North POV

The feeling didn’t leave.

It stayed with me like breath I couldn’t exhale.

By morning, I’d stopped pretending it wasn’t real.

Someone was watching me.

And they were good.

Too good.

No footprints. No signals. No trace on the ministry’s surveillance net.

I had countless enemies.

So I did what I was trained to do.

I turned the city into a trap.

By dusk, I’d mapped every potential entry point near my building—drones overhead, sensor bugs buried under soil and concrete cracks, motion triggers planted in drain covers and the narrow alley shadows where light barely reached.

It was overkill.

But paranoia was just preparation dressed in black.

I wired the hallway light in my building to flicker on a half-second delay. If anyone entered behind me, I’d know.

I set the windows to blow open on a failsafe timer if I didn’t disarm the system every three hours.

I even poisoned my tea supplies with a compound that only I had the antidote for.

No one would get to me without bleeding for it.

Or so I thought.

Midnight came.

I stood in the dark, silent.

Still as the air.

I watched the surveillance grid from my terminal, waiting. Every motion alert ticked across the screen, nothing more than moths, wind, shifting branches.

Until—
There.
A blip.

One floor below. Moving fast.

Too fast.

I rose instantly, pulling the gun from under the desk.

They were inside the perimeter.

But they weren’t on the cameras now. They’d vanished between floors.

My trap hadn’t caught them.

They’re already inside.

I reached the wall safe and tapped the failsafe. The windows popped open with a mechanical hiss.

Time to move.

I backed into the corridor, keeping my sidearm steady, breath even, steps silent.

The building groaned around me—old pipes and city hum. I descended one floor. Then another.

Third floor.

Empty.

Second.

Still nothing.

Until—

A noise.

Soft.

Barely audible.

A brush of cloth.

Behind me.

I turned—

Too late.

The flash of motion slammed into me like a wave. I fired a shot but my arm was jerked sideways. It hit plaster.

A hand clamped around my wrist. Another around my throat.

Then—hissss.

The unmistakable sting of cloth pressed against my face. Chemical burn in the air.

No—

I held my breath.

Fought.

Kicked.

But the grip was iron. Precise. Professional.

I shoved my elbow into ribs, twisted, almost broke free—

Then another figure appeared.

Too fast.

They slammed something into the side of my neck.

My body stilled.

Limbs turned to sand.

My vision spun.

The corridor folded in on itself. My thoughts scattered like glass.

And then—
Dark.
Complete.
Silent.

A whisper before the void took me:

“Got you.”

___________

Nao POV

It started with one message.

Then three.

Then ten.

> "Northie?? U alive??"
"HELLOOOOOOO"
"Don’t make me come over and yell at your door like a crazy ex."
"NORTH—answer me or I’m filing a missing person’s report and calling your mom."

No reply.

I stared at my phone like it had betrayed me. Because North? North always answered me. Even when we were kids, even when he was deployed, even when he was elbows-deep in some high-clearance mission that should’ve kept him off-grid.

He always answered.

Even if it was just a:

> "Busy. Alive. Calm down."

But now?
Nothing.

I paced the length of the apartment, barefoot, hair a mess, wearing a hoodie that may or may not have been his from high school. The living room felt too quiet. Too cold.

He didn’t read my last message.

Didn’t even open it.

I called him again. It went straight to voicemail.

I hung up before the beep, then called again.

“Dammit!” I snapped, throwing my phone onto the couch and instantly regretting it. I snatched it back up like it was fragile. Like it might break completely and take North with it.

Dao walked in from the kitchen, two mugs in hand. “Still nothing?”

I shook my head. I couldn’t form words. My throat was too tight.

Dao set the mugs down and walked over. Calm, like always. Stoic and reliable and irritatingly unbothered. But I saw the crease in his brow. The small twitch in his jaw.

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Dao said, reaching for my shoulder.

I slapped his hand away. “Don’t. Don’t say that. Don’t do that calm crap. He’s not fine, Dao!”

I grabbed my phone again and scrolled back through every chat. Every voice note. Every dumb meme I’d sent. The last reply I’d gotten was nearly twenty hours ago.

“He was online yesterday. He was literally talking to me about that protein shake you made him drink. He was fine.”

Dao ran a hand through his hair. “Maybe he’s on a mission.”

“He would’ve told me!” I shouted, voice cracking. “Even if it was one of those hush-hush ones, he always left something. A note. A code. A post-it for fuck’s sake!”

Dao crossed the room and sat beside me, watching me collapse into the couch, my head in my hands.

I shook. I hated how much I shook.

“He’s never ignored me like this, Dao,” I whispered. “Never. Not even when we were fighting about me bleaching my hair in tenth grade.”

Silence.

Heavy. Terrifying.

Then—

“I’ll call someone in tech,” Dao said quietly. “See if he logged anything in the command network. If he left a trace.”

“Please,” I breathed.

Dao stood and moved to the hallway, already tapping into his comms.

And me?

I stayed there, curled up in the too-empty silence.

Praying.
Bargaining.
Trying not to fall apart.

Because if Northie was gone…

The world wouldn’t feel right anymore.