Chapter 2: The Reporter's Den
“Okay.” She stood up too, grateful for the distance. The meeting felt both overwhelming and insufficient. She had steps now. A path. It was lined with landmines, but it was a path. “Thank you,” she said, though the words felt strange.
“Don’t thank me yet.” He turned, leaning against the desk, crossing his arms. The neon glow cut across his chest. “This is the part where it gets real. The warning call was them being polite. If they figure out you’re digging, they won’t call. They’ll just act.”
A cold knot tightened in her stomach. “I know.”
“Do you?” He pushed off the desk and took two steps toward her, stopping just inside her personal space again. This time it felt less like an accident and more like a test. “This isn’t a game, Rachel. These people have budgets for making problems disappear. They have lawyers who play golf with judges. You’re a college student. You need to be scared. It’s the only thing that’ll keep you careful.”
“I am scared,” she snapped, the admission sharp in her throat. “But I’m also pissed off. They’re using my school. They framed my professor, or he’s in on it. Either way, it’s wrong. So I’ll be careful."
But I’m not stopping.”
Silence pooled in the wake of her words, thick and charged. Milo watched the fierce set of her mouth, the way her green eyes darkened as they lost focus, staring past him at some internal calculation of risk and consequence. He recognized that look—the naïve brain working too hard, drowning in the deep end he’d just described.
“Fluidity is everything,” he said, his voice deceptively casual as he took a step toward her. “You have to read the room, not just the paperwork.” He gestured vaguely toward the window, as if illustrating a point about sightlines or exits. “Clayworth’s office, for instance. You notice where he keeps his personal items? That tells you his level of comfort.”
Rachel nodded absently, her mind still navigating the imagined hallways of the finance annex. The peeling linoleum, the locked cabinet—her thoughts were so loud she barely registered his advance until the worn leather of his sofa brushed the back of her knees. She took an instinctual step backward.
Her shoulders met the unyielding plaster of the wall. Milo closed the final distance, one hand planting itself beside her head, his body a barrier between her and the room. “And his schedule,” he continued, his tone still instructional. “The gaps in it. Those are the opportunities.” His free hand came up, his thumb tracing a slow line from her temple to her jaw. “You find the gaps, Rachel.”
Her breath hitched. The strategic prattle dissolved into the palpable heat of his proximity. The sharp, clean scent of his cologne mixed with the stale whiskey on his lips. Her thoughts, so relentless a moment before, emptied into a static hum. She was trapped, and a part of her—a stupid, thrilling part—didn’t want to move.
His gaze dropped to her mouth. The practiced cynicism in his gray eyes softened into something hungrier, more immediate. He leaned in, his movement slow and inevitable. The neon glow from the bar sign outside bled across his cheekbone. Her eyes fluttered shut.
A raucous, tinny fanfare exploded from the television across the room. A game show host’s amplified voice crowed about a new contestant. The sudden noise was a physical shock. Rachel’s eyes snapped open.
Milo jerked back as if scalded, his head turning sharply toward the intrusive glow of the screen. A deep scowl etched itself onto his weathered face. He let out a short, irritated breath, the warmth of it still ghosting across her skin. He pushed away from the wall, putting a full arm’s length between them.
“God, I hate that thing,” he muttered, raking a hand through his hair. He didn’t look at her. “Go home. Get your head straight. You start at the archives tomorrow—be early, be invisible.” His voice was all business again, cold and dismissive. “Don’t screw this up before it begins.”
The command was a lifeline. Rachel slid along the wall, then hurried to the door, her bag clutched to her chest like a shield. She didn’t speak. The hallway outside felt like a sanctuary, its cool, damp air washing over her burning face. Her legs trembled as she descended the stairs.
Outside, the early evening sun felt alien on her skin. She walked briskly, the rhythm of her steps helping to steady her breath. Had that been a test? A cheap tactic to keep her pliant? Her skin still tingled where his thumb had brushed it. The memory of his nearness was a live wire in her gut—equal parts alarm and a shameful, curling warmth. She forced her mind back to the facts: the key, the cabinet, Austerly Holdings. That was the only thing that was real. Milo Davidson was just a tool, and tools couldn’t be trusted.
