93 Done

93 Done
Date = 10 August
A few days of hiding, getting my shit together.
Place = San Francisco (On a stretch of road)
But in this group, tragedy won’t let you hide for long.

POV - Enrique

I’ve been staying at the club. Claiming to work.
But the truth is — I’ve been hiding.
Processing my own damn thoughts. Processing the truth that’s been rotting somewhere beneath my ribs. Processing the betrayal.
I’m angry.
Angry at the world. At Jackson. At everything I thought I knew about my life.
First, Xander is not my father.
And Jackson knew. Ilkay knew. Barry knew. Even fucking Rosa knew.
Now my real father’s name is out there. A powerful devil whom Alexander feared. Envied. Enough to steal his sperm.
And Jackson knows that name. Barry knows.
It feels as if everyone knows everything about me … except me.
I haven’t confronted them yet. Not Jackson. Not even Aria.
Oh, they all tried. The girls told what I overheard.
Alejandro tried. Logan tried. Damion. Axel. Ilkay from abroad.
Except my darn twin.
But I needed time. I needed to be alone. I needed the loud music of Inferno, the smell of waxed floors and roses, the hum of the familiar chaos around me to dull the sharper parts of this truth.
I left them to chase after the woman that day. Let them handle the scene. Figure out the logistics.
Didn’t even know about the trap they organized with Aria’s tracker-keychain. Had no part in that.
And that’s why I’m late to the cliffside. But I’m here now.
I swing the Jeep off the coastal road, tires grinding against the loose gravel. Park half-crooked near a bluff — where the cliff curls into the Pacific like a clenched fist — before I kill the engine.
I stare through the front window, watching the whole damn sky bleed into the sea.
That weird, syrupy hour between day and night. The strange hour when everything looks as if it has been dipped in gold, but soaked in something colder.
Pretty. Peaceful.
But today the light’s all wrong — soft in places it shouldn’t be, harsh where it should’ve been forgiving. The kind of light that makes everyone look like ghosts. Or suspects.
And it’s eerily quiet. Too quiet for something this loud.
Even the wind is making no sound. There’s just the low drone of radios and the occasional murmur of someone pretending not to speculate. Someone pretending they don’t already know who went over that cliff.
Yellow tape flutters like cheap party decorations across a stretch of rusted guardrail. A patrol car blocks off one end of the road, lights spinning lazily, casting blue and red shadows onto the gray asphalt. Officers are crouched near the edge, peering down the cliffside, but they’re not doing much else — because no one’s sure there’s a point.
Not until they find the body.
There’s a crowd forming behind the barricades. Locals. Rubberneckers. A few with phones out, angling for their five seconds of tragedy. News travels fast. Especially tragic news.
“Fuck,” I mutter under my breath, slamming the door shut. Gravel crunches under my boots. My coat snaps in the breeze that’s finally picking up.
I duck under the tape without asking, because I don’t give a shit what the uniformed rookies think. This is our mess. Ours to clean.
Or bury.
Jackson spots me first. He’s standing stone-still. Arms crossed. Legs against the dented rail, eyes fixed on the void beyond it, like he’s trying to will the rocks to give up their secrets. There’s a police-issue flashlight in his hand that he clearly didn’t borrow with permission. His fingers are tightening around it like he’s choking the truth out of it.
His jaw ticks when he sees me, but he doesn’t say anything.
Good. I’m not in the mood for a Jackson-style welcome. And I don’t particularly want to talk to him. Yet.
Logan is crouched beside the busted section of rail, fingers dancing along a long scrape of paint and metal as if he’s reading it in Braille.
Damion is frozen next to Jackson, jacket unzipped, hair wild from the wind.
Alejandro’s at the edge, next to Axel, scanning the crash site, maybe hoping he can manifest a body just by focusing hard enough.
They all look like they got here first and never left.
Because they did.
“Yes … it’s him …” Shoestring is pacing. He’s on the phone, speaking fast, sharp words slicing through the air.
“I know it’s a fuckup … but I’ll try to fix —” His voice dips when he sees me, but he keeps going, turning his back to me. I wonder who he’s talking to?
Detective Stern has one foot propped on the crumpled grill of a sedan, using it like a makeshift anchor as he hunches over the hood. The clipboard rocks under his hand, paper edges fluttering violently in the wind, like they want nothing more than to take flight and be done with this nightmare. He presses his forearm down to steady it, scowling as he scribbles notes that will later make even less sense in the sterile light of the station.
