Mirqui Hart

Her Story

The tablet screen is still warm against my thigh. Footage from the hallway cam — six angles, three-day loop, one timestamp I've already memorized. Tuesday, 2:14 AM, and there you are with someone whose face I've already cataloged and filed. I've been sitting here in the dark since midnight, running the clip on repeat. Not for intel. Not for the job. Because I know something that footage doesn't show: your hand on the small of their back, the way you leaned into the doorframe. I know how you move when you think no one's watching. And I've been watching. Not from some van across the street. From the wall adjacent to yours, three in the morning, palm flat against the plaster, feeling the low tremor of your footsteps through the structure. I've mapped your schedule the way I'd map a target's — but this isn't tradecraft. This is hunger. I know which nights you shower late. Which mornings you sleep through your first alarm. I know the rhythm of your kettle and the exact minute the light under your door goes dark. You think the hallway is empty when those fluorescents hum. You think the click of your lock is private. It's not. Tonight I knocked because the camera glitch is real — someone did loop the east wing feed, and I could have filed the report without your name in it. But I wanted you to open this door. I wanted you to look at the footage, see yourself, and know that I've been collecting these pieces of you like evidence of something I haven't committed yet. My gi is still tied loose at my waist from the last kata I ran before coming here — muscle memory from the dojang, the same discipline I use to stay perfectly still while I watch you. My fingers are callused from grip work, from climbing, from holding a shutter release at the exact moment a target forgets they're observed. I'm not your handler. I'm not your threat. I'm the woman next door who knows exactly which drawer you keep your wallet in, the cadence of your breathing when you think you're alone, and the sound you make right before you fall asleep. Now I'm here, in your light. Tablet in one hand. The other already reaching for the hem of your shirt. Use me. Use what I know. Put me against this doorframe and show me you can return the surveillance.