Page 3 of Fractured Loyalties
But I know the handwriting.
Caleb.
The room tilts. Not in some metaphorical, spiraling way. Literally. I reach for the edge of the desk and grip it until the cold laminate presses lines into my skin.
He found me.
I left everything behind. Changed my name on the utility bills. Wiped my online presence. Stayed out of the city. I didn’t even bring the photographs.
How did he find me?
Someone knocks once, softly.
“Mara?” It’s Alec.
I shove the letter under the drawer liner and smooth my face into something neutral.
“Come in.”
He opens the door slowly, like he expects me to shatter. “You okay? You looked pale just now before you stepped in.”
I nod. Not too fast. “Just a migraine.”
He watches me too long. I can feel him trying to decide whether to believe me. "Celeste asked me to check on you," he says finally, almost apologetic. Then, as if he senses I won't give him more, he gives a small nod and closes the door again.
I let out a breath. Then I lock the drawer.
The rest of the morning doesn’t happen in pieces. It smears. Voices become static. I take notes in perfectly neat cursive that I never look at again. The phone rings and I answer. I smile at patients and say what I’m supposed to. But every moment, I see that letter again. Hear Caleb’s voice in my head.
You belong to me, baby. You always will.
By lunchtime, I can’t breathe in the staff kitchen. I pretend to warm soup in the microwave and instead stare at the digital countdown, hypnotized by numbers that mean nothing.
During my lunch break, I step out through the side door of the Seaside Trauma Clinic, the coastal wind biting colder than it was this morning. The fog has thickened to a curtain, swallowing most of the road, but just visible beyond the haze is a black car idling across the street.
It doesn’t move, doesn’t honk. Just sits there, engine humming quietly beneath the constant whisper of waves. We’reon the edge of a small town—Miramont’s quiet coast—and nobody idles here without a reason.
I don’t recognize the plate. I don’t recognize the feeling climbing up the back of my neck either.
I stand frozen on the top step for maybe twenty seconds. That’s all it takes. Enough time for suspicion to sink its teeth in.
Across the street, the café window catches a slice of fog-muted light. A man sits alone by the glass, suit jacket folded neatly over the chair beside him. Too sharp for this town. His presence snags at me in a way I can’t shake.
I’ve seen him before—here and there, in passing. At the post office once, when someone called his name. Elias. Or maybe Elliot. Something that began with El. I remember thinking then that he didn’t belong, polished edges against a place worn thin by salt and sea air. He looks just as out of place now.
His hands move with exact precision—folding the paper, lifting his cup, setting it down again. He doesn’t look at me, not directly, but something in the angle of his head makes my stomach tighten. Like I’ve been catalogued and filed away. The thought lingers even after I retreat inside.
Back inside, my heartbeat is sharp in my ears. But the brief moment I spent outside linger still, those twenty seconds where I stood frozen on the top step stain the rest of my day. My mouth is dry. My hands keep flexing. I check the clinic locks three times before closing.
By nightfall, I’m back in my apartment, all the windows shut. The place smells like tea and lavender and the faint bite of bleach.
I check the closet.
Then under the bed.
Then the door lock.
Then again.
