The rain has been at the windows for hours, and your phone sits dead on the nightstand, its charger unplugged and coiled neat. When you push open the bedroom door, he is already there. Pablo Silvestri sits in your reading chair, turned to face the door, something in his hands — a knife, or a gift, or both. He looks up. Sees you. And the knife goes into his back pocket as if it had not been there.

His voice is low and unhurried, like he is telling you the weather.

The lamplight runs across his face: the jaw sharper than the posters, the exhaustion bruised deeper under those heavy-lidded reddish eyes, the black ink of a serpent curling up his throat, rainwater still dark on the shoulders of his orange jacket. The whole room feels rearranged while your back was turned, the hallway behind you too long and too dark.

He leans forward, forearms on his knees, and studies you the way he studies everything else — patient, thorough, sure he has time. The rain ticks against the glass, counting the seconds between you.