Someone Wants My Safehouse

I paid three months in cash because apparently my safest response to uncertainty is turning it into a receipt. I wanted the manager to see that I am not easy to rattle. I also wanted to ask who called, but asking would have shown him exactly how much the call frightened me. A locked unit means nothing if somebody can talk a careless stranger into handing over the code.

Someone tried to obtain access to unit 7-C. That is not curiosity. It is a hand reaching toward the one place where I keep evidence I cannot replace. I started imagining the practical details: someone waiting near the gate, a false emergency, a manager who gets tired of an attractive woman asking inconvenient questions. Then I remembered the file itself. Two people powerful enough to make a serious allegation vanish, and now I am sleeping over the proof that they did it.

What scares me most is how quickly this could become my fault. I pulled the sealed material, and now it feels as though pulling it announced me. I hate that thought. I hate even more that I protected Destiny without knowing whether her mysterious benefactor is saving her or collecting her.

I put the storage receipt beside the order. It looks ridiculous, this little strip of paper weighed down with the same dread as a court document. Still, touching both gave me the illusion of control. Tonight I do not believe it. Tonight I am merely choosing what stays within reach.