The Exit They Chose

What unsettled me most was not the resignation. It was how ordinary the moment was: a business failing, a man deciding he no longer wanted to carry it, and everyone in the room treating that decision like something that belonged to them. I felt the exact second his loyalty left him. There was such a small movement inside him, and then the letter made it permanent.

Ria looked at the Pohl referral header and understood before I said anything. I hate that I enjoyed that fraction of a second—the stupid, private pleasure of being the one who can read the hidden layer in a room. Then I saw her face and the pleasure curdled. She has paid me to open one door, and I may have shown her that the floor drops away beneath the other one too.

The truck waiting at the hospice exit felt less like coincidence than punctuation. Matching the silver token’s number, blocking the public way, as if someone wanted me to know I had been seen. I wanted to believe the driver was only angry about being photographed. Anger is ordinary. Calculation is not.

I kept the authenticated letter beyond reach while I called my trusted contact. Not for safekeeping. For one more minute before I had to decide whether I was carrying proof or bait.

I am frightened that Felix built a paper trail bright enough to be discovered only by the people he counted on being distracted. I am more frightened that Tamsin has been alive somewhere official records could not reach, while people like me spend our nights watching exits.