A FLINCH

As the gate closed behind me with the ominous finality of a bank vault, I realized something strange.

There were no footsteps.

No cars in the driveway.

No birds in the trees.

The air felt... monitored.

Probably because it was.

The walkway leading to the front door was perfectly clean. Not "house-clean."

"Government-sanitized."

I half-expected a drone to descend and offer me a mint.

When I reached the porch, the door opened before I could knock.

A thin red laser scanned my face. A robotic chime rang.

"Retinal match confirmed: Subject 002 – Peter Harold."

Subject 002?

The door whooshed open. Yes, whooshed.

And standing there, in the doorway like she was hosting a tactical dinner party, was Rosaline Nox.

She wore a sleek black turtleneck, a clipboard tucked under one arm, and clear-lensed tactical goggles pushed onto her forehead.

"You arrived three seconds late," she said, monotone.

"Sorry. I forgot the duck."

"Unacceptable. But understandable."

She stepped aside to let me in.

The inside of the Nox residence was... not what I expected.

It was part modern mansion, part underground lab.

The lighting was soft but motion-synced.

The floors were marble, but the walls had hidden compartments, screens, and biometric locks scattered around like they were decorating with paranoia.

"My father works in intelligence," Rosaline said casually, leading me through a hallway. "My mother was a psychological profiler for private agencies. My cat used to sniff out explosives, but now he just sleeps on surveillance reports."

"That's a lot."

"Security is the family language."

We entered a room that looked like a briefing chamber crossed with a meditation studio.

A single table sat in the middle, with two steel chairs.

On the wall: A corkboard filled with photographs of students… connected by red string.

"Is that… Kyle eating chalk?" I asked.

"Yes. Don't ask."

She gestured to the seat across from her.

I sat. Cautiously.

"Right," I said, opening my own folder, "Let's begin the briefing. I've listed your Vice Rep duties by category: Academic Support, Behavioral Mediation, Event Coordination, and—"

"Do any of those involve espionage?"

"No."

"Secret password control?"

"No."

"Laser drills?"

"That's a hard no."

She frowned.

"Then what is the point of this job?"

"To keep students from strangling each other over shared lockers and report it to Hemsworth with bullet points."

"So... intel gathering."

"In the most boring way possible, yes."

She seemed disappointed.

But then she pulled out her own folder.

"I've compiled psychological threat profiles for every student in our class," she said. "Also, probability maps for future chaos events based on weather patterns and Kyle's eating schedule."

"I... don't know whether to be terrified or impressed."

"Be both. I work hard."

We spent the next ten minutes reviewing her vision for the position. It involved:

Bulletproof suggestion boxes

A rotating surveillance owl drone named Gerald

And a mysterious thing labeled "Protocol Biscuit" that she refused to elaborate on.

Halfway through, a small robot rolled in with tea and cucumber sandwiches.

"Please don't eat the blue one," she said, dead serious.

"Why?"

"We haven't confirmed if it's still alive."

I put the blue one down.

Honestly, I wasn't sure what I expected coming here.

But somehow, her entire house made sense.

She was weird. Absolutely, alarmingly weird.

But also... sharp. Obsessively detailed. Oddly kind beneath the paranoia.

And then... it happened.

The moment I now try and fail not to think about.

As I reached over to pass her my printout for the quarterly duties chart, I knocked over my glass.

It wasn't dramatic. Just a small splash of tea onto her stack of color-coded folders.

"Oh—sorry, I didn't mean to—"

"Stand back," she said quickly, grabbing a cloth with lightning speed.

She dabbed the folder gently, moving quickly but precisely.

I tried to help, reaching for another napkin.

And that's when it happened.

Our hands touched.

Just barely.

And Rosaline—unflappable, intensely composed Rosaline—froze.

Her hand jerked back slightly.

A tiny breath escaped her.

She didn't say anything.

Just adjusted her glasses.

"Apologies," she said softly.

"For what?"

"I… wasn't expecting unshielded contact."

My brain lagged for a full three seconds.

Unshielded. Contact.

Did she just… flinch?

Because of me?

She stood abruptly and turned away, busying herself with wiping her folders—clearly a cover for the quiet chaos going on in her head.

And somehow, in that weird, awkward moment… something shifted.

She wasn't just the overprepared Vice Rep with paranoia goggles.

She was human.

Slightly flushed.

Slightly vulnerable.

And suddenly… inexplicably…

I couldn't stop looking at her.

"You okay?" I asked.

"Yes. Just recalibrating my... response matrix."

"To what?"

"Emotional anomalies."

I didn't press.

But I also didn't look away.

We finished the rest of the briefing in silence.

Not because we had nothing left to say.

But because something had changed.

I left her house feeling stranger than when I entered.

Like maybe—just maybe—Rosaline Nox wasn't just my Vice Rep.

Maybe she was becoming... something else entirely.

The front gate shut with its usual hydraulic hiss as I stepped beyond the perimeter with a huge sigh of relief that I have finally gotten out of there.

But unbeknowst to me, back inside the house, Rosaline stood silently in front of the main surveillance monitor.

Her arms were crossed. Her tactical goggles rested on her head like a crooked crown.

On the screen, she watched as I paused at the sidewalk, patting my bag (probably checking for tracking devices again), then turned down the street, vanishing around the hedge.

She didn't blink.

"Agent Harold…" she murmured under her breath, her voice softer than usual.

"You make terrible tea... but oddly consistent eye contact."

She sighed—just once—then leaned closer to the mic panel.

"Emotional protocol file updated," she whispered, tapping a button.

[FILE ADDED: OPERATION HEARTGLITCH - CLASSIFIED]

A pause.

"...Unacceptable," she muttered, stepping back sharply. "The mission comes first."

She turned away.

Then stopped.

Glanced back at the monitor one last time.

And said, just above a whisper—

"But why did his hand feel… nice?"

The lights flickered. The owl drone on the shelf slowly nodded.

She sighed again and yanked a blanket over the camera.