Dead Eyes Watching

The surveillance van smelled of stale coffee and moral decay. Elena shifted her weight for the hundredth time that night, her lower back screaming. She was a corporate spy, a fancy title for a glorified Peeping Tom with a security clearance. Three weeks of fourteen-hour shifts had left her feeling like a **zombie**—not the brain-eating kind, but the hollowed-out shell variety, the kind that used to be a person before exhaustion carved out everything except duty and numbness.

Through the pinhole camera, she watched Dr. Marcus Chen in his apartment. He was her target: a biotech researcher suspected of selling trade secrets to competitors. For seventeen days, she'd documented his life—his meetings, his phone calls, his increasingly desperate pacing.

Tonight, he stood at his stove, preparing a late dinner. Something about the scene hooked into Elena's chest. He washed **spinach** with careful, deliberate movements, the green leaves glistening under warm kitchen lights. He cooked with the kind of presence Elena hadn't felt in years. He wasn't just making dinner; he was performing a ritual, connecting to something.

She remembered how she used to cook. Before the agency. Before David left because "you're never actually here anymore." Before she started answering emails during sex, during birthdays, during everything. The spinach in Marcus's hands wasn't just food—it was a lifeline, proof that humanity persisted somewhere.

Her earpiece crackled. "Subject's phone lit up. Who's he texting?"

"His mother," Elena lied, watching Marcus smile at something on his phone as he stirred the spinach.

"You sure? Because that could be—"

"It's his mother," she said, her voice steadier than she felt. "Let's give him tonight."

"Copy that. See you at 0600."

Marcus sat down to eat, bowing his head briefly. Elena pressed her forehead against the cold van window. Somewhere under all the surveillance, all the compromised principles and violated privacies, she was still alive. She still remembered what spinach smelled like when it hit hot oil. Tomorrow she'd file her report, gather evidence, help destroy a man's career. That was her job.

But not tonight. Tonight, she watched him eat and pretended she was somewhere else, somewhere warm, cooking something green and real.