#undercover agent reader

the heavy double doors creak open. you don’t have to turn around to know it’s him. anton walks with a distinct, predatory grace that’s impossible to miss.

“you like the quiet” he says, his voice echoing off the tile walls. he doesn't stop until he’s right behind you, his hands coming to rest on your shoulders. his grip is firm, possessive, a silent claim that makes the hidden wire taped to your ribs feel like it’s burning your skin. “it’s peaceful, isn't it? after the sirens and the hysteria.”

“it’s lonely” you reply, your voice steady despite the adrenaline. you lean back slightly, resting your head against his stomach.

anton hums, a low vibration that you can feel through his jacket. he’s been acting strange all week—more attentive, more observant. he’s been watching you with eyes that seem to see right through the facade you’ve built, through the fake identity and the manufactured hobbies.

he moves to sit beside you, his arm sliding around your waist, pulling you flush against his side. the intimacy is suffocating. you’re so close you can smell the sharp, metallic scent of the pool water on him, mixed with something darker—something like burnt paper and cold rain.

he turns to look at you, his gaze dragging over your face with a terrifyingly slow intensity. he isn't flirting tonight. the mask is gone. there’s just a cold, analytical curiosity in his expression, like he’s finally solving a riddle he’s been working on for weeks.

“you’ve done a remarkable job, you know” he whispers, his fingers tracing the line of your jaw, his thumb brushing over your bottom lip. it’s not a caress; it’s a measurement. “the way you swim, the way you laugh at my jokes, the way you pretend to be so utterly, hopelessly in love with me. it was almost convincing.”

your pulse spikes, but you don't pull away. you can’t.

“i don’t know what you’re talking about, anton” you murmur, meeting his eyes.

he laughs, a dry, humorless sound that makes your blood run cold. he leans in, his face inches from yours, his lips brushing against your ear. his hand shifts, moving from your jaw to rest over the spot on your chest where your microphone is hidden. he presses down, hard enough to feel the slight outline of the device beneath your shirt.

“you are quite soft for an agent” he says, the words barely a breath. “all this time, i thought you were a student. i even let myself wonder if you were a distraction i could afford to keep. but you’re just another part of the system, aren't you? another person sent to look for ghosts in my house.”

he pulls back, his expression shifting into something so painfully gentle it’s worse than the threat. he reaches up, tucking a stray strand of hair behind your ear, his touch lingering.

“you’re scared” he notes, his voice soft, almost pitying. “you’re terrified that i’m going to kill you right here, in the place where we spent so many nights pretending to be normal.”

he stands up, offering you a hand with the same casual ease he’d use to help you out of the pool. he doesn't look like a killer. he looks like a boy in love. but his eyes—those dark, hollowed-out eyes—tell a completely different story.

“i’m not going to hurt you” he says, stepping back toward the exit. “not yet. i’m actually quite curious to see how long you can keep this up. consider this a game, darling. you try to prove what i am, and i’ll try to see if i can make you believe i’m something worth saving.”

he turns and walks toward the door, his footsteps silent on the wet tile. he pauses at the threshold, glancing back over his shoulder one last time.

“oh, and agent?” he calls out, his smirk widening. “try not to get too attached. it makes the ending so much harder to handle.”

he pushes the doors open and disappears into the night, leaving you alone in the silence of the pool, the weight of the secret you’ve been carrying finally feeling like it might just crush you.

the week after the pool felt like walking through a funhouse mirror. everything was the same—the brutalist architecture of the campus, the smell of damp textbooks in the library, the way the late afternoon sun hit the quad—but it all felt poisoned.

every time you sat in the cafeteria, you felt eyes on the back of your neck. you’d turn around, heart hammering against your ribs, expecting to see anton, but there would just be a group of freshmen laughing or a professor rushing to class. the paranoia was a physical weight. you started checking the locks on your apartment twice, then three times. you even caught yourself tracing your own footsteps, wondering if the person walking two blocks behind you was just a student or if it was him, waiting to see if you’d finally crack.

the worst part wasn't the fear; it was the memory of the "sweet" date you’d had just three days before the pool incident.

it had been perfect—almost annoyingly so. you’d gone to that hole-in-the-wall bookstore downtown, the one with the creaky floorboards and the smell of vanilla and dust. anton had been so charming, so terrifyingly attentive. he’d spent twenty minutes browsing the poetry section, eventually pulling a worn copy of rilke from the shelf and handing it to you.

“i thought you’d like this” he’d said, his voice dropping into that soft, melodic register that made you forget you were wearing a wire. “it’s quiet. like you.”

he’d bought you a coffee after, holding your hand as you walked back to campus, his fingers tracing slow, hypnotic patterns against your knuckles. he’d even stopped at a flower stall to buy you a single, wilted-looking sunflower, tucking it behind your ear with such genuine tenderness that you’d almost felt guilty for the hidden camera in your coat button.

he’d laughed at your jokes until his eyes crinkled. he’d listened—really listened—as you talked about your fake major, nodding at all the right places, occasionally brushing a stray hair from your face. you remembered thinking, this is it. he’s just a student. maybe the report was wrong. maybe he’s just a lonely guy who likes poetry.

now, sitting in your apartment while the rain lashed against the window, the memory made you want to retch. you finally understood what that date had actually been: it was a test. he hadn't been listening to you; he’d been analyzing your reactions, testing the limits of your mask to see how much of a "sweet, naive student" you could play. he’d known exactly what kind of attention would make you let your guard down, and you’d fallen for it hook, line, and sinker.

the next day on campus was a nightmare. you saw him near the physics building, leaning against a stone pillar, reading a book. he didn't approach you. he didn't wave. he just looked up, locked eyes with you from across the crowded quad, and held your gaze for three seconds too long. he gave you a small, almost imperceptible nod—the kind you’d give a friend—before turning the page.

it was a signal. he wasn't running. he wasn't hiding. he was inviting you to keep playing, and you realized, with a sinking feeling in your gut, that he already knew where you lived, what your shift schedule was, and probably who you were calling in the middle of the night to report your findings.