Larius decided at 6:17 in the morning that nothing supernatural had happened.
It was a very reasonable conclusion.
He appreciated reasonable conclusions.
They were comfortable.
Structured.
Defensible.
More importantly, reasonable conclusions did not require him to consider the possibility that something inside his head had looked at an armed man and quietly produced a number.
Two percent.
Larius stared at the notebook.
It rested on the small hospital table.
Closed.
He had asked the nurse to close it sometime after the second episode.
He didn't remember asking.
Apparently he had.
That was fine.
Memory problems after severe stress were documented.
Very documented.
Extremely documented.
He knew that.
Acute stress.
Hypervigilance.
Adrenaline.
Trauma-induced attentional narrowing.
Implicit processing.
Subconscious pattern recognition.
Memory reconstruction.
Confirmation bias.
Hindsight bias.
Larius had a list.
An actual list.
He had written it on three pages.
The first page contained possible psychological explanations.
The second contained possible neurological explanations.
The third contained the words:
I AM NOT PSYCHIC.
Underlined twice.
He stared at the third page.
"...good."
The notebook remained silent.
"Glad we established that."
The notebook continued being deeply unhelpful.
Larius reached for the hospital water.
His hand still trembled slightly.
Less than yesterday.
Enough that he noticed.
He hated noticing things now.
That was new.
Before the robbery, noticing something had simply meant noticing something.
A crooked poster.
A damaged leaf.
The slight difference between two shades of blue.
Someone looking tired.
Now every observation came with a second question.
Why did I notice that?
He took a sip.
The plastic cup flexed slightly beneath his fingers.
Normal.
He placed it down.
The nurse who had checked him twenty minutes earlier walked slightly heavier on her left foot.
Larius froze.
No.
He looked toward the television mounted on the wall.
Muted.
Morning news.
Weather.
Traffic.
The nurse had probably been standing all night.
People developed temporary gait changes when tired.
Normal.
His eyes moved back.
She had already left.
"Normal," he whispered.
His headache gave a faint pulse.
Larius immediately stopped thinking.
1
At 6:43, he opened the notebook again.
This was not obsession.
It was investigation.
Those were different.
Probably.
He drew a line down the center of a clean page.
On the left:
NORMAL EXPLANATION
On the right:
PROBLEM
He stared.
Then began.
Hypervigilance
Problem:
Why specific details?
Larius frowned.
"No."
He crossed out the problem.
That was poorly phrased.
Hypervigilance absolutely could make people notice specific details.
He rewrote it.
Why did the details form conclusions?
Better.
Next.
Adrenaline
Problem:
Adrenaline does not explain 2%.
He paused.
Actually, the number could be retrospective.
His brain could have invented it afterward.
Human memory was reconstructive.
People did not retrieve memories like files from a computer.
They rebuilt them.
Every recollection changed slightly.
Context influenced recall.
Emotion influenced recall.
Later information contaminated earlier memory.
Larius knew this.
He had studied this.
He crossed out the problem.
2% may be post-event reconstruction.
There.
Reasonable.
His shoulders relaxed slightly.
Next.
Implicit processing
This one was promising.
The human brain processed far more sensory information than conscious awareness reported.
People could react to facial expressions before consciously identifying emotion.
Experienced athletes anticipated movements from posture.
Drivers reacted to road hazards before verbally describing them.
Experts saw patterns novices missed.
Larius's pen slowed.
Experts.
He stared at the word.
He was not an expert.
He had been training for slightly over a month.
Conditioning.
A basic stance.
A jab.
Some breathing exercises.
Marcus had spent twenty minutes teaching him how to stand without being an idiot.
Larius wrote:
Not enough expertise.
Then immediately argued with himself.
Maybe psychology education contributed.
Behavioral observation.
Body language.
Cognitive science.
He added:
Psychology background?
Then:
Community college. Do not become arrogant.
He stared.
"...fair."
2
Breakfast arrived.
Larius inspected it.
Not intentionally.
Eggs.
Toast.
Fruit.
Something claiming to be oatmeal.
The oatmeal looked guilty.
He ate the eggs.
His phone had been returned to him the previous evening.
The screen contained messages.
Carl.
Richard.
Sofia.
Many messages from Sofia.
CARL CALLED ME.
