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1: Mirror Mirror on the Wall
Rose gives herself a final once-over in the mirror between the two elevators. Her blouse is simple and neutral, her jeans casual, her hair pulled back in a sleek chignon. She checks her phone—still four minutes early.
When the elevator stops at her floor, it opens to reveal one occupant—a tall, red-haired man in a dark suit. Rose steps in and faces the doors, inclining her head toward him when they begin moving again: "Agent Hux."
If he's at all surprised, he doesn't show it. "Dr. Tico."
The accent throws her a little, ignites some startled thing in the center of her chest, but then he ruins it by opening his mouth again.
"Gone are the days of blazers and elbow patches?" There's a haughty sort of smirk to his mouth.
Rose takes offense immediately. "I'm a scientist, and these are my clothes."
"First time working with the Bureau?"
"Isn't it your job to know that? Or," she returns his sneer in kind, "is that above your security clearance?"
They're moving into the lobby now. Hux cuts his eyes at her sharply. "This won't be like anything you've done before."
Rose fights to keep pace with his longer legs, thinking for a moment about her last cold case—the disappearance of Ben Solo—and all that came with it.
I know, she thinks rather than says as they make a beeline for Hux's sleek company car. It's much, much worse.
2: Through the Looking Glass
"The sheriff's calling it a runaway," the mother says, passing them a printout of a Facebook post. Rose has seen the post before—in all the materials the Bureau sent her.
The mother is straight-faced, all business, screenshots meticulously organized in a binder; and the kitchen around her is a cold, sterile mixture of marble and stainless steel, gray walls and fluorescent lighting. Rose can't help but think of her own parents' warm, cramped kitchen bedecked in strange knickknacks and crowded with pans and Tupperware. This home, this family, seems like something from another world, the threshold of the house like a portal to a place far from their small town.
In a way, it seems to match. Rose's parents' kitchen felt like no place for police interviews, but this—this seems about right.
Agent Hux turns over one of the tabs in the binder. "And these?"
"His friends' posts," the mother explains.
Elsewhere in the house, a door opens, and Rose turns toward the sound. When she looks back, Hux is watching the mother with a set in his jaw.
"Hey," a voice calls.
"My younger son," the mother explains with a quick smile, glancing between the two of them. Her hand trembles, just once, as she turns the divider back.
Hux nods.
3: Reflections
"It's not the mother."
They haven't said a word since their meeting with the sheriff ended—nor too many in between.
"You don't know that." Hux's reply is automatic, distracted, as he slows down for the dirt road they're looking for.
"What the sheriff said is bullshit and you know it. He doesn't have a shred of evidence, and the whole 'I never saw her cry'—of course you didn't, motherfucker!" Rose clenches her fist, stopping short of pounding it against the door. The anger bubbles up inside of her, threatening to overflow. "Any woman knows that! Cry and you look hysterical, or else hide it all away and be called guilty."
The car rolls to a stop. Hux doesn't wait for her to climb out; she scrambles after him through the overgrown field, following him to the pond at its center. The sun is starting to set, and Rose is struck by how absurdly beautiful the land is, the sun and the silhouettes of trees reflected in the water.
Rose imagines the boy in this same spot. His shoes: that's all they have of him, the only confirmed soil sample identified as this pond. Had he run away after all? When Paige disappeared Rose had tried to imagine her making a similar decision, but it didn't make sense. No, she's always known that Paige has to be dead. Rose thinks of how the mother had mentioned instinct and understands.
"Be that as it may," Hux begins, as if several minutes haven't passed since Rose last spoke, "we don't know what she is and isn't involved in."
The anger, dulled by the long walk from the car, flares back to life. Rose bites hard on her lip. This man already takes her for a fool; she can't afford another strike today. "So this is the pond," she says stupidly.
Hux turns back toward her. "There's someone she's afraid of. Someone close to her."
Rose remembers then the moment at the kitchen table, the look on his face. "Hux, what did you see?"
"The same sort of thing you saw," he says, his eyes becoming distant. "Something familiar."
