The morning light was a cold, unforgiving clinical white. It stripped away the romance of the neon shadows and left only the raw reality of the skin Joie was living in.
They were in the kitchen. Joie was dressed in a simple black robe, her hands wrapped around a mug of coffee that had gone cold an hour ago. Alliana sat across from her, wearing one of Joie's oversized shirts, looking small and fragile in the vastness of the high-rise.
"You said you'd show me all of you," Joie started, her voice sounding like it had been dragged through gravel. "You need to listen. Don't interrupt, because if I stop, I might never start again."
And then, she broke the seal.
Joie told her everything. She started with the leaking roof of her parents' house and the "miracle" scholarship from a Great Uncle she barely knew. She described the transition from dissecting frogs to the soundproofed basement of the Blue Marlin. She told her about the first time she used a scalpel to end a life instead of saving one. She described the "Main Work" in Bangkok—the biological interrogations, the keeping of "obstacles" on the edge of life just to extract a code, and the clinical coldness of the Tenorio empire.
As the last words left Joie's mouth, the silence in the apartment wasn't peaceful. It was heavy, like a lung-full of water.
Alliana stood up so fast her chair screeched against the tile. She backed away until she hit the marble counter, her eyes wide with a terror that made Joie's stomach turn.
"You... you killed people?" Alliana's voice was a jagged glass edge. "You sat across from me at ramen shops, you kissed me on the train, and you had... you had blood on your hands?"
"I had to, Alliana! It was the debt! They bought me—"
"No!" Alliana screamed, the sound echoing off the floor-to-ceiling glass. "Don't you dare blame the scholarship. You're a doctor, Joie! You swore an oath! You're talking about 'interrogations' like you're describing a lab report. Who are you? I don't even recognize the person in front of me."
"I did it to keep you safe!" Joie stood up, her own anger flaring—a defensive, desperate fire. "Stephen told me the day he met you: if you became a witness, he'd have to 'clean' the mess. I stayed away for three years, I went to that hell in Thailand, just so you could keep living your normal, marketing-director life!"
"I didn't ask for a life built on corpses!" Alliana was shaking now, her breathing shallow and panicked. "Every time I looked at the news, every time I saw the Tenorio name on a hotel, I felt proud of you. I thought you were the success story. But you're just a... you're a monster's apprentice."
Joie flinched as if she'd been slapped. She walked over to the safe, punched in the code, and pulled out her black medical kit and the heavy, silenced pistol she carried in her bag. She slammed them onto the kitchen island.
"This is the choice, Alliana," Joie said, her voice dropping to a deathly, calm whisper. "This is my life. I am a Tenorio. I can't go back to being the girl on the train because that girl is a lie. I love you—God, I love you so much it's the only human thing left in me. But I won't lie to you anymore."
Joie stepped back, leaving the gun and the medical kit between them.
"If you want to leave, the door is unlocked. I won't stop you, and I'll make sure the brothers don't touch you. But if you stay... you stay knowing that when I leave this apartment, I don't go to save lives. I go to manage the graveyard."
Alliana stared at the gun. She looked at the woman she had just spent the night with, the woman who had held her with such soul-shattering tenderness. The gap between the lover and the killer was a chasm Alliana didn't know if she could cross.
"I'm scared of you," Alliana whispered.
"I'm scared of me too," Joie replied.
Alliana grabbed her bag, her movements frantic. She didn't look at Joie as she ran for the door. The sound of it slamming shut felt like the finality of a heartbeat stopping.
[Three Hours Later]
Joie sat on the floor of the foyer, her back against the door Alliana had just fled through. She was staring at the gun on the counter when her phone buzzed. It was a restricted number.
"Yes?" Joie answered.
"Joie," Stephen's voice was tight, urgent. "Change of plans. Lolo just had a massive stroke. The estate is in lockdown. But that's not the problem."
Joie's blood turned to ice. "What's the problem, Kuya?"
"Timothy's boyfriend, Pat. He saw something he wasn't supposed to see in the security room before he left the party. He panicked. He's with your girl now, Alliana. They're in a car, headed for the police headquarters in Camp Crame."
Joie stood up, her training taking over, the grief being shoved into a cold, dark box. "Stephen, don't touch them."
"It's too late for 'don't touch,' Joie. Lolo's secondary protocol has been activated since he's incapacitated. Matthew is already on his way to intercept. If they reach that gate, you know what he needs to do."
Joie grabbed the gun from the counter. "I'll handle it."
"You have twenty minutes, Joie," Stephen said, and for the first time, he sounded sorry. "After that, I can't stop Matthew."