It started with a smell.
Ivy stepped off the elevator on the lower floor of the library just after 7:00 a.m. The building wasn't yet open, but she had keys now. Sasha trusted her. Paul no longer questioned her. The city, incrementally and quietly, had begun to submit to her.
But the smell struck her first—rich, acrid, metallic.
She knew it before she saw it.
Water.
She let her bag fall and sprinted.
Down the central hall, beside the blueprints, through the first row of archive cabinets—
And then she saw.
The archive was inundated.
Not all. But partially.
Two inches, maybe three, already on the floor. The muffled hum of faulty machinery echoed through the room. Cabinets soaked from bottom to top. Bobbing boxes. Destroyed files. Paper dissolved into pulp.
Ivy remained immobile, air locked in her throat.
Then she moved.
She waded in, splashing through cold water, getting hold of the top boxes first—pulling them onto desks, clawing through drawers, trying to salvage whatever was over the water. Her shoes were soaked. Her fingers numb. But she never gave up.
The archive was no longer just her office.
It was now her fight.
It was her proof.
And someone had declared war.
Elias showed up fifteen minutes later, having been called by Sasha, who had overheard the alarms from upstairs and suspected a break-in.
He stopped at the end of the hall and just stood there, eyes wide open, taking it all in.
"Jesus…"
Ivy didn't look up. "Start with the red tabs. They're original permits. Some might still be dry."
He took off his boots, rolled up his sleeves, and stood next to her.
They worked in silence for nearly an hour. Sasha came down with towels and buckets. Didn't even ask. Just gave Ivy a steaming mug of coffee and squeezed her hand gently before leaving them alone.
It was only when the water finally started rising that Ivy let herself settle back into a chair, dripping wet and chilled.
Elias sat across from her, soaked, fiery eyes.
This was no coincidence," he told her. "Someone sliced by the cutoff valve. This was precision."
"They knew what they were doing," Ivy whispered. "They knew where to hit us."
Elias advanced. "Did we lose the tunnel files?"
Ivy shook her head. "I copied them. Encrypted. Off-site."
He let out a sigh of relief.
"But we lost context," she went on. "We lost the chain. The paper trail. All the little, insignificant things that make the big, ugly truth."
He looked at her. "Then we recreate it."
Later that afternoon, Paul had a staff meeting. Ivy hovered at the back of the conference room, wrapped in someone's borrowed hoodie, hair dripping wet, notebook clutched like armor.
Paul tried to frame the flood as "a maintenance error."
But the people weren't buying it.
Sasha spoke up. "That valve was tampered with. I saw the lever jammed open. You don't get a clean horizontal blow like that by mistake."
Another chimed in—a map department technical assistant. "I had seen two guys in city uniforms in the stairwell an hour before we opened. Never saw them before. No badges.".
Paul tried to regain control again, but the mood was not the same. Eyes were now looking toward Ivy. Anticipating her words.
So she did.
"We have backup," she said definitively. "Nothing was lost. What matters is still up for grabs."
Heads turned.
Whispers started.
And Ivy felt it—that subtle movement again. That unspoken tide making her more than mere whispers at the sidelines.
She was becoming a force.
That night, Elias cooked pasta in her kitchen. The only thing left for her to eat in her apartment. Ivy sat at the tiny two-seat table, still chilled from the day, still silent.
"Want a glass of wine?" he said.
"I want answers," she said quietly.
He set down the strainer. "What about?"
She rummaged through her bag and produced the second envelope. The one that had been waiting for her in her mailbox.
The one that had written: "Ask Elias what he deleted."
She pushed it across the table.
Elias didn't move.
"I didn't read it," she said. "Not until today. But I have to know."
He breathed slowly. Then sat down.
"When I ran the piece that got me blacklisted, I was working with a whistleblower in city redevelopment," he said. "She gave me names, with evidence, everything. It should have been the scoop of the year."
"What happened?"
"I suspected her. She was young. Like you. Quiet. No one. And when the heat was on, I clipped one paragraph. One quote. Enough to keep myself out of trouble. She caught on to it. She spoke out for herself."
"And they destroyed her," Ivy said.
He nodded. "Used her history against her. Called her a criminal. Mental health issues. She was truthful—but they buried her."
"You erased her."
He nodded again. More slowly. "Yeah. I deleted her. Because I was afraid."
Ivy gazed at him for a long time.
Then she said, "You're still afraid."
"Only of you," he whispered.
That stopped her.
"Because if you fall," he continued, "I won't make it twice."
The spark in the building lanced once. Then settled.
Ivy stood up, went to the window, and stared out.
Across the street, a man leaned against a black sedan. Not watching. Just… waiting.
The game was no longer subtle.
It was a warning with high beams on.