She held his gaze for several excruciating seconds, the silence between them charged with the kind of electricity that precedes a lightning strike. The morning air felt thin, as if the oxygen itself had been consumed by the violence of their coupling hours before.
"The inconsistencies I was looking for," she began, her voice gaining a steadier, more analytical edge despite the physical wreckage of her body, "were the specific kind that come when someone is performing rather than being."
"The tiny fractures that appear when a person is wearing a mask, the way the eyes don't quite match the mouth, or the way a smile doesn't reach the muscles around the temples."
"The kind that appear when the thing they're presenting doesn't hold up under forensic detail." She paused, her throat working as she swallowed. "I kept not finding them."
Mike watched her, his expression unreadable, like a predator observing a specimen under glass. "What did you find instead?"
