grarden of bones | wt { blitz }

You have no talent for night shifts. Some people can rearrange their lives for them without trouble; you struggle through it every time, never stopping so you don't lose momentum, already knowing that you won't be able to sleep at home with the sun up. The cool breeze only helps a little, soothing your eyes without doing anything to wake you up.

It's not like you're planning to take anyone in on these patrols, anyway, but with any luck, it's also not like your captain will ever realize that.

Exhausted and grumpy and determined to mind your own business, you almost pass the cracked cemetery gates, but turn at the last moment to stare up through rusted scrollwork. No immediate ruckus presents itself; for all you know, the groundskeeper didn't close up properly on the way out this evening. It might be nothing. It's probably nothing.

It won't hurt to check. You slide in, closing the gate slowly behind you so it thumps instead of clanging, and set off down the path with a half-wistful glance in Ilex's direction.

To your relief, everything is quiet. You still find the intruder almost immediately; she's not trying to be subtle, lying in plain view and letting her cigarette burn like a tiny beacon in the open.

You stay back a few feet, and keep your eyes off the gravestones. Why a girl younger than you is here smoking here alone in the middle of the night isn't for you to know. But you want her to know she's been found, if only so she might be a little more careful. "You should close the gate next time," you say, pitching your voice as low as you can and shaking your head a fraction when it still feels too loud in the silence.

Training is all that holds back your flinch as the girl jolts. You expected her to notice you approach—the bright white uniform, built for intimidation rather than stealth, might be the only thing in the cemetery more conspicuous than her—and you're not really sure what to do about the fact that she didn't and now sounds terrified. Back on the interview circuit, when people were too nervous to talk to you even with Alina standing by, you used to start with ditching your weapons; here, there's no way to do that without drawing your revolver and no way to do that without looking like you mean to use it, so you just hold your empty hands up and try not to loom.

"Hey, you're fine. Doesn't count as breaking and entering if you didn't break anything." You're... pretty sure it does, technically, but if that was the point, this would be a very different conversation and you would be a hypocrite. The point is, as far as you're concerned for official purposes: "We never saw each other."