4: “It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.” –Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
hey let me know you're alright?
Rose stares at the text from Rey, her eyes still squinting in the fluorescent bathroom light.
Yeah I'm fine. Talk later.
Rose's finger hovers for a moment, but she doesn't press 'send.'
Instead she washes her hands, flicks the light off, and goes back into the room. The sun filtering through the curtains reveals to her the silhouette of Hux, who even in sleep looks prim, his arms crossed neatly where he reclines on the long couch next to the bed.
Reflexively, she moves to the desk and uses the light of her phone screen to peer at the other phone sitting there. She'd been Facetiming Rey, sick of rereading this small town's ugly social media posts—theories, death threats, old-fashioned rubbernecking. It's clear this poor missing 15-year-old boy is the most interesting thing to happen to this town in the last five years. Everything you could ever say about the grieving family has been said and said again, accusations under the guise of concern; and the deeper she went, the more trails had led to corners of the internet she wished she didn't have to know about. Some still-anonymous members of the community had shared a group chat for exchanging gruesome videos. What if a video of the missing boy was somewhere among them?
Rey had been telling her about a new coffee shop when a loud sound in the hallway had startled her out of their conversation, and from there things had evolved rapid-fire.
"A phone?" Hux's sleep-roughened voice had repeated.
"I think it's his phone."
"Don't touch anything."
At 2:37 in the morning they'd stood together, Rose in the doorway of her room and Hux feet away in the hallway, staring at the object on the carpeted floor.
"So it hit the door."
"I mean, it was this weird loud bang, and this is all I saw. So I guess."
"You didn't see anyone? Any doors closing?"
"Not even a sound from the elevator. But it took me a minute to get to the door."
Hux glanced up from the cell phone then.
"I called the front desk for security footage, but they didn't answer. I'll try again in a few minutes."
His expression remained neutral, but Rose felt his judgement of her giant sleep shirt. "I'm wearing shorts," she'd added defensively.
"I didn't say a word," Hux had replied. He was partway-dressed, no jacket, his pants unbelted and only socks on his feet.
"Well at least we know it's not a bomb."
Hux gave the phone a new wary look.
"It didn't do anything when it hit the door."
"Now, Dr. Tico—"
She'd already taken photos, scoured the door for marks. Before Hux could say anything further, she'd grabbed the phone with a Kleenex. "See? Not a bomb."
They'd adjourned to her room. Bomb or not, the phone was a warning; and if someone had found Rose's room, they probably knew Hux's as well.
"Your suit doesn't exactly blend in here," Rose pointed out.
"'Blending in' wasn't the goal. And it's you they've found, regardless of your attire." Without further debate, Hux had pulled his gun from beneath his mussed shirt, set it on the side table, and settled in for the night.
Hux shifts on the couch, and absently Rose watches him. She thinks about dark corners of the internet. She thinks about finding new accommodations, moving inconspicuously. She thinks about what if the phone had been a bomb. Hux's hair looks fluffy, almost boyish. Why didn't she think to give him a blanket? There's probably one in the closet somewhere. She thinks about finding it and draping it over him.
Instead, she climbs back into bed and sends the message to Rey.
5: Hall of Mirrors
Hux hovers just over her shoulder, close enough for Rose to smell the sweet, rich sent of his cologne. "Back up, please?" she snaps, glancing up at him. She can see the light stubble along his chin, but otherwise he looks just as crisp as yesterday.
Rose, on the other hand, is fairly certain she looks and feels like she was hit by a bus. She'd barely slept, packing quickly to move hotels when Hux awoke. The task of finding an obsolete phone cable to connect it to her laptop had occupied the rest of the morning, with only a brief break for a box of soggy chicken tenders from a gas station. She's fairly certain that the fried smell that permeated the building has soaked through her clothes and hair and can only imagine just how highly Agent Hux thinks of her now.
The program spins, the laptop whirrs like a plane taking off, and Hux acquiesces to her request. The sound of a door indicates he's stepped into the restroom; Rose taps her fingers against the greasy desk. If she taps too hard, the whole thing wobbles. Rose stops tapping.
