Part 33
The apartment felt too quiet.
Every sound — the hum of the refrigerator, the ticking clock — seemed to belong to someone else's life.
Adrian sat at his desk with his laptop open, staring at a blank email window.
He'd typed and deleted the same sentence for an hour.
Can I trust you?
That was all he wanted to send.
But trust was a currency he no longer understood.
Every contact might already be hers.
Every reply could lead straight back to Alex.
Still, he needed someone — anyone — who remembered who he used to be before all this.
He scrolled through an old folder of archived messages, forgotten accounts he'd once used to talk to fans directly.
Most were long dead.
Except one.
A journalist — Leah Ford — who had interviewed him at the start of his career, before fame became machinery.
She'd been the only one to notice when he said he hated the sound of his own voice.
He remembered her saying,
"That means you're still human, Adrian. That's rare."
He opened a new message.
From: Adrian@oldmail
To: leah.ford@pressline
Subject: follow-up
Body: Need to talk. Off record. Urgent.
(Please don't reply to this address.)
Then he hit Send and unplugged the router.
A small act of rebellion, but it made his heart pound like a live performance.
-------------
By evening, he'd convinced himself it hadn't worked.
Until a note slid under his door.
No handwriting this time — printed text, plain and sharp:
Check the rooftop at midnight. Come alone.
His chest tightened.
It could be Leah.
It could also be Alex.
For the first time in weeks, though, he felt something that wasn't fear.
It was risk.
And risk meant he was still fighting.