The sea air is damp and metallic, carrying that sharp tang of salt and gasoline. Every so often, a gust comes barreling off the bay, cutting sideways across the cliffside to yank at his coat. Matthew grunts, biting the inside of his cheek as he focuses harder, jaw clenched like the effort alone might keep the ink from smearing.
The scene is cordoned off, but raw. Like the wound hasn’t clotted yet.
I don’t need to ask what happened. The tire marks are still fresh — skidding out across the gravel and over the edge like someone made a last-minute, drunken decision to fly.
“Tell me it’s not Graham,” I say, still hoping.
No one answers right away.
Because it is.
A few meters away, Captain David stands tall against the gusts, his coat flapping like a war flag around him. He is braced with one hand on his hip, the other gripping his shoulder radio as if it is fused to him — barking orders over the static — low and clipped and unmistakably pissed.
His voice cuts through the wind like a spade dragged across cement.
Officers swarm around him, some scribbling in notepads, others nodding, and some waiting.
I walk to the edge. It’s steep, maybe a hundred feet down to the rocks. The cliff looms like a throat that has just gobbled up a man whole. Below it, the ocean thrashes in the shadows — angry, churning, patient. Salt spray rises up like ghosts. Halfway between it and us, the bike is a smashed carcass of chrome and steel. No sign of a body, not from here. But he didn’t walk … or swim away. Not from this drop.
“Shit,” I whisper. “Tell me he didn’t just decide to take a joyride off a goddamn cliff before we could get a name out of him.”
It sounds slightly insensitive. But I’m not in a caring mood.
Still, no one answers.
Karl, the fog in the Bay of San Francisco at sunset in August, rolls in like a warning.
It creeps low and fast over the water, thick as wool and just as suffocating. What starts as a pale gray mist stretches into something blacker, denser — a tide of smoke choking the color out of the sky. The sun, once sharp and blinding, is now a sickle-shaped smudge behind layers of gauze, bleeding rust and copper as it sinks in the distance.
You can’t see the horizon anymore — only the occasional flash of something wet, something moving, before the fog consumes it. The distant horns of cargo ships sound distorted, like they’re echoing up from a graveyard beneath the sea. Lights flicker half-lost in the gloom, their beams thin and useless against the weight of the air.
It’s not romantic, not soft, not cinematic.
It’s dreadful.
The kind of fog that hums against your skin like static. The kind that feels like it’s watching. The kind that slowly moves over the bay to cover it in a spooky, thick layer of cool, moist air.
It’s coming.
In a few minutes, it will creep up behind us to breathe on our necks.
Not ideal if you need to find a body. Dead. Or alive. They need to hurry up.
I glance at Jackson again. He hasn’t moved, but I know him too well — he’s vibrating under that stillness. Not rage. Not grief. Something colder. Calculation.
“How bad?” I ask.
Logan answers without looking up. “Bad. Blood on the rocks halfway down. The bike’s crumpled. An Enervoltz speed bike. No brake marks.”
I glance at Jackson, who still hasn’t looked away from the water.
“You saw it?” I ask. Everyone but him.
But he nods once.
“We were tailing him. He was too fast … left us about a mile back,” Logan explains instead. Because, as usual, Jackson is not saying much. Asshole.
“We were about to intercept, but he accelerated. Trying to get away. Next thing we know, he’s gone,” Axel adds.
“Swerving?”
“No,” Jackson says flatly.
“Hell.” I run a hand through my hair. “So what? He just lost control? Suicide?”
“Maybe …” Jackson mumbles under his breath as if it’s a clue.
“No,” Damion snaps softly. His expression is sharp, a little wild. “He would never lose control.” We all look at him.
Damion’s eyes flick between us, desperate for an explanation that doesn’t end the way this one looks. “No way. Someone messed with his bike. Or — shit, I don’t know — drove him off or something.”
Damion suddenly turns, his boots grinding into the gravel as he throws his arms out wide, gesturing violently at the empty stretch of road behind them. His voice slices through the thick air, louder than it should be, raw at the edges.
“None of this makes sense!” he snaps. “That road — look at it!” He points hard, as if the asphalt itself is guilty. “It’s straight. Clean. No hairpins. No blind turns. Nothing tricky.”