The sink is running, and the computer goes quiet. With a catch of anticipation in her throat, Rose opens the recovered folder and clicks. Program files, app data—all apps she's heard of. She clicks the folder titled "DCIM."
Hux emerges from the restroom; Rose looks over at him. "It's done," she says. Then she looks back at the screen. "Oh no."
Her blood runs cold.
"No."
Her throat is closing.
"No, no, no."
The face repeated on the screen is hers, like some sinister hall of mirrors: just yesterday, leaving the mother's house with Hux. Last week, getting a burger with Rey. Several weeks ago, wandering around Target. She scrolls down, disbelieving—impossible, her mind keeps saying, impossible—and finds there are only a few more images. There she is again, with a different agent, working the Ben Solo case. There she is with an old haircut, sitting in her car. And there, the last image, as if she could misunderstand how specifically this is about her—
The last image is a photo of Paige.
6: Ghostly Reflection
It feels like they're chasing ghosts.
During the day, they sit in interviews, wade through rumors. Not to be intimidated, they change almost nothing about their procedure but location. In the motel hallway, Rose holds a rickety table for Hux while he changes the battery in the security camera. No footage from the hotel, of course. Now that they know to check, Hux expects they'll have no footage here, either.
In the evenings, they scour forums and websites and Facebook groups for more local rumors and theories. Nothing else about this case seems to connect to Paige; intimidation, the Bureau concludes, pressing them to dig deeper.
For a week this pattern repeats. An entire week of listening to mourning and anger and guarded apathy until a trail begins to emerge, all prescription drugs and parties in the woods. For a week Rose pretends it isn't personal, taking Hux's coolness as her cue for how to respond. But some nights she finds herself staring into the mirror, trying to map her sister's face onto her own.
Some nights she has trouble holding the image in her imagination. Other nights it's almost as if her reflection is looking back.
7: Illusions
Rose has no illusions that this is more than a one-time thing. It's stress. Of course it's only stress.
Stress when the motel gave up Hux's room, trying to swindle out of him a steeper price. Stress when Rose finally spoke her worry that this was about more than the missing boy—and Hux's face revealed he was on her side. Stress when he'd explained (there may have been shouting involved; she may have been the one who started it) how little control he had over what the Bureau said they should or shouldn't do.
Rose knows this is a "shouldn't." But his arm is curled around her and she's pressed up against his side, reveling in the feeling of skin on skin. She flattens her palm against his bare chest, exploring blindly in the dark, when his other hand moves to catch hers.
"Can't sleep?" His voice is the tiniest bit groggy.
Rose's heart leaps into her throat, surprised how the sound plays with her emotions. "I haven't much lately. But I did for a little while."
He doesn't ask for another round like some men would, doesn't wriggle out of her grasp. Instead, his hand finds her hair. He combs gently with his fingers—as if all the sharpness and bite was only bravado, as if this is really the place where he belongs.
Rose sighs and relaxes into his touch. The next thing she knows is sunlight in the curtains and the sound of the shower.
8: Narcissus
Her hand brushes against his as they stand in line for coffee, and he takes a step to the side to escape the contact. He doesn't meet her eyes, doesn't acknowledge anything has happened at all—only moves in front of her to give and pay for his order. It doesn't escape Rose that she'd bought the coffee for the both of them yesterday.
The wind has picked up; crossing the parking lot, Hux reminds her he has an evening appointment. They climb into the car in silence, and Rose watches as he checks his hair in the mirror.
She wants to reach out and fix it, but then there is this:
Hux emerging from the bathroom fully dressed, nodding professionally at her sleepy "good morning."
Hux waiting for her at the car instead of in the room, informing her he'd be moving back to his room as it was now open.
Hux sighing at her corny joke, not even willing to crack a smile.
Hux wincing—so small she might've missed it had she not spent the last eight days straight in his presence—when she begins a sentence with "last night."
All day he's found small ways to tell her "no," and all day she's tried to tell herself she doesn't care.
