Chapter 6 On Borrowed Time

Isadora

One year later

The first thing I learned after dying is that the poor side of the city knows how to keep quiet.

No one here asks why a girl with chopped brown hair and bruises under her eyes rents a one-bedroom apartment above a closed butcher shop. No one asks why she pays cash for the first three months, why she jumps when cars backfire in the street, or why she works on the other side of the train tracks.

They notice. I know they do.

Mrs Delgado from the apartment across the hall notices everything, including the days I forget to eat, because soup appears outside my door in plastic containers with my name written across the lid in black marker.

Mr Chen from downstairs notices when the lock on my door sticks, because the next morning it works smoothly and there is a new key sitting on my mat.

The boys who smoke near the corner notice when strange men drive too slowly past the building, because they stop laughing and stare until the car keeps moving.

This side of the city is loud. Dogs bark through the night. Couples scream through thin walls. Sirens cut down the main road so often I barely lift my head anymore. Music is always playing too loudly, and the pipes rumble every time anyone in the building uses the water.

But it is the only place I have ever lived where people genuinely care, and look out for each other, in their own quiet ways.

My apartment is small, damp in winter, and hot enough in summer to make the wallpaper peel above the kitchen sink. The bedroom barely fits a mattress and a set of drawers. The living room window sticks halfway open. The carpet has a burn mark near the door, and the ceiling stains turn darker every time it rains.

One whole wall belongs to Victor Sterling.

His face sits in the middle of it, smiling from a campaign poster with his sleeves rolled up and his hands clasped around some factory worker’s. Around him, I have pinned a year’s worth of paper I have collected on him. I have donor lists, photos, newspaper clippings, city contracts, charity invitations, and names of companies all connected in a web of red string across the wall.

The Sterling Safe City Initiative sits at the top in thick black marker.

It was one of Father’s grandest speeches last year. There were to be more cameras, patrols, better protection, and safer streets for everyone.

I watched from a laundromat television while folding someone else’s sheets for cash and nearly laughed hard enough to choke.

Safe City was never about safety. It was about control.

The city gave millions to private security companies, camera suppliers, and patrol contractors. The same companies donated to Father’s campaign. The same men sat near him at dinners. The same names turned up again and again, wrapped in new business titles and fresh letterheads, pretending not to know each other.

I worked my way into most of these dirty businesses as sweet, quiet, forgettable Hannah Lane.

I learned how to become whatever they needed long enough to take what I wanted.

Then I found Rook Security Group.

Its name appears in too many places.

Apparently, they hold city contracts for traffic cameras and private patrols for council buildings. They also do security for Father’s campaign events, and they hold maintenance records for the cameras near North Bridge Road.

The night I died. That is the one file I still cannot reach.

Rook keeps its doors locked tighter than anyone I have touched before. Its ownership is buried through holding companies and blank directors. Its servers slap me back every time I try to scrape even the edges. The men in its lobby wear earpieces and carry themselves with the calm confidence of people who know exactly how many cameras are watching.

So naturally I applied for a job. Front desk administration, in a downtown branch. Low enough to be ignored. Close enough to listen.

And today is my first day.

I stand in front of the cracked mirror above my dresser in a charcoal pencil skirt and a fitted white blouse, smoothing the blazer over my waist until the girl in the glass looks calm enough to be believed.

My hair falls dark brown around my shoulders now, in soft waves. Nothing like the long blonde hair Father used to have brushed until it shone beneath cameras.

I lean closer and slide the brown contacts into place, blinking until the sting settles.

Blue eyes belong to dead girls.

Brown eyes belong to Hannah Lane.

“Hi,” I say to the mirror with an innocent, forgettable smile. “I’m Hannah Lane. I’m here for my first day.”

I take my bag from the chair, check the hidden pocket for the tiny flash drive, then glance once at the wall.

Victor Sterling smiles back at me.

“I’m getting closer,” I tell him.

Then I leave, taking a taxi to the other side of the city.

Rook Security Group rises out of the financial district in black glass and steel. A woman at reception gives me a temporary access pass and directs me through a side gate.

“Hannah Lane?” she asks.

I nod.

“Front desk admin. Fourth floor. Orientation starts at nine.”

“Thank you.”

The elevator carries me up with two men in dark suits who stop talking the second I step in. I keep my eyes on the numbers above the door and let my face go blank, but I don’t stop watching.

I never stop watching.

Not since the first note appeared six months ago, slipped beneath my apartment door in an envelope with no stamp and no name.

You’re getting better at lying.

I burned it in the kitchen sink and told myself it was a mistake.

Then came the second one, left under the windscreen wiper of a stolen car I had only used for eleven minutes.

Careful, Hannah. He has cameras there.

After that, I started double-checking reflections, windows, parked cars, doorways, the hands of men who stood too still, and the faces of women who looked away too quickly.

Whoever it is, they know more than I would like them to. Every day feels like borrowed time.

The elevator dings softly, and I blink back into the polished metal box.

The fourth floor is bright, with grey carpet, glass meeting rooms, and rows of desks.

A manager named Elise shows me to a desk near the front.

“You’ll answer calls, greet clients, scan visitor IDs, and forward anything flagged urgent to the executive floor,” she says, tapping through my login on the computer. “Most of it is simple. Just follow the system prompts.”

I sit down, place my bag by my feet, and wake the screen.

One day. Maybe two. That’s all I need to find the trail. The file room will hold contracts. The visitor log will show which men come and go. If I can get near the executive floor, even once, I can find out who owns this place and why they buried the North Bridge footage so deep.