“I keep thinking about what Scar said,” she admits. “About the investigation. I feel like I failed. I came here to help your family and instead I made things worse. Brought danger to your home. And I’m leaving tomorrow without having solved anything.”
“You didn’t make things worse.”
“Someone ransacked my room. While Lila and the children were here alone.”
A growl rumbles in my chest. “That’s not your fault. That’s theirs. Whoever did this, they made a choice. And they’ll answer for it. When Scar finds them — and he will find them — I want to be there. I want to watch them pay.”
She turns her head toward me again. I can see the outline of her face in the crystal’s glow, the shine of her eyes. “Why did you volunteer to be my handler?” she asks. “Chief said you offered.”
The question catches me off guard. I consider lying, but the darkness makes truth easier. “Well, I didn’t actually offer, they decided I was the best one because I was the least trusting towards a stranger and a journalist. But when they assigned me, I grumbled but didn’t say no.”
“And now?”
“Now I wish you weren’t leaving.”
The admission hangs in the air between us.
I can hear her heartbeat quicken.
“I had a friend,” she offers suddenly, changing the subject. “At university. Her name was Ana.”
I shift slightly, settling against the door. Listening. This feels important.
“She was brilliant, kind and ambitious. We graduated at the same time and we started our careers. We were going to change the world together.” Her voice goes soft with memory. “Then, at her very first job, she was accused of fraud. Embezzling funds from the nonprofit where she worked.”
“She didn’t do it?” I already know the answer because I can hear it in her voice.
“She didn’t do it,” Ines confirms. “Her supervisor was the real thief. He’d been siphoning funds for years, and when he realized he might get caught, he set Ana up to take the fall. Planted evidence and manipulated records. She never had a chance.”
“What happened?”
“She was convicted. Everyone believed the evidence. I tried to investigate, tried to find proof that she’d been framed, but I was young and inexperienced. No one would talk to me.” Her voice catches. “By the time I found the real evidence, financialrecords proving the supervisor had been stealing, it was too late.”
I wait.
“Ana died in prison from an illness that wasn’t treated in time. She never got to see her name cleared.” A breath. “I was too late. If I’d been faster and more experienced... she’d still be alive.”
“That’s why you do this,” I say.
“Yes. That’s why I came here. Your family’s story reminds me of Ana’s story. Powerful people destroying innocent lives and getting away with it.” She swallows. I hear it in the darkness. “I can’t let that stand. Even when I can’t solve it. I have to try.”
I’ve misjudged her. From the moment she arrived, I saw a threat. A journalist here to exploit our tragedy, twist our pain into entertainment. But that’s not who she is. She’s someone who couldn’t save her friend, so now she saves everyone else.
We’re more similar than I thought.
My personal crystal glows softly in my palm. The silence stretches.
“I was the one who found them,” I tell her. The words come out before I can stop them. I never talk about this to anyone. Not even my brothers. But the darkness makes it easier. And she shared her pain with me. It only seems fair. “My parents,” I continue. My voice sounds flat to my own ears. “Scar and I came home from a late shift. We’d only just started training as miners. The door was broken and there was blood in the hallway.”
She doesn’t speak, just listens.
“We found them in their bed. They’d been killed in their sleep. Never even had a chance to fight back.” I pause, remembering the smell of blood and the stillness of their bodies. My mother’s hand hung off the edge of the mattress. “Scar screamed. I’d never heard him make a sound like that before. Hewas always the joker, the one who laughed at everything. After that night, he stopped laughing.”
“Texon...”
My name in her voice. Soft. Pained.
“He hasn’t smiled since. Not once, in all these years.” The words keep coming, pulled from somewhere deep. “Now he just investigates. I think he believes if he solves it, if he finds who did this, maybe he’ll feel something again.”