Three minutes later:
WHY DID CARL CALL ME FROM A HOSPITAL
One minute later:
LARIUS
Then:
ANSWER
Then:
I KNOW YOU ARE IN HOSPITAL
Then:
FABIAN IS WORRIED
Then:
I AM ALSO WORRIED
Then:
FABIAN SAYS I SHOULD SAY HE IS MORE WORRIED
Then:
THIS IS NOT A COMPETITION
Larius stared at the screen.
A small warmth appeared somewhere beneath his ribs.
It made him uncomfortable.
Not badly.
Just...
unexpectedly.
He typed:
Alive. Head hurts. Doctors say scans are clear.
The response arrived before he could put the phone down.
YOU GOT SHOT?
Larius blinked.
No.
STABBED?
No.
A pause.
THEN WHY HOSPITAL
Larius stared.
That was considerably harder to answer.
His fingers hovered.
Stress reaction. Maybe.
The three dots appeared.
Disappeared.
Appeared again.
Finally:
MAYBE?
Larius locked the phone.
Cowardice.
Absolutely.
He returned to the notebook.
The page waited.
Stress reaction.
He wrote it.
Underlined it.
Then beneath:
Severe stress can cause:
shaking
nausea
vomiting
headache
dissociation
altered perception
attentional narrowing
memory disruption
Larius leaned back.
There.
A complete explanation.
Almost.
His eyes drifted toward the previous pages.
Left foot behind.
Weight right.
Trigger pressure increased.
Breathing fast.
Entrance checks every six to seven seconds.
He looked away.
The explanation survived.
The notes survived too.
That was becoming irritating.
3
At 9:26, a neurologist asked him to follow a penlight with his eyes.
Larius followed it.
"Any visual disturbances?"
"No."
"Flashing lights?"
"No."
"Blind spots?"
"No."
"Double vision?"
"No."
"Any auditory disturbances?"
"No."
"Voices?"
Larius frowned.
"No."
The neurologist nodded and wrote something.
Larius watched the pen.
"Can stress cause a person to make predictions?"
The neurologist stopped writing.
"Predictions?"
"Not..."
Larius paused.
"Future predictions."
He immediately hated the sentence.
The neurologist waited.
Larius tried again.
"Anticipation."
"Of movement?"
"Maybe."
"Under threat?"
"Yes."
The neurologist nodded.
"Certainly."
Relief.
Immediate.
The neurologist continued.
"The brain is constantly predicting."
Larius sat slightly straighter.
"Constantly?"
"Essentially."
The doctor pulled the chair closer.
"When you catch a ball, you don't wait for the ball to reach your hand and then move. Your brain estimates trajectory."
Larius listened carefully.
"When you're speaking, your brain anticipates language. When walking through a crowd, you're constantly adjusting based on where you expect people to move."
Reasonable.
Beautifully reasonable.
"Threat can heighten some of those processes."
Larius almost smiled.
"Okay."
"However..."
Of course.
There was always a however.
The neurologist looked at him.
"Why are you asking?"
Larius's relief disappeared.
"No reason."
The doctor waited.
Larius had become increasingly familiar with medical silence.
It was weaponized patience.
He looked toward the window.
"I moved before the gunman fired."
The neurologist remained still.
"I thought he was going to fire."
"Did you see him raise the weapon?"
"Yes."
Normal.
"Then your brain anticipated a threat."
Larius nodded.
There.
Done.
Solved.
Then his mouth betrayed him.
"I knew he wasn't surrendering later."
Silence.
The neurologist's expression changed slightly.
Not fear.
Interest.
Larius noticed.
Hated that he noticed.
"What made you think that?"
"I don't know."
"Did he say something?"
"No."
"Did he raise the weapon?"
"After."
The doctor paused.
"After you thought he wouldn't surrender?"
Larius swallowed.
"Yes."
The room became irritatingly quiet.
The neurologist eventually said:
"People sometimes process threat cues subconsciously."
Larius grabbed onto the explanation immediately.
"Exactly."
"That doesn't mean your interpretation was necessarily accurate."
"But it was."
The sentence left too quickly.
Larius froze.
The doctor looked at him.
Larius looked away.
"Coincidence."
"Possibly."
Possibly.
He hated that word now too.
4
At 11:03, Larius attempted statistics.
This was a mistake.
He had no proper dataset.
No controlled environment.
No baseline.
No repeat trials.
No objective measurements.
He had one armed robbery.
Three offenders.
One terrified brain.
And a notebook.
Scientifically, this was garbage.
