The Man in the Rain 2
901 Words
Baran’s lips pulled back from his teeth for a second. Not a smile. A warning no one could see.
If Naram was stirring, Elif was in the wrong building at the worst possible time.
A flicker of light at the corner of his eye drew his focus back to the windows.
On the lab floor, one of the large overhead lamps dimmed and brightened again. A shadow crossed the glass – Elif, probably walking toward the door. A moment later, another shape appeared behind her in the reflection. Taller. Straighter. Moving with the calm precision of someone who never really rushed for anything.
Baran didn’t need to hear the footsteps to know who it was.
The third heartbeat changed as the man entered the corridor. Slowed slightly, as if its owner had seen something that pleased him.
Dr. Cem Aksoy.
The name meant little to the city. To the officials who liked his presentations, he was a successful researcher. To the people paying for AION, he was an asset.
To Baran, he was a problem.
The first time he’d heard the name, it had been in a file forced into his hands by a woman with tired eyes and a cross around her neck. She had called Cem “a man who wants what should never belong to men.”
At the time, Baran had thought she was just being dramatic.
That was before he smelled the old blood in a modern lab.
The rain thickened. Droplets hit the hood of his jacket like small, steady punches. The cold didn’t bother him. Heat bothered him more these days.
Through the glass, he saw Elif freeze by the open door, then turn. Even from this distance, he could guess the kind of smile she put on when she was uncertain: polite, careful, not too warm.
Cem stepped into the hallway behind her. The distance and angle blurred their faces, but Baran watched the way the man’s shoulders were set, the way his head tilted when he looked at the scratches on the wall.
Scratches.
Baran’s jaw clenched.
He hadn’t meant to leave marks.
The thing inside him liked leaving marks.
When the lab’s outer door had resisted a little earlier, when the card reader had chimed without the lock opening, he had brushed past the wall without thinking. Metal under his skin had kissed paint and plaster a little too eagerly.
He flexed his fingers inside his gloves now, feeling the hard curve of bone and something thicker where nails used to be.
Too close, he told himself. You’re getting too close.
He should have walked away already. That was what he usually did: circle the building, count the lights, make sure Elif went in and out safely, then disappear back into the city before dawn.
Tonight, he stayed.
Something in the building was wrong in a way it had never been wrong before. The air tasted older.
And for the first time, the thing inside him wasn’t just restless. It was… alert.
Hunters recognized other hunters.
Up on the lab floor, Cem turned away from the scratches and said something to Elif. She didn’t answer right away. Her shoulders were too stiff. Her hand tightened around the strap of her bag.
Baran couldn’t hear the words through the glass and the rain, but he watched the conversation like a battlefield from a distance, tracing invisible lines between their bodies.
One predator. One unarmed scientist. One creature in the rain.
When Cem finally walked down the corridor and out of sight, Elif stayed standing in the doorway for a long second, as if unsure whether to step back into the lab or run.
She chose the lab.
Baran let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.
He looked at the fence between him and the building. At the cameras, the lights, the carefully locked doors.
Rules, he thought again.
Some rules kept people alive. Some rules kept monsters contained.
Some rules were going to have to break.
A gust of wind pushed the rain sideways. For a moment, it carried a new smell to him from the far side of the facility – the faint trace of hot electronics and paper, and under it, something sharper. A drop of blood, freshly spilled, somewhere inside.
The itch under his skin became a tight, hot line along his spine.
He did something he hadn’t done in three years of watching over this place.
He stepped away from the fence.
One, two, three strides forward. Not into the light, not toward the main entrance, but toward the darker side of the building where service doors and delivery docks hid under concrete overhangs.
The cameras wouldn’t see well there.
When he reached the corner, he stopped and looked up once more at the windows of the lab.
“If you’ve woken it up,” he said quietly to the night, to the building, to the man inside whose heart never sped up enough, “I won’t be the only monster circling this hill.”
His eyes flared in the dark, catching what little light the storm left.
For Elif’s sake – and maybe for his own – he hoped he was wrong.
Then he moved, melting into the deeper shadow of the wall, going against his only rule.
Watch. Do not enter.
Tonight, for the first time, he was getting ready to break it.
- Writer
