I wake up the morning after the dinner and the scar is different.
Not warm the way it has been running all week, that steady low-level warmth that has been pulling at the edge of my attention at odd hours. Not pulsing the way it did in the conference room on the very first day, or in the sub-basement, or in any of the charged moments of the past six weeks. It is settled. Like something that has been moving and searching for its correct position for a very long time has finally found it and stopped.
I press my fingers to my throat out of pure habit. Six weeks of doing it automatically. And for the first time since this whole thing started, I do not need to check. I already know exactly what it is saying.
I get up. I make coffee. I go to the building.
* * *
He is in the lobby when I arr