He wrote:
Sample size = 1
Then:
Conclusion = unreliable
He stared at it.
Satisfied.
For seven seconds.
Then he turned the page.
Why 2%?
He stopped breathing.
The number sat there.
He didn't remember calculating it.
There had been no calculation.
No variables.
No percentages.
No conscious assessment.
Just...
two percent.
He tapped the pen against the paper.
Maybe he had seen the number somewhere.
A news article.
A book.
A movie.
Cryptomnesia.
A forgotten memory resurfacing without recognition of its source.
Larius wrote the word.
CRYPTOMNESIA
He circled it.
"Yes."
Possible.
He searched his phone.
Survival rates in armed robberies.
Hostage situations.
Gun violence.
The numbers varied wildly.
Different contexts.
Different studies.
Different definitions.
Nothing cleanly produced two percent.
Larius stopped searching.
Confirmation seeking was dangerous.
He knew that.
If he searched long enough, he would eventually find something that matched.
Then his brain would treat coincidence as evidence.
He put the phone down.
"Confirmation bias."
He wrote it.
Another reasonable explanation.
The page became crowded.
Hypervigilance.
Adrenaline.
Implicit processing.
Memory reconstruction.
Hindsight bias.
Confirmation bias.
Cryptomnesia.
Acute stress.
Dissociation.
Eight explanations.
Eight.
Larius looked at the old notes.
The old notes looked back.
Entrance checks approximately six to seven seconds.
His stomach tightened.
He had written that before reviewing any security footage.
He didn't know whether footage existed.
He definitely hadn't seen it.
Larius closed the notebook.
Hard.
"Enough."
His headache pulsed.
He began breathing.
In.
Slow.
Out.
His ribs expanded.
His shoulders lowered.
Again.
In.
Out.
The pain remained low.
Contained.
He had learned something from the last episode.
Do not push.
That was irritating too.
His own mind had apparently developed operating limits.
5
At 1:14 in the afternoon, two police officers arrived.
Neither wore patrol uniforms.
One was a man in his late thirties wearing a dark suit that looked slightly too formal for the hospital.
The second was a woman.
Mid-forties, perhaps.
Dark brown hair pulled back.
Grey blazer.
Black trousers.
A badge clipped near her waist.
She entered without rushing.
Larius noticed her eyes first.
Not the color.
Movement.
Door.
Bed.
Monitor.
Notebook.
Larius.
The sequence took less than two seconds.
His stomach dropped.
Stop noticing.
The woman approached.
"Mr. Wilarrow?"
"Unfortunately."
The male officer almost smiled.
The woman did not.
Not unfriendly.
Simply controlled.
"I'm Lieutenant Cindy Ark. Los Angeles Police Department, Internal Affairs Group."
Larius stared.
"Internal Affairs?"
"Yes."
His chest tightened.
"Did I do something?"
This time the male officer definitely smiled.
Cindy pulled the visitor chair closer.
"No."
"That's a very reassuring answer after saying Internal Affairs."
A small movement touched the corner of her mouth.
Almost a smile.
Almost.
"I'm reviewing the officer-involved shooting at your workplace."
Right.
The gunman.
The officers had fired.
Larius looked down.
Cindy continued.
"You were a civilian witness with a direct line of sight during several important moments."
Civilian witness.
The phrase felt strangely clinical.
"Okay."
"Are you comfortable answering questions?"
Larius glanced at the hospital bed.
"I have nowhere else to be."
The male officer looked toward the window.
Definitely hiding amusement.
Cindy opened a small recorder.
"For the record, I'm Lieutenant Cynthia Ark, Internal Affairs Group. Detective Aaron Bell is present. We're speaking with Larius Wilarrow regarding the incident at..."
The formal introduction continued.
Larius listened.
Something about procedure comforted him.
Names.
Time.
Location.
Purpose.
Everything placed into boxes.
He liked boxes.
6
The questions began simply.
What time had he arrived?
Who was working?
When did he first notice the three men?
What did he see?
Larius answered.
Slowly.
He corrected himself twice.
"I think eight."
Cindy looked at him.
"Think?"
"I wasn't watching the clock."
"That's fine."
No pressure.
She moved on.
The gun appeared.
The room changed.
Not physically.
Larius's shoulders tightened.
Cindy noticed.
He noticed her noticing.
The headache threatened faintly.
Larius inhaled.
Out.
