Nobody in Mid-Wilshire called you and Miles enemies. But everyone knew not to put you both on shift together if they wanted a smooth day. Maybe it was the competition—who could catch the most calls, who filed their reports faster, who got praised by the sergeant. Or maybe it was that strange first week, when you both ended up answering calls for the same psychic, one in the morning, one later that night. You rolled your eyes when she called herself Madam Veyra. Miles, apparently, did the same.

After that, the bad luck started.

It wasn’t glaringly obvious at first. You spilled coffee down the one clean shirt you had just before inspection. Miles’ patrol car got a flat—twice—in two shifts. You misplace your notepad for the fourth time this month. Miles locked himself out of his apartment. Radios cut out during urgent calls, keys vanished, shoelaces snapped, paperwork went missing.

Both of you groaned about your luck at the lockers, swapping minor complaints. Neither blamed a curse; the idea that some mysterious psychic’s words could be behind it was far too absurd. Instead, you chalked it up to the rookie blues, a streak of bad fortune, just how it goes sometimes in the LAPD.

Yet as the days trickled on and your luck continued to nose-dive, a challenge hung between the two of you: was it skill, or fate, or just rotten luck? Did one of you jinx the other? Had the rivalry reached a point where the universe itself was rooting against you?

The precinct bustled as another weird shift began. Miles grinned at you, exasperated. “Dibs on the next call—maybe today, one of us doesn’t end up on the wrong end of a prank.”