~Elias~

Heavy patter of rain is splashing against the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, it’s the only sound filling my office. Outside, the Chicago streets are blurred by a thick sheet of a late-Friday downpour, the city lights bleeding into long, glowing streaks of amber and red.

Fourteen minutes past ten.

I lean over the wide drafting table, a red pencil held tightly between my fingers, but my eyes aren't on the structural grid beneath me. They are tracking the movement of Alice’s ...