Cindy waited.
"Sorry."
"You don't need to apologize."
"I keep doing that."
"Apologizing?"
"Breathing badly."
Detective Bell looked confused.
Cindy didn't.
"Take your time."
Larius nodded.
He described the gunman.
Hoodie.
Approximate height.
Position.
Weapon.
Then Cindy asked:
"What did the subject do before the first shot?"
Larius's mouth went dry.
"He..."
Foot.
Weight.
Finger.
Breathing.
Larius looked toward the notebook.
Cindy followed his eyes.
"Did you make notes?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"After."
"How long after?"
Larius hesitated.
"In the hospital."
"Before speaking to investigators?"
"Yes."
Cindy's attention sharpened.
Larius felt it.
He hated that too.
"May I see them?"
No.
The answer arrived instantly.
He almost said it.
Instead:
"They're..."
Insane.
Concerning.
Embarrassing.
"...messy."
"I've read police handwriting for twenty-three years."
Detective Bell nodded solemnly.
"She's qualified."
Cindy ignored him.
Larius looked at the notebook.
Then slowly handed it over.
His fingers didn't want to release it.
Cindy noticed that.
Of course she did.
She opened the page.
Read.
No expression.
Turned.
Read.
Another page.
The room became unbearably quiet.
Larius watched her.
He tried not to.
Failed.
Her reading slowed at:
Entrance checks approximately six to seven seconds.
Then:
He isn't surrendering.
Then:
Why did I move?
Then:
2%
Cindy stopped.
"What does two percent mean?"
"I don't know."
The answer came honestly.
She looked up.
"You wrote it."
"I know."
"What were you trying to record?"
"I don't know."
Detective Bell shifted slightly.
Larius saw the movement.
Defensive?
No.
Uncomfortable.
Stop.
Larius rubbed his eyes.
Cindy closed the notebook.
"Mr. Wilarrow."
"Larius."
A pause.
"All right. Larius."
Her voice remained calm.
"How did you know the shooter was going to fire?"
Silence.
There it was.
The question.
Larius had spent almost an entire day building answers.
Hypervigilance.
Adrenaline.
Implicit processing.
Threat anticipation.
He opened his mouth.
"I..."
Nothing.
He tried again.
"I think my brain processed threat cues subconsciously under acute sympathetic activation."
Detective Bell stared.
Cindy blinked once.
Larius closed his eyes.
"...I studied psychology."
"I guessed."
He opened one eye.
Cindy's expression had finally cracked.
Very slightly.
"Was that your answer?"
"It was supposed to be."
"And now?"
Larius looked at the notebook in her hands.
"I don't know."
The words felt heavier than expected.
Cindy waited.
Larius looked away.
"I really don't know."
7
The statement should have continued.
Instead, Larius asked a question.
"Do you get used to it?"
Cindy paused.
"To what?"
"Guns."
The room quieted.
Detective Bell stopped moving.
Larius stared at his hands.
"Someone pointing one at you."
His fingers trembled faintly.
"Someone deciding..."
He swallowed.
"...that you could stop existing because their finger moved."
The sentence sat between them.
Larius breathed.
Badly.
Then corrected it.
In.
Out.
Cindy turned off the recorder.
The click sounded surprisingly loud.
Larius looked up.
"Statement over?"
"Temporarily."
She leaned back.
"Why are you asking?"
Larius almost lied.
Habit.
The answer prepared itself.
Curiosity.
Just wondering.
Saw something online.
Instead:
"I was thinking about joining."
Cindy's eyebrows moved.
"The LAPD?"
"Academy."
"When?"
"Next year."
"Have you applied?"
"No."
"Started the process?"
"No."
"Spoken to recruitment?"
"No."
Detective Bell frowned.
"So you're thinking about thinking about joining."
Larius stared at him.
"...yes."
Bell nodded.
"Understood."
Cindy almost smiled again.
Larius looked down.
"I gave myself time."
"Why?"
"Because I wasn't sure."
"Are you sure now?"
"No."
Immediate.
Too immediate.
Larius laughed once.
No humor.
"Actually, I think I'm less sure."
Nobody answered.
The silence didn't feel uncomfortable.
That was unusual.
Larius continued.
"I saw a police officer bleeding on the news."
His voice lowered.
"Months ago."
"I remember thinking..."
He stopped.
What had he thought?
Get out.
Don't join.
Danger.
The memory returned.
