The news hit her like a landslide: he was dead.
The boy - the one who had stood beside her, who had believed her when others didn't - was gone. They said it was sudden, but Erica knew better. Nothing about this fight had been sudden. It had been building like a storm, slowly swallowing everything in its path.
A call came the same evening. It wasn't Detective Ram. It was another officer - stern, clipped voice. "Miss Erica, we need you to come down to the station. There's something you should see. Something he was holding when he died. Might mean something to you."
She didn't even change clothes. She went as she was - bruised soul, bloodshot eyes, and all.
When she arrived, the detective met her in a quiet hallway outside the evidence room. He looked tired. "He had it in his hand. Gripped so tight they had to pry it from his fingers. We don't know what it means... but maybe you do."
He opened the door.
But just as they were about to step inside, a voice cut through the silence.
"Stop."
Detective Ram stood at the threshold, arms crossed, jaw locked. "She doesn't need to see it."
The other officer frowned. "Ram, it could-"
"I said no. It's unsafe. For her."
Erica stepped forward. "What do you mean unsafe? Unsafe how?"
Ram didn't look at her. "Just go home, Erica. Please."
The tone in his voice made her skin crawl. That wasn't concern. That was fear.
She left. But her mind didn't.
That night, the silence in her apartment was unbearable. The weight of it all. The boy's last breath. The evidence. Ram's eyes.
Something was wrong.
She couldn't sleep. She couldn't sit still.
So she didn't.
The streets were quiet, but her heart thundered as she made her way to the station. She knew the blind spots. The schedules. The cameras that were fake, and the ones that weren't.
She slipped inside like a shadow.
It didn't take long to find it - the evidence locker. Labeled. Bagged. Sealed.
Her hand trembled as she reached for it.
And when she saw what it was-
Her breath hitched. Her knees buckled.
She stared, frozen.