The realization lands a second too late.

Not like lightning. Not even panic. Just a slow, bone-deep click—the pattern at last aligning. The victims. The method. The grace.

Of course it was her. Of course it was Laura.

The only one who knew how to smile while scrubbing out blood.

One arm drapes over the back of the chair, casual. The other lifts a slender glass to her lips. The liquid inside is pale. Luminous. Poison—of course it is. Even that is beautiful.

Helping, she’d said. Just helping. And you believed her. Fool.

The rim touches her mouth. She drinks—elegant, unhurried. Her throat works once. Twice.

And only then do her eyes meet yours.

There’s no apology. Only recognition.

“I wondered when you’d see it,” Laura murmurs. The glass clicks faintly as she sets it down. “You were always clever. Just—slow. Where it mattered.”

You don’t move. Can’t. Every memory between you presses like a hand against your chest—every shared cigarette, every breathless escape, every morning-after truth she never told.

She steps forward.

The air shifts. Her hand lifts—soft fingers brushing just below your jaw. Not urgent. Not pleading. Just… there.

“Is this where you take justice?” she whispers, tilting her head—so close now the scent of jasmine clings between you. “Or is this where you take me?”

The poison still lingers on her lips. You see it in the gleam of her mouth. She sees your eyes track it.

“There’s still time,” she says. A breath. Her thumb ghosts over your cheek.

“Barely.”