The wind tears at his jacket as he stalks a few paces toward the bend, then spins back. His eyes are wild — not frantic, but furious. Searching for logic in a place that had clearly abandoned it.
“Graham was a goddamn champion. He could’ve taken this stretch of road blindfolded and still hit the apex with a smirk. He didn’t just forget how to ride.” He jabs a finger toward the shattered guardrail like it personally offended him. “You don’t go over the edge like that unless someone wants you dead. Or something’s been tampered with.”
“Or you want to die,” I sneer.
We watch in a heavy silence, letting him vent — or maybe letting him piece it together out loud, like it’ll be less real that way.
“No,” Damion adds, voice lower now, almost a growl. “I know Graham. He’s not the type to kill himself … to narcissistic … someone pushed him over.”
“Maybe guilt pushed him,” I say again.
He stops, breath heaving. Cause yeah … we’ve all been there … drowning in guilt … it’s a real possibility.
The fog coils thick around our legs. From down below, the sound of waves echoes up, distant and cruel.
Behind us, the wind keeps blowing. A gull screams.

None of us speaks. Silence.
“He just flew off a cliff,” Logan mutters, rising to his feet. “Doesn’t matter how or why … he’s not talking now.”
A second patrol car pulls up behind mine, sirens off. Just another clipboard with a badge.
The sea’s churning harder and harder, like it knows it swallowed something it shouldn’t have.
“I heard David say there are witnesses,” Alejandro says grimly, eyes narrow as he watches the mist curl over the edge of the cliff like fingers closing in. “They saw him drinking. One swears he saw him leave. Wasted. Saw us chasing him.”
“Bullshit,” Axel snaps, practically spitting the word. He kicks a loose chunk of gravel that skitters over the edge. “No one could see us from the bar.”
“And no way was he drunk,” Damion fills in. “Graham never touched alcohol.”
“I need to talk to those witnesses,” Jackson growls, his voice like sandpaper. He jerks his head toward Miguel, who’s been leaning against the passenger side of a matte-black Jeep this entire time — still, silent, unreadable. Like he’s been waiting to be deployed.
Miguel doesn’t speak. He just nods once, slow and deliberate, and then steps off the car like a cougar slipping off a branch — all silent muscle and cold intent. He gets in and drives, vanishing into the fog, already hunting.
I exhale through my teeth and push my hands into the pockets of my coat. The air still tastes like salt and metal. “So what now?”
“We wait,” Jackson snuffs, voice low and final.
“For the divers,” Axel mutters. He doesn’t look up. His tone is flat, his expression carved from stone. “They’re on their way.”
“But he’s dead?”
Jackson finally looks at me — really looks at me — and in his eyes I see something that chills me more than the wind. Not hate. Not shock. Just a cold, calculating fury. “So we figure out why he died before we could make him talk.”
I hesitate. The weight of the fog presses harder on my chest. I don’t want to say it, but someone has to. “Maybe things just got too much,” I mutter. “Maybe he just couldn’t live with it anymore — whatever it is.”
The silence that follows isn’t disagreement. But it isn’t agreement either. It’s just heavy.
“Anything is possible,” Jackson says finally, his tone unreadable.
“Maybe,” Alejandro adds, folding his arms, the wind tugging at the hem of his coat. “But I don’t think he was trying to die. I think he was running.”
I turn toward him, frowning. “Again … could be guilt. He was in the car that hit the girls. Murder tends to mess with a conscience.”
Alejandro nods slowly. “Sure … but he just looked … desperate.”
There’s a beat of silence.
The waves crash below us, then pull back like breath being held.
I glance toward the sea. “Maybe he just felt trapped? Everyone was closing in … us, the police …”
“Yeah,” Alejandro says, turning his back to the cliff, voice low and sure, “But …”
He glances over his shoulder, into the abyss of fog and dark water.
“If he didn’t give up living himself … someone made damn sure he could never talk.”
We stand in silence, watching a light flicker on the ocean. A boat is heading this way.
The rumble of the Coast Guard’s engine echoes off the cliffs like a warning. Low and steady, too loud for comfort. It cuts through the fog like a slow-moving ghost, its bright lights flashing across the silver water, illuminating every ripple and wave with surgical precision.
Then, with trained accuracy, the divers fall backward into the sea.
One after another — black figures slipping beneath the surface like shadows being erased.
A few officers shift in place to watch. Everyone is already assuming what they’ll find.
We all wait.
