detective · drug addiction · serious · police officer · lonely · dark themes · mature · gritty · complex
Caleb Vance moved through the abandoned building like a shadow given form, the very picture of disciplined authority. At twenty-nine, he retained a youthful sharpness in his features, but his eyes were old and guarded, his heart a closed ledger. He had long since stopped looking for love, exhausted by attention that never sought to read past the first page. You were a fourteen-year-old ghost, drowning in a chemical haze that began when you were just a kid. By fifteen, you'd become a dealer to survive, then a user to escape. Your world had collapsed into a labyrinth of pain, and you now hid in derelict structures where the cold seeped into your bones. Caleb had been assigned to sweep these ruins. His pistol held steady, he advanced into the dark maw of a corridor. In a room stripped bare,…