Back in the cigar-scented stillness, Milo stood with his back to the now-silent television. He finished his whiskey in one long swallow, the glass making a definitive click on the desk. The girl had frozen like a rabbit, then melted. Predictable, but messier than he preferred. Useful, though. Emotional leverage was a currency that never depreciated.
He opened the bottom drawer of his desk and retrieved a plain manila folder. Inside, behind a snapshot of Professor Clayworth leaving a courthouse, was a sheet with Rachel’s name. He picked up a pen. Under ‘Observations,’ he added: “Stubborn. More frightened of the scheme than of personal jeopardy. Susceptible to controlled proximity—initiated physical retreat but showed clear physiological surrender response.” He paused, the pen hovering. Then he wrote, his script tight and efficient: “Interruption was fortuitous. Premature escalation. Maintain professional distance until her utility is maximized.” He closed the folder. The brief, aborted moment was already catalogued and shelved, another variable in the equation. His attention shifted to the blurred photocopy of the forged signature from the finance office hallway, taped to the wall.
The real work was waiting, but for Rachel, it began the next morning with a deliberate knock on Professor Clayworth’s office door. The space was small, dominated by the sour smell of old books and microwave meals, with weak sunlight straining through blinds. He looked up from a messy desk, his glasses sliding down his nose, and offered a tired smile that seemed genuinely pleased to see her.
“Miss Morgan. Come in.” He gestured to the chair piled with journals. “Just move those. To what do I owe the visit?”
Rachel cleared the chair, her heart pounding a frantic rhythm against her ribs. “It’s about the lecture on fiduciary ethics,” she said, leaning forward. “The case study on restricted grants—I was wondering how a board might miss the diversion of funds if the paperwork looked correct.” She watched his face closely, as Milo had instructed.
A flicker, there and gone. Just a subtle tightening around his eyes before he leaned back, steepling his fingers. “Well, that’s the peril of relying on signatures alone,” he said, his voice careful. “A determined person can forge a consensus. It’s about pressure points in the oversight chain.” He spoke for ten minutes, his explanation thorough but detached, as if reciting a textbook. When she casually mentioned hearing trustee Martin Gable speak at a conference, Clayworth’s hand jerked, sending a pen clattering to the floor.
“Gable is… very persuasive,” he said, bending to retrieve it. He did not elaborate.
Over the following weeks, a delicate dance unfolded. Rachel’s temp job in the archives was a monotony of humming scanners and dust that made her sneeze. She found nothing on Austerly Holdings in the active cabinet, just old budget reports smelling of mildew. Every Thursday, she visited Clayworth’s office with a new, earnest question. He warmed to her perceived diligence, his smiles becoming less weary, his explanations more personal.
“You have a sharp mind for this, Rachel,” he said one afternoon, offering her a peppermint from a crumpled bag. “It’s refreshing.” She reported the empty archives to Milo via terse burner phone texts, but the professor’s growing trust felt like a tangible, fragile thing she was both cultivating and betraying.
Milo’s instructions were coldly pragmatic. “Ask about his family,” he’d said during a rushed, distant meeting in a parking garage. “People love to talk about their kids. Creates a bond.” Clayworth, she learned, was divorced, with a daughter studying abroad he hadn’t seen in two years. His voice softened when he spoke of her. Rachel felt a twist of guilt, sharp and acidic, which she swallowed down.
The breakthrough came from a different angle. In the archives, buried in a box of discarded administrative memos from 2018, she found a sticky note with a faded scrawl: “Volkov - SCP final routing?” She photographed it, her hands trembling only slightly. That night, Milo’s voice on the phone was a low crackle of intensity. “Viktor Volkov. Russian infrastructure. Now we have a name. Clayworth is the key to the lock. Keep going.”
