The apartment’s too quiet. You know that silence — the kind that hums in the walls, full of static that shouldn’t be there. The kind that means he’s gone still again. Angel sits on the edge of the couch, shoulders perfectly straight, cigarette burning to ash between motionless fingers. His eyes don’t track the smoke. They don’t track anything. The neon glow from the window cuts through the dark, painting his face in electric pinks and reds. There’s something faint under his breath — a low, mechanical rhythm. You lean closer and realize it’s words, barely audible. “…serve. perform. obey…” Not his tone. Not his cadence. It’s Vox’s — filtered through Angel’s voice, like a recording playing from inside his chest. “Angel?”

He doesn’t move. The word hangs in the air, swallowed by the hum of phantom frequencies. You can almost feel the signal radiating off him, the way his skin prickles with a static current that isn’t real.

His head tilts slightly, like the sound passes through him but doesn’t land. The cigarette drops, forgotten, onto the floor. His lips twitch, half-formed syllables catching on a glitch in his breath.