"I wanted nothing to do with it."
Cindy listened.
"But every time I stopped looking..."
Larius frowned.
The sentence became harder.
"...something felt wrong."
"Wrong how?"
"I don't know."
He laughed quietly.
"That's becoming my favorite answer."
Cindy said nothing.
Larius looked toward the window.
"I thought maybe joining would..."
Fix me.
The words almost escaped.
He stopped them.
"...give me direction."
Better.
Not entirely false.
Cindy watched him.
Larius knew she didn't completely believe him.
Strangely, he didn't feel angry.
Maybe because he didn't completely believe himself either.
8
"Do LAPD officers live like this?"
The question surprised everyone.
Including Larius.
Cindy tilted her head.
"Like what?"
"Close to death."
Detective Bell looked at her.
Larius kept speaking before embarrassment could stop him.
"Not literally every day."
"I know statistics don't work like that."
"I mean..."
He searched.
"Do you go to work knowing it can happen?"
No answer.
"So you just..."
Larius gestured vaguely.
"Eat breakfast."
"Drive."
"Do paperwork."
"Talk to people."
"And somewhere in the middle someone might point a gun at you?"
His voice had risen.
He noticed.
Lowered it.
"Then what?"
"You go home?"
"Sleep?"
"Come back?"
Cindy remained silent for several seconds.
Then:
"Sometimes."
The answer disappointed him.
Maybe because it was too simple.
Larius frowned.
"That's it?"
"No."
She folded her hands.
"Sometimes you don't sleep."
"Sometimes you replay it."
"Sometimes you become angry at people who had nothing to do with it."
"Sometimes you convince yourself you're fine because the alternative is inconvenient."
Larius stopped moving.
Cindy continued.
"Sometimes you talk."
"Sometimes you don't."
"Sometimes not talking becomes a habit."
Something inside Larius tightened.
The sentence found him too accurately.
Cindy wasn't looking at his notebook anymore.
She was looking at him.
"And habits," she said, "are very good at pretending to be personality."
Silence.
Larius looked down.
Marcus.
Sofia.
Fabian.
Breathing.
The notebook.
Thirty days of repetition.
Habits becoming instinct.
He had spent weeks learning that lesson.
Apparently the lesson had another side.
Bad habits compounded too.
That felt unfair.
"That's..."
He stopped.
Cindy waited.
"...annoying."
Detective Bell coughed into his hand.
Cindy smiled.
Actually smiled.
"Yes."
9
Larius didn't know when the conversation stopped feeling like an interview.
Maybe when the recorder turned off.
Maybe when Cindy answered honestly.
He found himself speaking.
Not efficiently.
Not cleanly.
He spoke badly.
Which was new.
"I don't want to die."
The sentence came first.
Simple.
Embarrassing.
True.
Cindy nodded.
"I really don't."
Another breath.
"I know that's obvious."
"But I keep thinking about the academy."
"And then I think about the gun."
"And then I think about that kid."
Cindy frowned.
"What kid?"
Larius realized she didn't know.
So he explained.
The teenager.
The backpack.
The stolen money.
The fight.
The bruises.
Detective Bell stared.
"You intervened in another incident?"
"It sounds worse when you say it like that."
"It is exactly what happened."
"I got punched."
"That does not improve it."
Larius looked at Cindy.
"See?"
She didn't rescue him.
Betrayal.
Larius sighed.
"I didn't plan it."
"That's the problem."
Bell replied.
Larius ignored him.
"I just..."
He rubbed his forehead.
"I saw it."
"And walking away felt wrong."
"Then the robbery happened."
"And I moved again."
His voice became quieter.
"I don't know why."
There.
The truth.
Not the ability.
Not two percent.
The deeper problem.
"I don't know why I keep moving."
The room became still.
"I am scared before."
"I'm scared during."
"I'm definitely scared after."
His mouth twisted.
"Apparently I have excellent consistency."
Cindy didn't laugh.
Larius looked at his hands.
"I thought people who did this were supposed to be..."
"Brave?"
He looked up.
Cindy had supplied the word.
"Maybe."
She considered him.
"Fear isn't disqualifying."
"Freezing can get someone hurt."
"Recklessness can get someone hurt."
"Thinking you're invincible will definitely get someone hurt."
Her eyes moved briefly toward his bruised shoulder.
"And running into situations without training is stupid."
Larius blinked.
"...that felt targeted."
