Part 112
Something wasn't right.
Aura couldn't explain it — not yet. But the rhythm between them had changed.
Adrian's voice was softer these days, his smiles almost too careful. He laughed at the right times, complimented her when she didn't expect it, and never raised his tone.
It should have been perfect.
It was perfect.
And yet, she could feel it — a faint vibration underneath the peace she'd worked so hard to build.
When she passed by the table that morning, she noticed the notebook had shifted slightly to the left.
Just a few centimeters — something no one else would ever see.
But she remembered exactly where she'd left it.
Her hand lingered on the cover, her thumb brushing over the indentation where a pen had rested.
"You've been writing again?" she asked, her voice calm.
He nodded without looking up.
"Yeah. Just lyrics."
She smiled, but her mind was running too fast to enjoy it.
Lyrics. Right.
But he hadn't written for weeks. She'd checked every page.
After he went to take a shower, she stood in the middle of the room, her eyes sweeping over every surface — the chair slightly turned, the blanket not folded the way she'd done it, the faint smudge of a fingerprint on the window that shouldn't be there.
Her stomach tightened.
It wasn't paranoia — it was awareness. The same kind that had kept her alive in a world that only pretended to understand her.
She opened his notebook. The words were harmless — small verses, simple lines about peace and forgiveness.
But the rhythm…
The rhythm was wrong.
It was a code.
She didn't know how, but she could feel it.
Her breath came slower, heavier.
Aura closed the notebook and placed it exactly where it had been.
She couldn't let him see she'd noticed anything. Not yet.
If she pushed too soon, he'd retreat further into himself. She'd seen that look before — that defiance, that quiet belief that the world could still save him from her.
She wouldn't allow that. Not again.
So, she went back to the kitchen, humming the same song as always.
The one he said he liked.
The one that meant everything's normal.
But her eyes, every time she looked at him, told another story entirely — cold, calculating, certain.
"If there's something you're hiding from me, Adrian," she whispered under her breath, "I'll find it. I always do."