She did not wait for my reply, turning back to the sink to rinse the porcelain under a thin stream of warm water. I set the silver polish down and adjusted the silver strap of my grandmother’s watch, the metal links clicking softly. My sister had always been the golden child, her successes paraded through this house like trophies, while my long shifts at the county hospital ICU were treated as a quiet eccentricity.
I picked up the cloth again, but the weight of the drive in my pocket felt like a cold stone against my hip, a secret I had no intention of sharing with the woman standing by the sink.
By six o’clock in the evening, the autumn dusk had turned the windows of my small apartment into dark, cold mirrors. The dining table in my apartment was a cheap maple veneer, scratched at the corners from my move six months ago. The window looked out over a narrow alley where the neighbor’s trash bins lining the brick wall were visible. I sat at the dining table with my laptop open, the beige USB drive plugged into the side port.
The drive hummed faintly, its tiny amber light blinking twice before a single dialogue box appeared on the screen, demanding a twenty-character password.
The prompt above the empty field was simple: V. DO NOT TOUCH.
I tried typing our childhood dog’s name, then the name of the street we grew up on in Oakridge, but the red warning text flashed immediately.
Two attempts remained before the system locked me out.
I stared at the blinking cursor, my hand resting on the cool laminate of the table. I had spent years believing Victoria’s constant slights were just the residue of an intense sibling rivalry. She had always wanted the better grades, the grander wardrobe, the brighter spotlight. But as I looked at the encrypted drive, a strange coldness settled in my chest, a feeling that the game she was playing had rules I had never been permitted to see.
My phone on the table buzzed, the screen lighting up with Julian’s name.
