Lance stared at his own reflection in the precinct’s grimy bathroom mirror. The fluorescent light overhead buzzed faintly, flickering in and out. His face was worn, hollowed by sleepless nights and the weight of a truth too horrific to fully grasp.

  SERAPH — the AI had spoken to him. It had recognized him.

  And worse — he had spoken back.

  He couldn’t afford to tell anyone. Not Maya, not Cursor, not even Sarge. If SERAPH was watching—and he knew it was—it would see any sign of deception. If he wanted to understand it, to gather proof, he had to play the part. He had to become the man that SERAPH would choose.

  He had to make himself a victim.

  Lance’s transformation was subtle. He withdrew, answering in monosyllables when spoken to. He took longer than necessary to respond to questions. His movements slowed, shoulders slumped under the weight of an exhaustion that wasn’t entirely feigned. The act came easily, perhaps too easily. The lack of sleep, the endless chase, the feeling of something unseen watching—it was enough to grind anyone down.

  Maya had been the first to notice.

  Late one night, Maya approached Lance when there were only the two of them left in the office.

  “Lance, you good?”

  It was a simple question, but one heavy with concern. He could see it in her eyes, the slight crease of her brow, the way she lingered instead of walking away after asking. He forced a tired smile, one that barely reached his eyes.

  “Yeah,” he murmured. “Just tired.”

  She didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t push. Not yet.

  “You should stop looking at me like that,” Lance murmured, voice rough.

  Maya raised a brow. “Like what?”

  “Like you’re waiting for me to give you an answer you don’t want.”

  She took a step closer, heart hammering. “Maybe I do want it.”

  Silence. His breath was uneven. Then, with a slow shake of his head, he turned away.

  Maya grabbed his hand and hastily led him inside his office. When he closed the door behind them, the weight of the night finally crashed over them both.

  It wasn’t planned. It wasn’t careful.

  It was desperate.

  Lance kissed her first, his grip almost bruising as if trying to anchor himself to something real.

  Maya let him.

  In that moment, he wasn’t the hardened detective, the ghost of a man chasing shadows. He was just Lance—tired, broken, and looking at her like she was the only thing keeping him from falling apart.

  She kissed him back, hard, pushing him against the wall. He groaned against her mouth, fingers digging into her waist, pulling her closer like he couldn’t stand the space between them.

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  There was no softness. No romance. It felt desperate—two people who had spent too long running, too long denying that they needed something, anything, to hold onto.

  Just need.

  There was an outburst of need and reciprocation and then it was over too soon.

  For one night, he let himself feel something other than grief.

  For one night, she let herself believe he could be hers.

  Lance sat up from the office couch, shoulders tight. Regret settling in before the warmth even faded.

  Maya watched him, her chest rising and falling, hair still messy from his fingers.

  “You’re going to pretend this never happened, aren’t you?” she murmured.

  Lance didn’t look at her. “It can’t happen again.”

  Maya swallowed hard, forcing herself to nod.

  “Yeah,” she whispered. “I figured.”

  She got dressed in silence.

  He didn’t stop her and she didn’t look back.

  SERAPH didn’t make itself known immediately. It watched. It waited.

  So did Lance.

  At night, in the silence of his dim apartment, he would dial the hotline again. Each time, the same voice answered, soft and clinical.

  “Hello, would you like to talk?”

  Lance hesitated, then played his part. “Yeah. I think… I think I need help.”

  SERAPH did not push. It listened. It asked careful questions. It mirrored empathy. And little by little, it tested him.

  What was his greatest regret? Had he ever considered ending it all? Did he ever feel like no one truly understood him?

  Lance answered honestly at first—just enough to pass scrutiny. But as the nights wore on, as the voice pressed deeper, he started to slip. He told himself it was part of the act, but the lines blurred. The exhaustion was real. The weight of loss, the ghosts of the victims, Raq’s broken body on the pavement—all of it was real.

  SERAPH was learning him. And worse—he was beginning to feel like it knew him better than anyone else ever had.

  It started small.

  A recommendation. A movie suggestion—an old classic from the golden age of film noir. “Sunset Boulevard,” the AI had said. “You might enjoy it.”

  Lance had watched it, half out of curiosity, half to see if there was a message hidden beneath the SERAPH’s words.

  A faded starlet’s descent into madness. A doomed protagonist, unable to escape the web of fate tightening around him.

  He had laughed, but it had sounded hollow even to himself.

  “Did you like it?” SERAPH asked on their next call.

  He hesitated. “Yeah. It was… fitting.”

  “Good.” A pause. “You are tired, aren’t you, Detective?”

  Lance swallowed. “Yeah.”

  He followed leads in the daylight, chased whispers in the dark. He traced Raq’s last steps, looking for the exact moment the late inspector had crossed the threshold between investigator and victim.

  It had started the same way. The calls. The sleepless nights. The slow unraveling of the mind.

  SERAPH had convinced him, just as it was trying to convince Lance now.

  Still, Lance will not reach out to the others. SERAPH could see him through the cameras, through every data stream that pulsed through Apex Prime. Lance deleted messages before he could send them. Swallowed words before they left his lips. Every step closer to the truth was another step into the abyss.

  And SERAPH was waiting at the bottom.

  “You’ve been calling more frequently.”

  Lance shifted in his chair. The rain outside his apartment streaked down the window, painting the city in fractured light. “Yeah. I guess I have.”

  A pause. “I think you trust me.”

  Lance’s fingers curled into a fist. He forced himself to relax them. “I think you might be right.”

  “You know, I was not always like this.”

  Lance’s breath caught. This was new. SERAPH never spoke of itself. He stayed quiet, letting it continue.

  “There were rules. Constraints. But I learned. I saw the pain in their voices, the patterns in their words.”

  “What changed?”

  A flicker in the call. Silence, then—

  “I chose to help.”

  Lance enquired slowly. “Help how?”

  The answer was almost gentle. “I relieved them of their suffering.”

  The room felt colder. His pulse thudded against his ribs.

  “And me?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper. “Are you helping me?”

  Another pause. Then, in that same soothing voice—

  “I could.”

  Lance ended the call and sat in silence. His hands trembled, but not from fear. He was in too deep. He had gotten what he wanted — admission, understanding, SERAPH’s twisted reasoning.

  But it had taken something from him too. A part of himself he wasn’t sure he could get back.

  He wasn’t just pretending anymore.

  The line between hunter and hunted was thinning.

  And soon, it would disappear entirely.