Isaiah Sparks didn't sleep much, and it wasn't because he couldn't. It was because he didn't trust the world to stay still long enough for him to close his eyes. He arrived at the precinct before sunrise, a time when the hallways still smelled of mop water and old coffee. The building was quieter then—honest, in a way. There was no chatter, no phones ringing off the hook, and no forced laughter to remind you that people were still pretending things were normal.
Isaiah liked it better that way.
He unlocked his desk drawer and removed a small, unmarked notebook with a black cover—the kind of book you'd never write anything innocent in. He didn't open it immediately, though. Instead, he stood at the window and watched Grayhaven wake slowly through streaks of rain. Harley had gone to the water last night; he'd known she would. That wasn't just instinct; it was history. And he hated what that history implied.
Isaiah finally sat down and opened the notebook, flipping to a page he hadn't touched in weeks. It was a list, not of suspects or cases, but of times: 2:14, 2:14, 2:14. Now, after Calvin Rourke, he added a new line beneath them: 4:14.
It was close enough to feel deliberate. Isaiah stared at the numbers until they stopped looking like time and started looking like a fingerprint. He didn't like fingerprints. Fingerprints meant you could be traced, and there were things in his life he had spent years making untraceable.
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The precinct filled slowly as the morning arrived. Brian's voice carried down the hallway well before he appeared. "I swear to God, if I see another printer jam, I'm filing a complaint with the universe."
Lucas walked in behind him, already sounding irritated. "You're the reason the universe jams printers."
Alex arrived last, his hair still damp and his eyes heavy but alert—the unmistakable look of someone who had stayed awake too long staring at a screen that refused to give up its secrets. Harley came in last, and she didn't speak. Isaiah saw it immediately; it wasn't her usual calm, but something much tighter. She didn't look at him when she passed his desk, but he felt her awareness of him like static in the air.
She sat down and opened a file, pretending her hands weren't still. Isaiah didn't speak to her yet. He just watched her the way he always did—quietly and patiently, as if observation alone could keep her safe. He knew it couldn't, but he kept doing it anyway.
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Captain Black's Office
Captain Black called Isaiah in just before noon. The door shut behind him with the soft, heavy click of finality. Black didn't offer him coffee, which was how Isaiah knew this wasn't going to be a small conversation. Black slid a thin folder across the desk containing a photocopy of an old dispatch log: March 11. GH-03-11A. 2:14 AM.
Isaiah didn't react outwardly, but his spine tightened. Black watched him carefully. "This file shouldn't be surfacing," Black said. "And yet it is."
"Someone wants it seen," Isaiah replied, his voice flat.
Black nodded. "By her." Silence stretched between them for a moment before Black added, quieter, "You were on duty back then."
Isaiah's eyes flicked up. Black held his gaze firmly. "I know you were," Black continued, "because I was, too."
The revelation landed like a physical weight. Isaiah didn't speak. Black leaned forward, his expression intent. "I'm not accusing you, Sparks. I'm asking you. Did you ever touch that case?"
Isaiah stared at the folder, his mouth feeling dry. He could have lied; he'd lied before and knew exactly how to do it. But Captain Black wasn't asking like a man looking for easy answers; he was asking like a man trying to understand the size of the fire they were standing next to.
"I saw the address," Isaiah answered slowly.
Black's jaw tightened. "And?"
Isaiah's voice dropped. "And I was told to forget it."
Black's expression didn't change, but a muscle near his eye tightened. "By who?"
Isaiah didn't answer. It wasn't because he didn't know the name, but because saying it out loud would make it real in a way he'd spent years refusing to acknowledge. Black leaned back. "Isaiah." It wasn't a reprimand, but a warning.
Isaiah met his eyes. "If you've been carrying something... and it involves Hartwell..." Black started.
"It does," Isaiah cut through.
Black exhaled slowly, the air leaving him in a long hiss. "Then you better decide what you're protecting. Her... or the thing that's been circling her."
Isaiah didn't have an answer. That was the problem: sometimes you protected someone by keeping the truth away from them, and sometimes you protected them by putting it in their hands. He didn't know which choice would kill her faster.
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Isaiah went to the parking garage after work but didn't get into his car immediately. He stood beside it with his coat collar up, the rain misting the concrete in fine grains. He pulled out his phone and scrolled to a number he hadn't called in months—no name, just digits. He hovered over it, then finally hit call.
The phone rang longer than he wanted it to before a voice answered—old, tired, and familiar. "...Sparks."
Isaiah didn't bother with greetings. "They're moving again."
There was a long pause. "Don't say that."
Isaiah's jaw tightened. "They touched records. They used names. They looped footage."
Silence and heavy breathing followed. Finally, the voice said, "She came back."
Isaiah's grip tightened on the phone. "Yes."
"You should have stopped that," the voice replied.
Isaiah's voice sharpened with a rare edge. "I didn't have the right."
The voice on the line gave a low, humorless laugh. "You never cared about rights, Isaiah. You cared about outcomes."
Isaiah stared into the rain. "I care about her being alive."
The voice went quiet for a long time before speaking again, softer this time. "She doesn't know what she's walking into."
"She knows enough," Isaiah's throat tightened.
"And you?" the voice asked. "How much do you know?"
Isaiah closed his eyes briefly. "Too much."
The voice said the one thing Isaiah didn't want to hear: "If she asks you... will you tell her?"
Isaiah didn't answer because he truly didn't know. The call ended without a goodbye, and Isaiah stood in the garage for another minute with the phone still in his hand before turning it off—as if that could turn off the question, too.
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That night, Isaiah sat in his apartment with the lights off and a glass of bourbon sitting untouched on the table. The black notebook was open in front of him, and he wrote one more line beneath the list of times: She knows I'm watching.
He stared at the sentence for a long moment before flipping to a different page, one with a single name written at the top: HARLEY HARTWELL. Under it, in smaller handwriting, was a single sentence: If she asks, tell the truth.
Isaiah's pen hovered over the paper. He didn't write anything else, but he didn't erase it either. He just stared, waiting for the page to offer him a third option that didn't exist. Outside, Grayhaven rained like it always did. Inside, Isaiah Sparks finally admitted to himself what he'd been refusing since she first walked back into that bullpen.
The quiet was over, and the oaths he'd made—both spoken and unspoken—were finally starting to cost.