Poolside

The glass wall of the hotel room revealed everything, yet nothing at all. Below, the **pool** shimmered like liquid mercury under the courtyard lights, and Elena watched through her camera lens, counting the breaths she wasn't taking. Three weeks of surveillance had worn her down to something brittle and hollow.

Her target—a man who sold secrets like they were nothing—hadn't emerged. But something else had.

A **cat**, bedraggled and impossibly thin, crept along the pool's edge, hunting for scraps in the expensive darkness. Elena watched it **running** toward a dropped papaya half, its ribs visible beneath the matted fur. She felt an absurd kinship with the creature—both of them hungry, both of them performing for invisible audiences.

The door clicked behind her.

"You're good," a woman said, voice low and amused. "But not good enough."

Elena turned, camera still raised. The woman from room 412—the one she'd been following for weeks—stood in the doorway, holding a glass of wine like she owned the night.

"You're the **spy**," Elena said, stating the obvious. "Not him."

"Him?" The woman laughed, crossing to the window. "He's just a bored accountant. I'm what you're actually after." She gestured to the papaya below, where the cat now feasted. "Hungry?"

The question held too many meanings. Elena lowered her camera. "I've been watching you for three weeks. You're never in your room when you're supposed to be."

"I'm living, darling." The woman's smile was knowing, tired. "Unlike some of us."

She poured a second glass of wine, placed it on the table. The papaya flesh below glowed orange and alien in the artificial light. Somewhere in the distance, the cat purred.

"Your employers know," the woman said softly. "They've always known. They just needed to see if you'd figure it out yourself."

Elena's hands trembled. "What?"

"That you're done with this life." The woman stepped closer, her perfume expensive and understated. "That you're **running** on fumes. That somewhere along the way, you forgot what you were hunting for."

The courtyard lights flickered. The pool water rippled in the evening breeze. For the first time in years, Elena felt something besides the cold precision of the job—a sudden, aching loneliness that made her chest tight.

"Stay for a drink," the woman said. "Or don't. The cat will finish the papaya either way."

Elena set down her camera. She picked up the wine.