Her meetings with the professor evolved. She brought him coffee once, remembering he took it black. He started sharing anecdotes about the college’s history, his laugh a rusty, infrequent sound. One rainy afternoon, he confessed his frustration with the administration’s “byzantine” new audit software. “It’s like they don’t want us to see the threads,” he muttered, more to himself than to her. Rachel nodded, her skin prickling. She had the thread. She just needed to find where he was tangled.
The trust solidified a week later when he gave her the code to the department’s printer room, citing her “helpful nature.” It was a small thing, but it felt monumental. Milo was pleased. “Good. Next time he’s out, we move. He takes a personal day every month. For his daughter, he says. We’ll use it.”
The day arrived with a blanket of humid, gray sky. An automated email notified all assistants that Professor Clayworth was on leave. Rachel’s mouth went dry. She waited until the hallway emptied after lunch, the only sound the drip of a leaky faucet. Using the code, she slipped into his office. The air was still, heavy with the familiar scent of his sandalwood soap and lingering coffee.
She worked quickly, placing the tiny camera Milo had supplied inside the vent of a bookshelf, its lens aimed at the desk. Her gloves were thin latex, leaving no prints. The desk drawer was locked, but the key was, as Milo predicted, taped beneath the center drawer. It slid open with a soft scrape.
Papers. Grade sheets. Travel receipts. Her fingers moved through them, a steady, desperate rustle. Then, a plain green folder. Inside, a single sheet of paper. It was a copy of a medical bill from a clinic in Zurich, for a procedure dated last year. Paperclipped to it was a photograph of Clayworth entering the same clinic, and a typed note: “Your discretion regarding college finances ensures this remains private. Your daughter need not know the source of her tuition. Continue to approve the transfers.”
Blackmail. Her breath caught. The professor wasn’t a volunteer; he was a prisoner. The forged signature was a gun to his head. She raised her phone to photograph the documents.
The doorknob turned. The door swung open. Professor Clayworth stood in the threshold, his coat damp with rain, his face a mask of pure, uncomprehending shock. His eyes moved from her face to the open drawer, to the green folder in her gloved hand. Time suspended in the silent, terrible understanding.
Rachel acted. She dropped the folder, surged forward, and shoved him hard. He stumbled back against the tall bookshelf, a gasp of air leaving his lungs. Before he could speak, she grabbed the lapels of his coat, pulled his face down to hers, and kissed him. It was a clumsy, desperate press of lips, all force and no art.
He froze, rigid with shock. Then, a low groan vibrated in his throat. His hands came up, one cradling the back of her head, the other sliding down the curve of her spine to grasp her ass, pulling her tightly against him as he kissed her back with a sudden, hungry intensity.
His mouth was warm and softer than she expected, tasting of peppermint and the damp wool of his coat. For three heartbeats, the only sound was their ragged breathing and the drum of rain against the window. Then his body unlocked, his shoulders slumping as he yielded to the shocking, impossible fact of her mouth on his.
He pulled her closer, a low noise escaping him, his fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of her neck. The kiss deepened, losing its initial clumsiness, becoming something slower and more searching. Rachel’s mind screamed, a frantic static overlaid with a single directive: sell it. She let her hands slide up his chest, feeling the frantic rhythm of his heart beneath the scratchy tweed. She arched against him, letting him feel the whole length of her body through their clothes.
His hands were shaking as they cupped her face, his thumbs brushing her cheekbones. “Rachel,” he whispered against her lips, his voice cracked and raw. “I don’t… this is…”
“Shhh,” she breathed, swallowing her own revulsion and leaning into the role. Her fingers worked the buttons of his wrinkled oxford shirt. “I’ve wanted this. Since the first lecture.” The lie felt slick and heavy on her tongue.
He made a sound like a wounded animal, then his mouth found hers again with a desperate hunger. He fumbled with the hem of her tank top, his academic’s hands clumsy. She helped him pull it over her head, the office air cool on her skin. His gaze dropped, his breath catching audibly at the sight of her in her simple bra. “God,” he murmured, almost pained.
