to another video.
This one was... creative. Owen would give them that, at least. It involved digital puppetry, green screen effects, and what appeared to be a budget that suggested someone was making actual money from mocking him. The scenario was too ridiculous to describe, but it involved Owen in a situation so absurd, so completely divorced from reality, that words failed him entirely.
His mouth opened, then closed. Then opened again. No sound came out. His brain simply couldn't process that this existed, that someone had spent the time and effort to create it, and that people were actively watching and sharing it.
He looked like a fish out of water, gasping soundlessly.
Genevieve finally put her phone down on the desk, face-up, the video still visible. She leaned back in her chair, her expression unchanged—professional, calm, utterly unreadable.
"Right now," she said, her tone matter-of-fact, "there are many hate comments online, mostly suggesting you should step down as the Lieutenant Detective of Crestwood PD."
Owen found his voice, though it came out higher and more strained than he would have liked. "Seriously? I just got the job yesterday—or like, just yesterday!" His hands unclenched, gesturing in frustration. "The only mistake I made was almost accidentally colliding with that granny, and I apologized! I excused myself!"
His voice rose as the frustration poured out, weeks of stress and the absurdity of the situation finally breaking through his professional composure.
"But the granny was a Karen or something! She didn't leave it like that. She continued breathing down my neck, following me down the street, and some dweebs recorded the whole thing to get followers!" He ran a hand through his hair, disrupting its usually neat style. "I never imagined it would turn into this—into hate comments and calls for me to resign!"
The words tumbled out in a rush, his frustration and disbelief clear in every syllable. He'd worked hard to get this position, had earned it through years of dedication, and now he was being taken down by viral videos and public perception rather than any actual failure in his duties.
Genevieve waited until he'd finished, letting him get it out of his system. Then she spoke, her voice calm and measured—the eye of the storm compared to his outburst.
"For now, Lieutenant, keep a low profile until further notice." She folded her hands on her desk. "Desk work. Like myself. Let the public attention die down, let the videos cycle out of the trending feeds, and in a few weeks, this will be forgotten. That's how these things work."
Owen's shoulders slumped again, the fight going out of him. He nodded slowly, accepting the reality of the situation even if he didn't like it. "Yes, Chief."
But then, even as he nodded, his posture shifted slightly. His mouth opened as if to speak, then closed. His eyes moved to the side, considering something. His fingers drummed once on his thigh—a nervous gesture, a tell that he was working up the courage to ask something.
Genevieve noticed immediately. Of course she did. She didn't become Chief by missing details.
"Is there anything you want to add, Kessler?" Her tone wasn't unkind, but it wasn't warm either. Professional. Neutral. Giving him the opening to speak but not encouraging it.
Owen met her eyes, hesitated for just a moment more, then committed to the question.
"The other day, Chief, I heard you saying during your inauguration ceremony that you've found a link between Azaqor and Lucien Drayke." He leaned forward slightly, his interest clear despite his current situation. "Like, can I—"
Genevieve's hand rose in a stop gesture so swift and decisive that Owen's words cut off mid-sentence. The movement was sharp, authoritative, brooking no argument.
"It's classified information, Lieutenant." Her voice took on a harder edge, the warmth—if there'd been any—completely gone. "Only myself and a select few in the Office of Special Investigations are working on the Azaqor case now. No outsiders—which includes yourself, Kessler—should even have a sniff or a sneek glance at those files."
As she spoke, something changed in her expression. The professional mask slipped slightly, and for just a moment, amusement flickered across her features. Her lips curved upward in the ghost of a smile, her eyes brightening with something that looked disturbingly like she was enjoying his discomfort, his curiosity, his position as someone kept deliberately in the dark.
She stared at him for that split second, the look of someone holding all the cards and knowing it, someone with information that others desperately wanted but couldn't have.
Then, just as quickly as it appeared, the expression vanished. Her face smoothed back into that professional, icy composure. The mask was back in place, perfect and impenetrable.
But Owen had seen it. That moment of amusement, of satisfaction at keeping him out of the loop. And it unsettled him more than he wanted to admit.
He straightened in his chair, suddenly feeling like he'd stepped into something far more complex than he'd realized. Genevieve wasn't just his superior officer. She was someone who knew things, had access to information that was clearly significant, and seemed to be playing a game with rules he didn't understand.
The way she'd looked at him—like she knew exactly why he was asking, like she'd expected the question and had her answer prepared, like she was two or three steps ahead of everyone else in the room.
It was the look of someone who held all the power and knew exactly how to use it.
Owen swallowed hard, nodding slowly. "Understood, Chief. I won't bring it up again."
But even as he said the words, even as he prepared to leave her office and return to his desk work exile, he couldn't shake the feeling that he'd just glimpsed something important.
Something about the way Genevieve had reacted, the way she'd shut him down so completely, the way that amusement had flickered in her eyes.
She knew more than she was saying. And whatever she knew about Azaqor, about Lucien Drayke, about the connection between them...
It was something big.