CODA

CASEFILE: THE NIGHTS BEFORE JUNE ─────────▧ ▣ ▧───────── May 27, 2004

The Shales file lay open, a wound across the motel desk—photographs, maps, witness statement, that repulsive face staring up at him, all spread in a careful, manic geometry that only made sense to him. The air conditioner rattled in the corner, spitting out lukewarm air like it was tired of trying.

He didn’t blame it.

He was tired of trying, too.

But stopping wasn’t an option. Not anymore.

Mahone sat in the lone chair, hunched forward, his tie undone and draped around his neck like a noose he kept forgetting to finish tightening. He held a half-empty Styrofoam cup of coffee with his fingers tapping against it in an arrhythmic pattern. 

The room’s air was stale caffeine, cheap carpet. He inhaled through his nose.

Counted to four.

Didn’t help.

Shales was out there. Somewhere. Watching him, maybe. Laughing, probably.

Mahone rubbed his eyes beneath his reading glasses, then caught his reflection on the black screen of the motel TV. Hollowed-out eyes. A face carved into more than deserved in his years. He pressed his tongue to the back of his teeth, grounding himself.

Patterns.

He could feel them even when he didn’t see them. The threads and the angles and the invisible lines that tied Shales to every street corner and shadow. Mahone was good at this. Too good. Good in a way that hurt.

“What do you see?” He whispered through thin lips at the photographs. Not what the evidence showed, but what the evidence meant.

He leaned in, scanning the timeline again, tracing it for the hundredth time. His mind moved in quick, feverish flashes, a machine on the verge of overheating but still willing itself to be efficient. 

Something rolled down his temple. He hadn’t noticed how warm the room had gotten until he felt his clothes cling to his skin.

He stood abruptly and paced, his hand dragging through his hair. Shales, that bastard, had infested the inside of his skin. Into his head. Into the cracks he’d spent his whole life pretending weren’t there.

He stopped at the door, listening. Nothing. Just the distant stretch of highway and the occasional groan of the ice machine.

He should sleep. But he wouldn’t.

Mahone returned to the desk, palms flattening against the scattered papers. He spoke again. “You’re cornered. You’re running out of time.”

He swallowed hard. A tremor passed through him.

He wasn’t supposed to take this personally. He wasn’t supposed to feel haunted. He wasn’t supposed to feel hunted.

But he did. God help him, he did. He sifted through another photo, his hand astonishingly still for once. Competence was a curse like that. No matter how frayed he was, his skills remained sharp, an instinct refusing to let him fall apart completely.

Pathetic, he thought. Pathetic that he still believed he could fix this. Pathetic that he still believed he had to.

A lone, local siren sung outside and faded into the night. Mahone looked up from the casefile. “I will find you.”

To Shales. To the shadow in the corner. To the part of himself he was terrified to acknowledge.

And the worst part? He would find him. He always found them.

Even if it meant losing one more piece of himself to do it.

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