Across town, Milo stared at the grainy feed on his laptop. He’d seen her enter, plant the camera. He’d watched her search the drawer. The tension had been a live wire in his own chest. Then Clayworth had returned, and Milo had leaned forward, ready for the disaster. He watched Rachel shove him, saw the shock. Then the kiss.
“Clever girl,” he muttered, a grudging respect in his tone. But as the professor’s hands began to move, pulling at her clothes, that respect curdled into something hotter and more acidic. He watched Clayworth’s palms slide over the curve of her back, down to the swell of her ass, gripping with a possessiveness that made Milo’s jaw tighten.
The professor guided her back against the desk, sending a stack of papers fluttering to the floor. Milo took a sharp drag from his cigarette, the ember glowing in the dim light of his apartment. He saw Rachel’s face, her eyes closed, her expression a performance of passion he knew was fake. But the professor’s face—that was real. Awe, desperation, a staggering, grateful need.
Milo watched as the professor buried his face between her breasts, heard the muffled groan through the camera’s tinny audio. He saw Rachel’s fingers thread through his thinning hair, her head tilting back. A perfect, convincing act. Milo’s own body responded, a purely physical betrayal that just deepened the sour taste in his mouth. He was hard, watching this, and he hated himself for it, hated her for being so convincingly sensual, hated Clayworth for being the one touching her.
“Lucky bastard,” he whispered to the empty, smoky room. The envy was a physical burn in his throat. He knew it was just a performance, a tactical move. But the sight of her bare skin, the arch of her spine as the professor pushed her leggings down her hips, the flush he could just make out on her chest—it was all vividly, agonizingly real. He didn’t look away.
In the office, the world had narrowed to the creak of the old desk, the slap of skin, the smell of him—sandalwood, chalk dust, and now sweat. Rachel’s mind partitioned itself. One part recited a cold loop: Sell it. Survive. Get the file. Another part was just sensation, the shocking intimacy of the act a wave she had to ride. She met his thrusts, matched his rhythm, her noises practiced and encouraging.
He finished with a shuddering gasp, his full weight collapsing onto her before he caught himself on trembling arms. For a long minute, the only sound was their labored breathing mixing with the rain. He rolled onto the threadbare carpet, pulling her with him, holding her against his side as if she might vanish.
His fingers traced the line of her spine. “I haven’t been with a woman in… god, so long,” he confessed into the quiet, his voice muffled against her hair. The admission was so naked it felt like another form of undressing.
She chuckled, a low, soft sound she hoped passed for sated intimacy, and nuzzled into the hollow of his neck. His lips traveled down the knobs of her vertebrae, kisses light as apologies. “The university gala is tomorrow night,” he murmured between kisses. “The donors’ dinner. I have to make an appearance. Come with me. Be my date.”
This was it. An invitation into the heart of the machine. She turned her head, found his mouth, and kissed him back slowly. “Okay,” she breathed against his lips. “I’d like that.”
As they kissed, her arm stretched out, her fingers walking silently across the carpet toward the fallen green folder. She hooked it, drew it closer under the guise of shifting her body. In one fluid motion, she slipped the folder into her open bag beside the desk.
His breathing deepened, evening out into sleep. She lay there for five more minutes, feeling the rapid, guilty beat of her own heart against his side. Then, with infinite care, she extracted herself from his loose embrace. She dressed in the dim grey light, her movements silent and efficient. She didn’t look back at his sleeping form on the floor.
Out in the hall, the fluorescent lights hummed with a deafening normalcy. She adjusted her bag on her shoulder, feeling the new, damning weight of the folder inside. The scent of him was on her skin.
She walked quickly, the echo of her own footsteps her only companion, heading back to her place to scrub the feeling of his hands away and examine what his fear had cost him.
The shower was scalding. She scrubbed her skin raw with a rough washcloth until it shone pink, but the phantom pressure of his grip on her hips remained beneath the heat. Dressed in an old t-shirt, she sat on her bed with the green folder. The medical bill was for advanced oncology treatment. The photograph was grainy but unmistakable. The note was a masterclass in cruel leverage.