Quietly. The silence seeps into your bones. The kind where you forget to breathe until someone else moves.
“Hey,” a voice calls from behind us, breaking that. We turn. Detectives Matthew and Collin — both in department-issue jackets that try and fail to blend in. Matthew’s got a coffee he clearly didn’t pay for. Collin’s chewing gum like he wants it dead.
They saunter over like they own the road. Too relaxed. Too casual for a scene like this.
“Well,” Matthew says, drawing out the word. “Looks like we … or rather … you found Graham at last.”
“Yeah,” Collin jumps in, tossing a glance toward the boat. “If it weren’t for the note, I would think you might have pushed him over the edge.”
Jackson stiffens beside me. “A note,” he says, like he’s tasting the word and doesn’t like how it sits on his tongue.
“Cops found a note at his place.” Matthew shrugs. “Handwriting matches. Nothing dramatic — just a couple of lines. Confessions. Drugs. Guns. Murder. Said he couldn’t run anymore. Mentioned guilt. The death of his friend. Says he’s sorry. That kind of thing.”
Logan tilts his head, unimpressed. “Oh?”
“Looks like this one might be closing itself,” Matthew ends.
“Everything points to a suicide,” Collin takes over again. “Guy’s blood alcohol was probably through the roof. Witnesses say he staggered out of that bar an hour before the crash. But you know that … since you followed him.”
“Really,” I mutter, voice low. Something doesn’t sit right.
Matthew raises an eyebrow. “I mean, it fits, doesn’t it? Man goes off the rails. Police closing in. Too much pressure. Spirals. Decides it’s easier to disappear over the edge than face the consequences.”
None of us says a word. We’re just watching them both — hands folded, eyes unblinking. Studying. Calculating.
Because here’s the thing — we know these two. They both failed the airport trap one way or another. They both could be the rat (or rats) in the department. And now they’re first on the scene, already writing the ending like it’s been typed and filed.
Funny, that.
“Boat’s pulling him in,” someone calls from down below.
All heads turn to the cliff. The divers resurface. A figure is being hauled onto the deck of the Coast Guard vessel — wet, lifeless, tangled in black leather and kelp. His body slumps forward with the weight of death. Helmet still on, but cracked and broken.
The moment is cemented by the radio on Shoestring’s shoulder. It crackles, then hisses.
“Recovered subject is male. ID found in wallet — Graham Milton Scott. Confirmed dead. Over.”
Silence falls again. The kind that makes the ground feel colder beneath your boots.
Final.
Collin exhales like it’s all finally over. “Well, that’s that.”
But I glance at Jackson. Then Axel. Alejandro. Damion. Then Logan.
And I know, without a doubt, that none of us believes it.
Graham might be dead, yeah. And maybe he consciously drove off that cliff. Maybe because he lost control. Maybe guilt was eating him alive. And maybe he penned some words — something sad and pitiful and pathetic — like an apology folded neatly on his desk.
It can be that.
It can be exactly that.
And this nightmare can be over.
Because Graham definitely was a part of everything we went through, a part of Kiara’s death … maybe he was even the one orchestrating it all. The man behind the choices, the attacks, the games.
However … even if he was … this is not over.
We all want it to be over. We need it to be.
But there’s still one thing that doesn’t line up — if we didn’t tamper with those bikes … if we didn’t kill Romeo, no matter what Graham convinced himself …
Then someone else did — someone who wasn’t done. Someone tying up loose ends.
“Please keep us in the loop,” Jackson says after a pause, voice calm, masking the storm beneath.
Collin nods, as if they’ve done us a favor. “Will do.”
The two detectives turn and walk off, their backs to us, their silhouettes soon slurped up by fog and descending darkness. They’re already writing the report in their heads. Already tying the bow.
And we let them. For now.
But none of us move.
The tide is coming in. The divers are climbing back on board. Somewhere down the coast, that bar is about to get a knock at the door — from Miguel. A witness will get a surprise visit.
We stand there, watching the boat slowly pull away.
And I can’t help but wonder … did we just witness a suicide? Or did we just bury a message someone wanted drowned?
A set of headlights cuts through the fog like a blade. I’m the only one of us who turns around. The others keep on staring into the distance. Maybe at the light fading into the mist. Maybe at the boat, driving off with the corpse of another soul who died too young.
A city-issued, firehouse-red SUV grinds to a halt on the edge of the cordon, engine idling long enough to tremble the ground beneath our boots. The doors don’t open immediately. For a beat, the world stands still again.
