Page 5 of Knight

Eva: That sounds thrilling.

Knight: Better than your Netflix queue. How many true crime documentaries have you binged this week?

I glance at my watch history and wince. He’s been monitoring my viewing habits again, but after three weeks, his protective hovering feels more comforting than invasive.

Eva: That's different. Those are research.

Knight: Right. Because ‘Top Ten Serial Killers of the Pacific Northwest’ is totally relevant to your brother's case. Though I did enjoy your 6 A.M. analysis of why the Bundy documentary got the computer forensics all wrong.

Eva: Hey! That was ...

I pause. He’s teasing me out of my dark thoughts again, the way he has every night for weeks. It's become our routine—me spiraling into darkness, him pulling me back with perfectly timed sarcasm and cat pictures.

Eva: Okay, fine. That one might have been a mistake.

Knight: The mistake was watching it alone at 2 A.M. Your neighbors probably thought you were plotting a murder with all the pacing.

Eva: I don't pace.

Even as I type it, I stop mid-step. The floorboards creak beneath my feet as I make another round of the living room. I can’t help it. The anxiety tightens in my chest like a vice.

Knight: Sure. And I don't have seventeen cups of cold coffee on my desk.

Eva: Only seventeen? Amateur.

Knight: Can't all be professionals like you. How many tea mugs are you hoarding right now? Still trying to break last Tuesday’s record?

I count the scattered cups around my laptop. At least eight. Maybe more. I don't even remember pouring the last one, but it's there, sitting on the edge of the desk, growing cold.

Eva: That's not relevant to this conversation.

Knight: That many, huh? I’m sending you another cat meme. This is definitely a tactical situation.

An image pops up—a kitten tangled in computer cables with the caption ‘Me, trying to solve problems.’

It’s so perfectly timed that I laugh despite myself. He’s gotten good at that. Knowing when I need distraction. I’ve tried to block out the noise of the world—the police, the news stories about missing people that never seem to end—but Knight's messages have become my lifeline. His steady presence on the other side of the screen keeps me from drowning in the silence.

Eva: I miss him.

Knight: You really need to sleep. Don’t you have work tomorrow?

Eva: I can’t, and no. I took vacation time. I have the next two weeks off.

I stare at the blue glow of my laptop, the only light in my apartment. It casts long shadows across the walls, and I feel like I’m suffocating in the silence. The stillness that’s taken over this place ever since Michael disappeared. It’s like the air itself has changed. I can’t shake the feeling that something else is wrong here—something I’m not seeing.

Eva: I can’t stop thinking that I’m missing something.

Knight: Your brain needs a break. Even computer servers need downtime occasionally.

Eva: Says the insomniac hacker.

Knight: Fair point. I'm still going through those employee files. You can come and keep me company, if you’d like? Might help to look at them on a bigger screen than your laptop. Plus, I have better tea than whatever that stuff you’ve been drinking is.

I blink at the message. This is different.

In three weeks of late-night conversations, Knight has never suggested meeting in person.

Eva: You mean now?

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