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Leo rubbed his eyes. Glitch, he thought. Then his own phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number. No words. Just a single emoji: a white square.

He hadn’t been home in ten hours.

Leo’s hands are numb. The motel room flickers. For a second, he sees the hospital ceiling tiles instead of the water-stained popcorn plaster.

Night five, he didn’t go to work. He sat in his car outside the Galleria, watching the food court entrance. At 3:00 AM sharp, the automatic doors slid open. No one walked through. But his phone buzzed.