He picked up on the third ring.
She had been calling every two days for three weeks. Voicemail, voicemail, a brief text that said he was fine and he'd call when he had time, and then voicemail again. She had constructed stories around the not-picking-up that allowed her to function, stories about schedules and habits and the specific way her brother had always moved through the world on his own timeline without particular concern for the anxiety of the people who cared about him.
The third ring. And then his voice.
She knew immediately. The way you know a room has changed before you've identified what changed, the specific way the air sits differently when something has altered. She knew before she had processed a single piece of evidence.
"Hey, Sera."
"Hey," she said. Light. Easy. The voice she used when she needed to gather information without alerting the source that she was gathering. "I was starting to think you'd moved countries."
