Page 18 of Split Decision

This wasn’t a robbery.

It was reconnaissance.

A search.

The vendor check is exactly where I left it, untouched on top of the inbox—easy money for anyone who wanted money.

Not money. Information.

I photograph the drawer, then call the police. The back door is still open. Night air snakes down the corridor, cold and alive. I don’t close it yet. Evidence has a purpose.

Mack would approve.

An officer arrives, takes the report, and photographs the scene. He’s professional, careful. And we both understand the reality of this: no forced entry, no theft, no camera pointed at that corridor. A file will be created. A box will be checked. This won’t rise to the top of anyone’s stack.

They clear the building before they go, checking closets and corners like the dark could still hide him. I walk them out, thanking them until my voice sounds steadier than I feel. When the side door locks behind them, the quiet floods back in.

I call Luke.

He answers before the second ring—meaning he found my note, and the waiting already started. “I’m okay,” I saybefore he can speak. “But someone was here. I need you to come.”

The silence on the line lasts exactly as long as it takes him to get to his feet.

“On my way,” he says.

I slide down to the floor with my back against the desk—not because I can’t stand, not because anything is broken, but because my body has finishedduringand moved on toafter. I don’t stop it. I let it.

The office settles into a silence that feels wrong, as if the walls themselves are holding still to see what I’ll do now that there’s no one left to perform for. No voices. No movement. No decisions pressing in from every direction. Just the aftermath, finally catching up in a space that isn’t asking anything from me.

I stay there on the cold floor and let the stillness take over the job of holding me up. It isn’t fear—fear would be sharp, immediate, easy to name. This is slower. Heavier. The accumulated weight of staying ahead of the impact for so long that your body forgets what it feels like to stop bracing.

This is the cost of control when the situation keeps trying to peel it away, inch by inch, rather than in blows.

I draw in a measured breath and hold it just past comfort, steadying the rhythm before it can tip into something sloppy. Reactive. Something that would take more from me than I’m willing to give.

My eyes close—not to escape it, but to compress it. To let the surge rise and crest and fall without giving it enough room to turn into something louder. My heartbeat stumbles at first, my breathing shallow and uneven, but I don’t intervene. I wait until both settle into something usable again.

When I open my eyes, the moment has narrowed.

Not gone.

Contained.

I push myself up from the floor and straighten, already recalibrating, already orienting forward—because whatever comes next isn’t going to wait for readiness.

And I’m done waiting for it.

CHAPTER FIVE

ANDI

Isit in the parking lot for eleven minutes.

I know because I watch the clock on my dashboard without meaning to, the way you track something when you don't know what else to do with your hands.

The building looks exactly the same from out here. Bright paint. Clean windows. The mural the middle school art class finished in October, with the letters still slightly uneven because they voted against straightening them. The defect added character, they said. And I love them for it. How they embrace the flaws and make thembeautiful.

Inside, Mrs. Alvarez is running the afternoon programming. The kids are doing what they do every day—loud and present and entirely unaware that anything has changed. The kids need the consistency and stabilization that the center brings. Everything in me wants to fight the adviser’s advice, but whoever’s gunning for me won’t care about them. That’s been painfully proven. For now, my diminished capacity is required, and I have to accept that they won this battle.