Page 67 of Redline Communion

That one is a lie. I know it while I’m typing, and I know it again when the cursor settles at the end of the sentence, waiting for me to take it back.

I don’t.

When I reach the part about the coke, my hands stop. The real version comes together easily because I’ve written enough of these reports to know exactly how it should sound.

Subject used cocaine repeatedly and appeared visibly altered. University associate contacted reporting party at 12:14 a.m. Reporting party located subject and left the main gathering with her.

I don’t write that she called herself Lark. I don’t write how bright her eyes were or how hard her jaw kept working. I don’t write that I knew what I was looking at before Kiwi told me, or that Lorelei pulled me down the hallway and I followed anyway.

I erase the whole thing and replace it with two sentences.

No security concerns. Subject returned safely.

I read the last word twice. Safely.

Then I close the laptop without submitting the report.

It isn’t the first time I’ve left things out. I know that as soon as I scroll through the last month of what I’ve already sent and see the pattern all at once instead of one report at a time. At first, I only kept things that didn’t seem relevant: the way she sings when she thinks nobody is listening, low and unfinished, trying out lines like she’s saving the real performance for a bigger room, or the fact that Zaconia can make her laugh when the rest of us can barely get her to smile. None of that belonged to Dominic, so I didn’t give it to him.

Then the omissions got heavier. I left out the fight with Carmen that I heard through a cracked door. I stopped recording how long Lorelei slept after bad nights or how little she ate the mornings after. I didn’t mention the one time I found her standing in the hall looking honestly scared, before she noticed me and put her face back together. I stopped naming who she kissed unless enough people had seen it that leaving it out would draw more attention than including it. I told myself I was keeping the reports limited to information relevant to the job, and I never asked who got to decide what relevant meant.

Dominic finds me in the garage two days later. He has his phone in one hand and barely looks up from it when he speaks.

“Anything unusual this week?”

The question is routine for him, delivered with the same interest another person might show the weather.

“No.”

The word comes out smoothly, and that bothers me more than the lie itself. Earlier, I would have hesitated long enough for him to hear it. Now I can say it while tightening a bolt that was already tight, my voice steady and my hands doing exactly what they’re supposed to do.

Dominic nods and turns toward the door, then stops with one hand on the frame.

“Somebody at the paddock says she’s been answering to a different name.”

The wrench doesn’t move. It takes everything I have to keep it that way.

“People say a lot of things at the paddock.”

“They do.” He still hasn’t turned around. “Which is why I’d rather hear it from the person who was standing next to her.”

This is the test, and I know it the way I know the weight of a tool. If I give him the name, it goes into a file, and a nickname she picked at a party becomes a variable somebody else can plan around. If I refuse too hard, I tell him something else: that there’s something here worth protecting.

“Nobody’s calling her anything,” I say. “Drunk kids at a party make up nicknames all night. Ask me what they called the guy asleep under the blanket.”

Dominic looks back at me for a long moment. Whatever he is measuring, it takes longer than I would like.

“The blanket,” he repeats.

“He was very committed to it.”

Something moves at the corner of his mouth, not a smile, only its outline.

“Keep the reports current, Rafael.”

He leaves. I keep the wrench on the bolt until his footsteps are gone, and my hands stay steady the whole time, which is what frightens me. It’s the first time Dominic has asked me a question he already had part of the answer to. I lied to his face in a room I’ve known since I was twelve, and I don’t know yet what it’s going to cost, only that the bill has started.

Lorelei texts me a little after nine that night. The first message is a picture of something burned black in a pan, captioned RIP dinner. A minute later, another appears.