Page 14 of Nora's Kraken

Shaking off the thought, I glance back over at Blair. “How did you end up at the Bureau?”

“I started advocating for paranormals’ interests even before I left the company,” he says and then laughs a little. “The time seemed right, back then, in the 1990s. The world seemed like it was changing, modernizing.”

“And it took this long for any changes to actually happen?”

He shakes his head. “I can’t say a lot about it. Government confidentiality and all, but there’s been decades of work that went into the Paranormal Acts.”

It’s not a stretch to imagine something like that would have taken a long time to come to fruition, especially with how carefully all those beings had to hide, or camouflage their identities, before being granted the protection to live freely as they are. Still, the mention of it stirs up the restless, unsettled energy in my chest that’s still warning me to run away from all of this and never look back.

I take a deep breath and choose my next words carefully. “You seem like you’re pretty connected in the government.”

He nods.

“How much do you know about me?”

Blair glances over and fixes me with a hard, searching look before he answers. “Enough.”

“Do you know about… Daniel?”

I don’t elaborate, or give him any more than that, just testing the waters to see how far into my background they went digging.

“Yes.”

I expect panic. I expect shame. Strangely, neither emotion comes. All I feel is… resigned. Of course the Bureau knows. If they somehow found out my real last name, it wouldn’t have been a big lift to find out the rest of it. Or at least enough to infer what the rest of it might be.

Also strangely, I feel a faint but distinct pulse of relief. He knows. Blair knows, and the world hasn’t come crashing down on me.

“And is Daniel… aware of any of this?”

A flare of hard emotion crosses his face, but he quickly hides it under his professional facade. “Of course not. The Bureau operates independently of politics. Though congress has oversight into our budget and high-level operations, we don’t report on any individual cases to lawmakers.”

I nod silently, mulling that over for a few seconds. “And have you told Mr. Morgan?”

“No. I wouldn’t break your trust or the confidentiality of my office, even for my oldest friend. Though I’ll warn you, he’s smart and too obsessive for his own good. He may have found things out on his own.”

“By following me?”

“No,” he says emphatically. “Absolutely not. But you’d be shocked at what that kraken can sift up from the depths when he’s got the scent of something.”

“That’s pretty invasive, you know. Almost as invasive as having someone follow me to my workplace.”

Blair has the good grace to look chagrined. “You’re not wrong.”

Again, I wait for the anger, for the shame. It doesn’t come.

Out of everything I could and should be upset about, this detail feels… more exhausting than anything.

It’s been three years since I’ve seen or heard from Daniel, and while the thought of him finding me is still terrifying, the sheer weight of carrying the truth of what happened like my own secret shame isn’t something I want to do anymore.

I tried my best to cover my tracks when I moved out here. I started using my mom’s maiden name as my last name instead of Wheeler, even if all my IDs and documents still have my legal name on them. I wiped my social media profiles from existence, and I haven’t opened up new ones for Nora Perry. Kenna and Holly have been my only confidants, and I trust them implicitly, but part of me has always known it isn’t enough.

There are plenty of photos out there with me and Daniel in them, if someone got a hunch for where to look. He loved getting his picture taken, almost as much as he loved telling me exactly how I needed to look any time we went to another one of the stupid fundraisers or political events he seemed to be invited to every damned weekend in DC or back in Dallas.

Letting my hair go back to its natural light brown instead of keeping it blond, and trading in all those expensive clothes for comfy jeans and thrifted sweaters had been as much a satisfying rebellion as any of the rest of it.

The possibility Elias might also have found some of those photos and put the details together on his own should make me angrier than it does. But, like it did when Blair mentioned it, a part of me is almost relieved he might know.

Sometimes all I want is forsomeoneto know. Or everyone. Maybe the entire world.

---