Iris stayed on the bike for a while after the engine went quiet, helmet still on, hands resting on the grips like they belonged there more than anywhere else.

  She pulled her phone up in her visor and stared at Auntie’s name. One tap. That was all it would take. Auntie would pick up even this late, voice already halfway into concern, already asking if Iris had eaten, already telling her which blanket was clean and where she could sleep. There would be tea. There would be noise from the television. Someone would notice if she came and went.

  Iris knew she would be welcome. That was the problem.

  She pictured the look Auntie would give her, the one that came with a chair being dragged out and food reheated whether Iris wanted it or not. Questions that sounded casual but were not. Care that took up space. Care that expected you to stay.

  She lowered the phone again, and flinched a little when it buzzed in her hand, then glanced down. The name was not familiar, but profile picture of a caller was.

  She hesitated a second too long before answering.

  “Hey,” Annie said. Wind in the background. Traffic. She sounded like she was walking. “What’s up?”

  “I’m alive,” Iris responded.

  Annie laughed. “Good. Are you busy right now?”

  ”I’m doing nothing,” Iris replied.

  ”Oh, so you are free?”

  ”No, I said I am doing nothing,” Iris repeated herself, a little cornier this time. There was a pause. Annie slowed somewhere on the other end of the line.

  “…Like, free nothing?” she asked.

  “No,” Iris said. “Like nothing nothing.”

  “Oh.” Annie exhaled. “Huh.”

  Rain drummed harder on Iris’s visor. She watched it bead and slide, each drop chasing the last.

  “I’m walking,” Annie said after a beat. “Could use a second pair of legs that doesn’t complain. Where are you?”

  Iris glanced at the street sign without really seeing it and told her.

  “That’s not far,” Annie said. “Stay put. I’ll swing by.”

  “I didn’t—”

  Too late. The line clicked off.

  Iris stared at the dead display for a moment, then let her hand drop back to the grip. She didn’t start the bike. She didn’t move.

  Ten minutes later Annie came into view through the rain, jacket already darkened at the shoulders, hair pulled back in a way that hadn’t survived the weather. She raised a hand when she spotted Iris and smiled like this was all perfectly normal.

  “You look like you’ve been waiting for a dramatic cue,” Annie said, skidding to a stop under the narrow strip of awning Iris was sheltering beneath.

  “I was,” Iris said. “Thunder missed its mark.”

  “Give it time.”

  They stood there for a second, neither of them moving closer, rain hissing at the edge of the shelter. Then Annie shrugged and stepped back into it, forcing the space to decide for them.

  “Walk with me,” she said. “I need to keep moving or my legs seize up.”

  Iris nodded and fell into step beside her. They didn’t say where they were going. The street decided instead, pulling them downhill, away from the brighter strips and into narrower lanes where the water already ran in thin, restless streams along the curb.

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  For a while it was easy.

  Annie talked about her day, about a client who had changed their mind three times and blamed the weather for it. Iris listened, offered the occasional comment that made Annie snort and shake her head.

  “You’re impossible,” Annie said.

  “Efficient,” Iris corrected.

  They slowed near a skewer stall, smoke hissing as fat hit the grill. Iris watched the vendor’s hands, quick and practiced, rain slicking the metal surfaces.

  “Want something?” Annie asked. “My treat.”

  Iris hesitated. The idea of stopping felt heavier than it should have.

  Before she could answer, a gust of wind shoved the rain sideways, spattering the stall and sending the vendor swearing as he started pulling the tarp down.

  “Guess that’s a no,” Annie said.

  They moved on.

  The rain thickened. Thunder rolled closer, not dramatic, just present. Annie checked her phone, frowning.

  “Flood advisory just lit up,” she said. “They’re already closing the lower crossings near my place.”

  “That was fast.”

  “Yeah.” Annie sighed. “I should probably head back before it gets stupid.”

  They stopped at a corner where the street dipped, water already creeping over the curb. The city lights blurred in the rain, colors running into each other.

  “Well,” Annie said, awkward for the first time. “This was… nice. Even if we didn’t really do anything.”

  Iris nodded. “Nothing’s kind of my specialty tonight.”

  Annie smiled, softer now. “Text me when you’re not doing nothing.”

  “Sure.”

  She hesitated, then leaned in and gave Iris a quick, damp hug, already stepping back.

  “Ride safe,” Annie said, and then she was gone, jogging toward higher ground, phone pressed to her ear.

  The rain didn’t seize. Iris tipped her head back and let it run over the visor, the sound filling the narrow gap between one thought and the next.

  The ping came a moment later, and she almost didn’t hear it behind drumming of the rain. A message from unknown number, stamped with what looked like Hong Kong Land Department sigil.

  ACCESS GRANTED. UTILITIES ACTIVATION PENDING.

  Iris stared at the message until the letters blurred a little, then laughed. It came out bitter.

  Took them long enough. Last time she tried to find her way into the penthouse, security denied her entry.

  She thumbed the bike back to life and pulled into traffic, letting the city carry her upward.

  The penthouse tower rose clean and anonymous from the rain, glass slick and reflective, its upper floors disappearing into low cloud. This time security recognized her without comment. They took her to elevator, and it took her up in silence, smooth and fast, pressure shifting in her ears.

  The doors opened into apartment, lit only by light of the elevator cabin.

  ”Figures,” Iris muttered. Utilities activation pending.

  The space was bare. Just walls, floor and huge window, floor to ceiling, streaked with rain, coloured by neon glow.

  Iris stepped in and stopped. Elevator doors closed, leaving her in darkness.

  For a second she just stood there, letting the quiet settle.

  The rain outside filled the room in the absence of anything else. No hum of climate control. No soft tick of systems waking up. Just the low, constant drumming against glass.

  Iris took a few steps forward, boots whispering against the bare floor. The sound felt too loud, like it didn’t belong here. She stopped again, unsure where to go in a space that offered no suggestion.

  She crossed to the window and slid down until she was sitting, back against the glass.

  Neon smeared itself across the rain outside, reds and blues stretching and breaking as cars passed beneath her.

  She pulled her comm out and stared at it for a moment, then tapped the vet’s number.

  It rang. Once. Twice. Then slid into silence and a polite automated message telling her to call back during working hours. She didn’t leave a note. She ended the call and let the comm rest in her hand.

  After a beat, she tried Adam.

  The reply came back immediately, too fast to be human.

  Unavailable. Will respond when possible.

  Iris snorted softly, and ended the call again.

  She scrolled anyway, thumb moving through names she hadn’t spoken to in weeks, months. Auntie. A couple of old burners. Numbers she didn’t remember saving. She slowed, then stopped.

  Her hand dropped to her side. The comm slipped from her fingers and landed on the floor with a dull tap that echoed more than it should have.

  Thunder rolled somewhere beyond the towers, deep and distant. A flash of lightning lit the room for a heartbeat, all sharp lines and empty space, then it was gone again.

  Iris fished a cigarette from her pocket and lit it. The ember flared green, bright and artificial in the dark, then settled. She watched it for a moment, the glow steady, reliable, before taking a drag.

  The smoke didn’t linger. It thinned and vanished into the volume of the room like it had never been there.

  She exhaled slowly and leaned her head back against the glass. Rain pressed against the other side, close enough to feel, too far to touch. The city kept moving below her, unaware, uncaring, doing exactly what it always did.

  Iris closed her eyes.

  There was nothing in the apartment that needed her. Nothing that waited. Nothing that would change if she stood up or stayed where she was.

  She sat there anyway, listening to the rain and the thunder and the distant life of the city, and let the night pass around her without asking anything back.