Vansheen smoothed a single, invisible crease on her navy blazer. She didn't practice her opening lines. She had already rehearsed them in her dreams for a month.

She didn't reply. She didn't delete it. She simply slipped her phone into her blazer pocket, hailed a cab, and gave the driver an address in the old part of the city, where the lights were dim and the real stories bled.

"Three, two..."