He finger-combs his tousled hair back into place. His mouth on her skin, his fingers in her hair, his legs tangled with hers beneath the sheets—was that really only twelve hours ago? Rose sips her coffee, reeling. Last night's tenderness feels like a dream, replaced instead with some cold Narcissus.
"I'll drop you off at your room," he's saying.
She doesn't bother to reply.
9: “The beauty you see in me is a reflection of you.” –Rumi
Rose doesn't drink to get drunk, but she's considering making an exception. It's late—already past ten—and the local hole-in-the-wall has become her refuge from her sad, blank room and endless looping of her mind.
It's the last place she'd expect Hux to show up, but she's still on her first beer when he takes the counter stool next to her. Even in the dim light, he looks rough, his button-up and slacks exchanged for jeans and a Henley. He's been meeting a contact, if she had to guess.
He orders a drink and the silence stretches long between them.
The bar's playlist turns mournful and mellow and she doesn't think she can take any more of it. Rose imagines she feels the heat coming off his body, keeps failing not to watch how his hand grips the glass. Finally she stands to leave and Hux stands up at the same time. In the tight space Rose bumps into him; he catches her and then they are looking each other full in the face—not moving, just looking.
The song on the speakers floats between them. Hux's eyes bore into her, and then they've stepped back from the bar where there's enough room to sway together. His clothes smell like cigarette smoke, Rose thinks as his arms come around her. She rests her head against his chest.
"I remember seeing her case," Hux says, just loud enough for Rose to hear. "Your sister. I had just started." His hand tightens on hers. His mouth is against her ear when he breathes, "I'm sorry, Rose. I'm so sorry."
Later, in her motel room, she washes the smoke from his hair, sees his scar-crossed chest in the light. He uses his tongue to make her writhe and gasp and fall apart for him. "Beautiful," he praises her.
In the quiet dark, Rose again traces her fingers over his chest. "Did it hurt badly?"
Hux is silent for so long she almost apologizes for asking. "Mostly after."
Rose's tears come out of nowhere, subside almost as abruptly. Hux smooths his palm along her hip and Rose revels in the silence, in the permission to exist without explanation.
He watches her dress in the morning over a cup of bad instant coffee. She can't seem to look away either—something about the shade of his eyes. Beautiful, she thinks.
10: Shattered
The shed is just at the edge of the woods, stuffed under some overgrown trees. Intuition tells her this is exactly as it appears to be: a trap.
But Rose keeps walking.
She's followed the directions, made the excuses. The texts had come mid-morning while Hux was meeting another contact, the ghost of his goodbye kiss fresh on her cheek. They'd sent photos of her, of the both of them. A transcript of texts from Rey. The history from her browser.
The message is clear: she's still being watched.
She tries the door, and a man's voice stutters the command to enter. Her eyes take a moment to adjust to the dark, but she's already been grabbed, already being shoved into the dirt, her hands and feet tied by a rough cord. All she can think of is the first text they'd sent: a photo of Paige's necklace, resting on a piece of hotel stationery. Under the chain logo, a sentence written in blue ink with a steady hand—
I know what happened to your sister.
11: Seven Years of Bad Luck
Rose has been through some training. She may not be full Bureau, but she knows tricks for disassociation, for calming the mind. The physically violent part she can handle. What she can't make herself forget are the words.
It's the day after, morning in her hospital room. Agent Hux is asleep in the chair beside her cot, his hair mussed and golden-red. At first the whole hospital thing had felt unnecessary, but then the adrenaline had faded.
The man's name was DJ; he'd followed her all these years with the same twisted devotion he'd had for her sister. He'd orchestrated the whole thing like some mad soothsayer, made himself Hux's trusted contact, committed crimes that would call for Rose's scientific skills. Now he's somewhere in a holding cell.
Her phone is on the side table nearby, the screen cracked and reflecting a fractured image of the fluorescent lights. It seems her luck's finally run out, but not a moment too soon.
12: Tiger in the Mirror
"I knew I'd get out," she tells Hux for at least the tenth time. Still he hovers behind her, his frown reflected in the mirror just over her head.