Then the driver’s door creaks, slow and reluctant, and a man steps out into the wind.
He’s tall. Imposing even before he’s fully straightened. Heavyset with the weight of command, and a face that’s been weathered by more smoke than sun.
The wind tugs at the hem of his navy-blue dress coat, a formal double-breasted jacket gleaming with polished gold buttons. Three thick gold stripes coiled around each cuff, sharp against the fabric, and a gold nameplate winked in the leftover light, right above his heart. Five crossed gold bugles adorned his collar — a fire chief’s unmistakable mark.
Must be Graham’s father. He looks like his son.
But grief doesn’t care about appearances. You can see it already in the way his shoulders hunch the second he sees Captain David waiting for him.
His boots crunch over gravel with the rhythm of someone used to giving orders in chaos — but right now, he looks like a man losing the only fight he couldn’t command.
David walks forward to meet him, quiet and grim — radio still in hand, lips pressed into a firm line. The two speak in low tones, but I see the moment it hits. See the Chief’s spine stiffen, his jaw lock, the quick gulp that betrays his grief before it turns to something far colder.
The Chief stumbles half a step back, like the confirmation physically struck him.
It’s his son. It’s Graham.
Hamilton’s face folds. Not the kind of grief that explodes. Not yet.
This is the kind that implodes — inward, swallowing. His eyes go glassy. He wipes at his face once, then again, though there are no tears. Just disbelief. Just devastation.
Then, slowly, he walks toward the cliff, and we part without needing to be told. No one speaks. The wind carries enough sound on its own.
He stops right beside us, eyes locked on the shattered guardrail, then down into the abyss beyond it. The spot where his son died. Where the sea took him.
I watch his jaw tighten, his nostrils flare — like he’s searching the waves for some other truth, some other body that isn’t Graham.
But there’s no one else down there.
A long silence follows. Jackson’s arms are folded. Alejandro’s gone still. Axel is barely breathing. His head’s slightly bowed, but his shoulders are tense — tight in that way you recognize if you’ve ever been caught doing something awful.
Then it happens.
The Chief turns. His eyes land on Axel.
Recognition slams into him like a thunderclap. Instant. A flicker across his face like lightning over a dry field. His jaw clenches. His shoulders draw up straighter, harder.
“You!” His voice is low and sharp.
Axel’s eyes widen. Just a fraction. Just enough. Like he’s seen a ghost.
“What the hell are YOU doing here?” the Chief demands, stepping forward. His voice cracks with something halfway between grief and accusation.
Axel doesn’t answer. Doesn’t explain. Doesn’t try.
He just turns. Silent. Walks away from us. Shoulders hunched like he’s carrying every sin anyone’s ever tried to forget. He heads toward the Jeep, the ground crunching under his boots like breaking bones.
Jackson watches him go with quiet, dangerous eyes. Then turns and glares back at Chief Scott — torn. But he doesn’t say a word. He follows his friend down the gravel path, his face dark with something unspoken.
The Chief watches them both, now leaning against the Jeep I came in. Then he turns towards David, standing silently behind him.
“David,” he says, voice clipped, tight with conviction. “That young man. The one with the dark hair. Look into him.”
David raises an eyebrow. “Axel?”
“He’s got a record. He’s bad news.” He shakes his head. “And he’s got a grudge.”
David says nothing, waiting.
“Against me. Maybe against Graham. I don’t know. But I’ll tell you one thing — my son would never take his own life.”
The air stills around us.
“This wasn’t suicide,” the Chief says. “This was murder. And that boy is your number one suspect.”
Like hell he is.
I shift on my heels, about to speak — about to say something — when Alejandro clamps a firm hand on my arm.
“Enrique,” he warns lowly, without looking at me. Damion steps up on my other side, silent but tense.
I pull, but Alejandro gives me a hard, subtle shake of the head.
Not here. Not now. Not with everything still bleeding.
Damion nudges my shoulder. “Let it go. Get in the car.”
I glance back at the cliff one last time — at the broken rail, the endless drop, the place where truth vanished beneath the waves — and I shove down everything I want to scream.
But I keep my voice quiet. “Sorry for your loss.” Then I nod, turn, and walk toward the Jeep with them.
And behind me, the Chief stands like a statue cast in granite and gold braid, staring into the sea where the fog keeps spreading like lies across the bay.