POV: Dante
Aurora sees me before I decide what to say to her.
From the sidewalk, her window is a rectangle of light on the third floor. It could be anyone's. But it's not. I would recognize her silhouette even if the entire building were dark.
She approaches the glass, pulls the curtain back a little, rests her hand on the frame. Our contact is not visual first, but chemical: even from here, the current of her scent drifts down the staircase, mixed with dampness and cheap detergent.
She stands still when she sees me.
I don't need to hear her to know what she's thinking. That question, "What are you doing here?" has been following me for days, only now it takes the form of her eyes on me.
The reasonable part of me says I shouldn't be under her window, in a neighborhood I left behind years ago. That I've done enough today: trusted doctor, clean record, system blocked so her blood doesn't become someone else's experiment.
The other part won when I saw the results. I'm not going to let the first man to arrive at her door with explanations be someone from Valcourt.
I take out my phone. I don't want my voice to surprise her inside her home, so I write:
"I'm below your building. I need to talk to you. Dante Noir."
I send it.
Upstairs, the light from the screen illuminates her face. She frowns, her hand trembling slightly. Then she disappears from the frame.
Seconds later, the building door opens.
Aurora comes out wearing a thin coat over her office clothes and her hair half up, as if she had decided to come down before she could change her mind. Good. Overthinking is often the enemy of action.
She stops a couple of steps away.
"Mr. Noir," she says.
Not "Dante." Correct.
"Aurora," I reply.
Without the tower's filter, her scent is sharper: soap, exhaustion, a sharp note of nerves... and the new, deep pulse of what her body is beginning to be. The rain helps keep my head clear.
"I don't want to invade your space," I begin, "but what happened today in the infirmary and what your tests showed is not something that can be treated as just another note in your file."
Her eyes narrow.
"So you did see it," she says. "That's why the doctor talked about results going 'straight to the top.'"
She doesn't ask how. She gets to the point.
"I gave the instruction," I admit. "And I gave another: that only 'stress and adjustment' should remain in your official file. Otherwise, they might be thinking right now about medicating you to correct something they don't understand."
She swallows.
"And you understand?" she asks. "Because they told me that 'something is moving at a different speed' and that's it.
'Something.' It could be worse.
"I understand enough to know that you're not sick," I reply. "And that what's happening to you isn't going to go away with rest or more bread for breakfast.
Her lips tighten.
"Then tell me straight," she says. "I've been dizzy for days, smelling everything, feeling like my body is a poorly calibrated antenna, and everyone keeps repeating 'stress' as if it were a magic aspirin."
There is anger. Better than resignation.
I look around. A cat crosses the street; a neighbor shakes a towel on a balcony. No one close enough.
I lower my voice.
"There are things about this city that aren't in the reports or the contracts," I say. "Dynamics that most people don't see even though they live in the midst of them. We don't all function the same way."
"Not all of us" as in "rich and poor," "with scholarships and without scholarships"? she says ironically.
"As in bodies that respond differently," I correct him. "Some with more strength, others with more sensitivity. Some smell danger before they see it. Others provoke reactions... like the ones you're having."
She doesn't look down.
"Which one am I?" she asks. "The problem or the reaction?"
Neither.
I take a step closer. Not close enough to touch her, but close enough so that the rain doesn't dilute her scent so much.
Her pulse quickens. I can feel it.
"What you felt on the bus, on the thirty-first floor, on the stairs... it's not just fear of the new job," I say. "It's your body responding to a very specific kind of presence."
I don't clarify which one. It's not necessary. Her eyes, for a second, drop to my chest and then return.
"And what is that supposed to mean?" she whispers.
I could wrap it up in metaphors. Talk about "special sensitivity," "another layer of biology." But we already crossed the point of no return when she stepped out onto the street.
"It means you're not as average as you thought," I reply. "And that what's awakening in you has a name that the tower won't put in writing."
She takes a deep breath.
"You say it," she insists. "I'm already out here, talking to my boss as if this were normal. The least you can do is put the word on the table."
The rain taps softly on the fence. I could lie. I could buy some time. I don't.
I look her in the eyes.
"Omega," I say. "That's what's awakening in you. You're an omega, Aurora."
The word falls between us with more weight than any report.
Her scent changes in a heartbeat. The fear is still there, but it's mixed with something new: the clear recognition of someone who has finally been told that the noise under her skin has a name.