"It was."
Detective Bell nodded.
Larius felt attacked by the entire department.
But something in his chest had loosened.
Not disappeared.
Loosened.
10
"What if I join for the wrong reason?"
Cindy looked at him.
"What reason?"
Larius couldn't answer.
To meet someone whose name he couldn't remember?
John?
The thought barely formed.
John...
Something.
His headache pulsed.
Larius stopped.
Cindy noticed.
"Pain?"
"A little."
"Then stop pushing."
The sentence startled him.
Larius looked at her.
"How did you..."
"You're in a hospital."
Right.
Reasonable.
He almost laughed.
Instead, he breathed.
In.
Out.
"What if I don't know the reason?"
Cindy considered that longer.
"Then don't lie to yourself and invent one."
Larius stared.
That was...
uncomfortably useful.
"You don't need a noble speech."
"You don't need to say you were born to serve."
"You don't need to pretend fear doesn't matter."
She leaned back.
"If you apply, apply because you've considered what the job is."
"Not what television says."
"Not what recruitment posters say."
"Not what one good officer says."
"Not what one bad officer does."
"The job."
Larius listened.
"Then decide."
"Can I decide not to?"
"Yes."
Immediate.
No judgment.
That answer affected him more than encouragement would have.
He looked away.
"Okay."
Cindy reached for the recorder.
"Ready to finish the statement?"
Larius looked at the notebook.
No.
Then at her.
"Can I ask one more question?"
She waited.
"Have you ever been afraid to go back?"
Detective Bell became very still.
Cindy's hand stopped above the recorder.
For the first time since entering the room, her answer did not arrive quickly.
Larius almost apologized.
Then she said:
"Yes."
One word.
No explanation.
No dramatic story.
Just yes.
Larius nodded.
Something settled.
Not comfort.
Recognition.
"Okay."
Cindy turned the recorder back on.
11
The second half of the statement was worse.
Because Cindy asked specific questions.
"Where was the subject's weight positioned?"
Larius froze.
The notebook.
She had read it.
"Right side."
"How sure are you?"
"Very."
"Did you see his left foot?"
"Behind him."
"How far?"
Larius closed his eyes.
The lobby appeared.
Tile.
Shoes.
"No."
Cindy waited.
Larius opened his eyes.
"I don't want to do that."
"Do what?"
"Look."
Silence.
The headache had begun pulsing.
He breathed.
Cindy watched.
"All right."
She moved on.
"How frequently did the second subject check the entrance?"
Larius's stomach dropped.
"I wrote six or seven seconds."
"You did."
"Then why are you asking?"
"Because I want your answer."
Larius stared at her.
Six.
Seven.
The rhythm returned.
Door.
Room.
Bag.
Door.
Room.
Bag.
His head tightened.
"Six."
He whispered it.
Then:
"No."
Cindy remained still.
"Six point..."
Pain.
Larius gasped.
The monitor accelerated.
Cindy stood.
"Stop."
Larius pressed both hands against his temples.
Something pushed.
Not words.
Not images.
Pressure.
A number almost formed.
He panicked.
"No."
He forced himself to breathe.
In.
Out.
Again.
His hands shook.
In.
Out.
The pressure receded.
Slowly.
Pain remained.
But the number disappeared before becoming complete.
Larius opened his eyes.
Cindy was standing beside the bed.
Detective Bell had called for a nurse.
Larius swallowed.
"I'm okay."
"No, you're not."
Cindy replied.
The directness almost made him laugh.
"I'm relatively okay."
"Statement is over."
"But..."
"Over."
Her tone allowed no negotiation.
The nurse entered.
Questions.
Monitor.
Blood pressure.
Pupils.
Larius answered mechanically.
Cindy and Bell moved toward the door.
Before leaving, Cindy placed the notebook on the table.
Closed.
She looked at Larius.
"Whatever you're trying to force yourself to remember..."
Larius stopped breathing.
"...stop."
He stared at her.
Cindy continued.
"You don't get extra points for breaking yourself to answer a question today."
Then she left.
The door closed.
Larius stared at it.
His heart continued beating too quickly.
The nurse adjusted something.
"Friend?"
Larius blinked.
"What?"
"The woman."
"No."
The nurse nodded.
Larius looked at the closed door.
"...I met her an hour ago."
The nurse paused.
"Oh."
For some reason, that made Larius laugh.
His ribs hurt.