"You might have told me," he sniffs.
"As if you would've let me go." She twists her hair back into a second bun. It'll do for now—once she's properly discharged, she's going to take a long, hot shower in a nice, clean hotel room. "Besides, we needed him alive. I couldn't trust you with that."
Hux doesn't answer; she jabs him playfully in the ribs. But when she looks up into his face, his expression is stony.
"He didn't survive the night."
Rage flares white-hot, coursing through Rose's body, and her fingers falter with the second elastic, hands shaking with barely-contained emotion.
Hux's hand comes to rest on her shoulder. It's all Rose can do not to wrench herself away. "We'll keep searching. We'll find her."
13: Kintsugi
Rose, for the record, still does not believe in dowsing—not now, not after the break in the Ben Solo case, not ever. But when Rey's tiny silver rods zero in on a space just off the highway north of Rose's hometown, she gets in the car and drives.
It's a stupid coincidence, Rose thinks, standing in the grass. It's probably nothing. But there's a catch in her throat and a text she's refused to open, just waiting.
She "remembers" something DJ said before. That is, she lies. She calls in the favor.
Hux or the Bureau sends a crew. Rose sleeps in her childhood bedroom, keeping secret from her parents the reason for her visit. It'll be nothing; she knows it'll be nothing.
It's Hux who calls, so she nearly doesn't answer. Their parting had been grim. The disappointment of losing her only living lead had cooled the fire between them, and she'd been too sore for much intimacy anyhow.
He's breathless: "Skeletal remains, Rose. Teeth."
They'll have to wait some weeks still--the labs are behind, and the case is cold. But when she ends the call, Rose feels something inside of her mend.
"Rose?" It's barely been half a minute.
"Yeah, sorry. I—didn't mean to hang up so fast."
"Is this about your sister's case?"
She imagines him at his desk, states away, somewhere sterile and chilly. "No, not really. But I'd like to talk later. If you have some time."
He clears his throat. "I think that could be arranged."
14: “Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” –Emily Bronte
"Agent Hux," she says when he sits down, offering a hesitant smile.
"Former agent. And please," his eyes rake over her, "call me Armitage."
"Armitage," Rose repeats.
The waiter chooses that minute to descend. They order drinks and dinner—or they must, because the waiter leaves—but Rose scarcely remembers making a decision, much less speaking. "Former?" she asks, breathless, as soon as they're alone again.
"The Bureau suspected some things and made him my contact anyway." Hux's face is a warning. "I handed in my resignation."
It's quiet. Faint music is playing, something selected to feel calming and classy. Soon their wine arrives at the table and Rose takes a sip, watching him carefully over the glass. "What's next?"
He shrugs. "Industry?" He tastes the wine. "I'm sick of the East coast."
They try to talk about other things. The weather. The news. But conversation circles back to Paige, to the memorial and interment, and Rose finds she's telling stories again. The fights they had, the "experiments" they tried, the time in middle school they swapped classes for a whole day and their teachers didn't even notice. And Hux—no, Armitage—listens, laughing quietly in all the right places. He inquires about her dinner, offers to let her try his, smiles softly at her in the most surprisingly intimate way. It's hopeful and subtle, the kind of smile that means they share something real.
Rose wants so badly to kiss him.
She finally gets her chance in the parking lot after, and all her anticipation makes the gentle ghosting of his lips against hers somehow the most sensual thing he's ever done. "Armitage," she gasps when he bends down further, trailing soft kisses down her neck. He's just told her he has an interview two towns over, and Rose is struggling to remember why it would be such a bad idea to peel her dress off right here in the parking lot. (Oh, right. Parking lot.)
"Armitage, please," she says, pushing him off of her with more than a little regret. "Let's decide where to go."
His hotel is closer.
Rose watches him walk to his car, looking in his dapper tan trench coat every bit the part of the mystery man, the detective or spy. He glances over his shoulder at her before getting in, a sly smile on his face, like the farewell in an old movie. Only—Rose is sure of it—their story's just beginning.