The night outside was wild —
wind thrashing against the windows, lightning slicing open the clouds, and thunder growling like some ancient beast that refused to rest.
Lucy sat in the half-lit room, still as stone, watching raindrops crawl down the glass like tears she couldn't shed anymore.
The apartment smelled faintly of rain, dust, and coffee gone cold. The yellow lamp beside her flickered every few seconds — a heartbeat that wasn't hers.
Her hair clung to her damp face, strands escaping from the loose bun as if even they wanted to break free.
In front of her lay a blank sheet of paper, pale and accusing. The corners curled slightly from the humidity, as though impatient for her confession.
Her hand trembled as she picked up the pen. The metal felt cold, heavy — not just an instrument, but a weapon.
For a long time, she stared at the empty page. Then, with a shuddering breath, she began to write.
> Sid…
If I could bleed through words, I would. If I could trade this ink for the blood in my veins, maybe you'd come back.
Her handwriting wavered, uneven, the lines slanting down as though the weight of each word pulled them toward despair.
> I never meant for that night to end the way it did.
I thought I was saving you. I thought I was strong enough.
But all I did was pull the trigger that ended everything.
Her throat tightened. She could still hear the echo of that night —
the deafening silence after the gunshot,
the way Sid's body went limp,
the warmth of his blood splattering across her trembling hands.
"Don't…" she had whispered then, holding him.
"Please, Sid, don't close your eyes."
But he had.
And since that night, every breath she took felt like theft — air she didn't deserve.
Lightning flashed, throwing her reflection across the window — pale skin, hollow eyes, a ghost pretending to be human.
She could barely recognize herself anymore.
Her pen scratched faster now, desperation leaking through every letter.
> I told Nick the truth would destroy him. I was wrong.
My silence destroyed him instead.
Now his anger has no face, no mercy — and I see it in my dreams.
Sometimes I wake up thinking I hear his voice outside the door.
A tear fell, blurring the ink. She didn't bother to wipe it away.
The page began to wrinkle under the wetness.
She kept writing — as if the pen itself demanded penance.
> If I disappear, tell Siya she was right. She always is.
Tell her I wasn't the hero I pretended to be.
Tell her I was just… tired.
Her gaze drifted to a photo on the shelf — three smiling faces.
Lucy, Sid, and Siya — before everything went wrong.
Sid's arm around her shoulder, Nick's grin wide and proud.
It was taken after their first successful mission.
The moment frozen in that photograph mocked her now, a cruel reminder of the innocence they'd lost.
She stood up abruptly, pacing across the room.
The floor creaked under her steps, and the thunder outside seemed to answer her thoughts.
She ran her fingers through her hair and whispered to herself, "I have to end this before he does. Before Nick becomes what I made him."
A faint beep from her comm device broke the stillness.
She hesitated, then picked it up.
> "Agent Lewis," a cold voice said through static, "Control here. Nick Verma has been sighted leaving Sector 12. You need to—"
Lucy switched it off.
Not tonight. Not as Agent Lewis.
She wanted one night to be human again —
to grieve, to write, to let her guilt breathe.
She slid the finished letter into an envelope and sealed it. On the front, in small trembling letters, she wrote a name she could barely bring herself to look at:
Sid.
She set it inside her desk drawer, placing her hand on top of it as if to quiet the ghosts screaming inside her chest.
"Forgive me," she whispered into the empty room.
The clock on the wall ticked louder, each second a reminder that time was running out — for her, for Nick, for the fragile world still holding them together.
Outside, the storm roared — a furious hymn that matched the chaos inside her.
For a moment, she felt something shift — a chill, a presence.
Her instincts screamed.
She turned toward the window.
A shadow moved across the building opposite.
Too still to be a trick of lightning. Too deliberate to be chance.
Her heart slammed against her ribs.
Nick? Or someone else watching?
The lamp flickered, then went out.
Darkness swallowed the room, and for the first time in months, Lucy felt truly afraid.
> "It's starting," she whispered, her voice barely audible.
"The past never dies. It just waits."
She stood in the darkness, her hand brushing the cold metal of the drawer where Sid's letter lay —
her only confession, her only truth.
And far away, through the sound of thunder,
a distant engine roared to life.
Nick Verma was already on his way.
And nothing — not guilt, not love, not even fate — could stop what was coming next.