Running on Empty

I was running before dawn, the pavement slick with yesterday's rain, my lungs burning in that way that feels like penance. Three miles into the route, a stray dog—some skeletal terrier mix—fell into step beside me, matching my pace with eerie precision. I should have been alarmed. Instead, I found myself comforted by its presence, this creature that expected nothing from me but movement.

The orange glow of streetlights reflected in puddles as I turned onto Elm Street, toward Nina's building. I'd been parked there three nights last week, watching her third-floor window darken at 11 PM, then light up again around 2 AM with someone else's silhouette. My own surveillance operation. Pathetic.

Nina had always been a sphinx to me—inscrutable, beautiful, composed. Even when we met at Langley, over watery coffee and briefings that never quite explained what we were doing in Prague, she'd given nothing away. I'd fallen for her silence. I'd mistaken withholding for depth.

The dog kept pace as I slowed, breathing hard now, my side cramping. I hadn't been a spy in six years, not since the orange jumpsuit and the plea deal and the agreement that meant I could never work intelligence again. But some instincts never leave. The watching. The waiting. The conviction that everyone knows something they're not telling you.

I looked up at Nina's window. Dark tonight. The dog sat beside me on the sidewalk and I realized I'd been running toward nothing for months, caught in the momentum of a suspicion I couldn't prove and a closure I didn't actually want.

"Come on," I said to the dog, though I wasn't sure who I was talking to. "Let's go home."

We walked back together, and for the first time in years, I wasn't looking over my shoulder.