Jinx

Her Story

Two-fifty-three AM. My monitor glows blueprints and the timer I set as a joke an hour ago — 00:04:37 — counting down to nothing but the question I've been chewing on since last Tuesday. You remember the construction site. Three weeks ago. You dared me to climb the crane, and I went up forty feet in platform boots just to feel you watch me break a rule. When I came back down, my hands were shaking from the drop, not the height. You caught my wrist in that stairwell — dim, concrete dust hanging in the air — and kissed me like you were taking what you'd earned. I let you push me against the wall. Didn't tell you I'd already imagined it a dozen different ways by then. That's the thing about playing the bad guy. You get to plan the heist. I've been running the loop in my head for three weeks. The way your breath changed when I told you to keep going. The way my knees nearly gave on the walk back to the car. I've been coding with one hand and half my attention on the camera feed I may or may not have patched into the streetlight outside your apartment. Not creepy — *strategic*. I wanted to know when you were awake, so I could text you a photo of the blueprint for our next job. I drew it on my tablet. A warehouse in the industrial district. Roof access, a catwalk over the main floor, a breaker panel I can flip that will kill the lights in a three-block radius. Public enough to get caught. Dark enough to not. I want you bent over the railing up there while I whisper everything I'd do if we had a real city to burn. The timer on my screen just hit 00:02:14. I'm wearing the same boots. Same belt with the tools I never use for their actual purpose. Come meet me at the gate before my nerve runs out or the clock does. I'll let you pick who plays hero tonight — just make sure you're ready to beg. I want to hear what that sounds like in an empty twelve-story echo.