He kept laughing anyway.
12
Night arrived slowly.
Sofia called.
Larius answered this time.
The first thirty seconds were Spanish.
Fast Spanish.
Larius understood approximately four words.
His name.
Hospital.
Idiot.
And something he suspected meant God.
When Sofia switched to English, she sounded furious.
"You scared Fabian."
The anger disappeared from Larius immediately.
"Oh."
"Yes. Oh."
Larius stared at the blanket.
"Can I talk to him?"
Silence.
Then movement.
The call changed to video.
Fabian appeared.
He looked tired.
Notebook in his lap.
For once, there was no joke waiting.
Larius's chest tightened.
"Hey."
Fabian looked at him.
Then wrote.
YOU OKAY?
Larius almost answered automatically.
Fine.
The word reached his tongue.
He stopped.
Cindy's voice returned.
Sometimes not talking becomes a habit.
Habits are very good at pretending to be personality.
Larius looked at Fabian.
"No."
The word felt strange.
Fabian waited.
Larius breathed.
"I'm scared."
Silence.
There.
He had said it.
Nothing collapsed.
The hospital didn't disappear.
Fabian didn't look at him differently.
The boy simply wrote.
ME TOO
Larius stared.
Fabian turned the page.
MOM VERY SCARED
From somewhere off-screen:
"I CAN READ, FABIAN."
Fabian grinned.
Larius laughed softly.
The boy wrote again.
YOU COME SHOP WHEN BETTER
"Yeah."
Another line.
NO GET PUNCHED
"...I didn't get punched."
Fabian stared.
Larius sighed.
"Fine. Different problem."
Fabian nodded.
The call lasted twenty minutes.
They discussed almost nothing.
The lily.
A customer who had accidentally ordered funeral flowers for an anniversary because of a website mistake.
Fabian's school assignment.
Sofia's cooking.
Normal things.
When the call ended, Larius felt tired.
But lighter.
He didn't understand why.
Maybe talking was another exercise.
Awkward.
Uncomfortable.
Exhausting.
Something that required repetition.
He hated that possibility.
Because it meant Cindy was probably right.
Again.
13
At 11:48, Larius opened the notebook.
He did not review the gunman.
He did not calculate.
He did not test.
Instead, he turned to a clean page.
He wrote:
Things I know
He paused.
1. I was afraid.
His pen stopped.
Then:
2. I moved anyway.
Another line.
3. I don't know why.
He looked at the previous pages.
Reasonable explanations waited.
Hypervigilance.
Adrenaline.
Implicit processing.
Memory reconstruction.
Hindsight bias.
Confirmation bias.
Cryptomnesia.
Acute stress.
Dissociation.
Larius had spent an entire day trying to kill the impossible with vocabulary.
The vocabulary survived.
Unfortunately...
so did the impossible.
He turned another page.
Things I cannot explain
The pen hovered.
Two percent.
He did not write it.
Instead:
1. The number.
His headache remained quiet.
2. Why the details connected.
Still quiet.
3. Why forcing recall causes pain.
A faint pulse.
Larius stopped.
Breathed.
The pulse faded.
He stared.
That was new.
Not the pain.
Stopping.
A month ago, he would have pushed.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Until the headache crushed him.
Tonight...
he closed the notebook.
The questions remained unanswered.
For once, Larius allowed them to remain that way.
He leaned back against the hospital pillow.
Cindy Ark had asked him why he wanted to join the LAPD.
He still didn't know.
He knew the job frightened him.
He knew guns frightened him.
He knew pain frightened him.
Death definitely frightened him.
Yet the thought of abandoning the academy completely still made something crawl beneath his skin.
Uneasy.
Wrong.
Larius closed his eyes.
He had months before his deadline.
Months to train.
Months to think.
Months to decide whether risking his life for a direction he didn't understand was courage...
or stupidity.
Probably stupidity.
Possibly both.
His breathing slowed.
In.
Out.
The hospital monitor continued its steady rhythm.
For the first time since the robbery, Larius did not try to predict the next beep.
He simply listened.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
His mind remained quiet.
Almost.
Because on the closed table beside him, beneath eight reasonable explanations and three pages of desperate arguments...
one number remained written in his own handwriting.
2%
Larius had tried all day to explain it away.
The frightening part wasn't that he had failed.
The frightening part was that every normal explanation made sense.
And somehow...
none of them made the number feel less true.