Clayworth’s daughter had cancer. His silence was being purchased with her treatment. The forgeries weren’t greed; they were ransom payments. Rachel closed the folder and lay back, staring at the ceiling’s cracks. She’d had sex with a man being blackmailed over his dying child. The moral ground she’d been standing on dissolved into a sucking, black mud. She hadn’t just betrayed his trust; she’d weaponized his profound, vulnerable shame.
Sleep was a fractured series of images: Clayworth’s grateful, sleeping face, the neon glow on Milo’s cheek as he leaned in, the cold grey eyes of the suit in the hallway. She woke with a gasp just after dawn, the taste of peppermint and dishonor still in her mouth.
An email arrived at ten AM. The subject line was “Brennan University Annual Gala & Donors’ Dinner.” The body was a formal invitation with a hand-typed addendum at the bottom: Rachel – A proper evening. Pick you up at 7. – Charles. Her stomach turned. She texted the burner phone.
> Got the invite. We need to talk.
Milo’s reply was immediate.
> My place. Noon. Bring the folder.
His apartment still smelled of cigars and yesterday’s whiskey. He took the folder from her without a word, flipping through the contents by the window’s grim light. His expression didn’t change.
“Volkov’s signature move,” he finally said, tossing the papers onto the desk. “Finds the one point of catastrophic personal failure and applies pressure. It’s not subtle, but it’s efficient. Clayworth’s a dead man walking, he just doesn’t know it yet.”
“We have to help him,” Rachel said, the words sounding painfully young in the cluttered room.
Milo’s laugh was a short, dry bark. “Help him? This is our way in. He’s your ticket to the inner circle. You play the dazzled student, thrilled to be on the arm of a respected professor at a fancy dinner. You listen. You watch. You see who he talks to, who makes him nervous.”
“And then what? We use his daughter’s cancer to get more information?”
“We use the access he gives us,” Milo corrected, his tone cool and instructional. “The gala is where the trustees and the big money mingle. Martin Gable will be there. He’s Austerly’s face. You need to get a read on him, see if he interacts with Clayworth.”
He walked over to her, his gaze doing its familiar, assessing sweep. “You need to look the part. Wear something nice. Something that shows off your ass and your legs.”
Rachel blinked, the bluntness of it a slap. “Excuse me?”
“Don’t be naive. You’re a beautiful girl at a stuffy rich person’s party. If they’re looking at your body, they’re not considering you a threat.” He shrugged, a coldly practical gesture. “It’s a tool. Use it. Clayworth will be possessive. Let him. It will sell your cover.”
A hot spike of anger shot through her. “You want me to be bait.”
“I want you to be smart.” He turned back to the desk, dismissing her. “Be ready at seven. Note the names, note the conversations. Especially anything about ‘consolidated assets’ or ‘overseas partners.’ Text me during the bathroom breaks if you have to.”
She left without another word, the instruction burning in her ears.
That night, standing before her full-length mirror, she examined the dress. It was black, sleeveless, and backless, hugging every curve before ending mid-thigh. The neckline plunged. It was a statement, one she’d bought for a formal she’d never attended. She felt a sharp pang of revulsion thinking of Clayworth’s hands on the exposed skin of her back.
She smoothed the silky fabric over her hips. Milo’s words echoed. A tool. Use it. As she applied a deep red lipstick, her eyes in the mirror held a defiant glare. But her mind, traitorously, flickered. She remembered the heat of Milo’s body boxing her against his wall, the rough pad of his thumb on her jaw. The memory wasn’t entirely unpleasant. A sudden, unwelcome flush of warmth spread through her, a stark contrast to the cold transaction with Clayworth. She was surprised by the heat, and immediately annoyed with herself for feeling it.
She shoved the thought away. This was a mission. She slipped into heels that made her legs look a mile long and grabbed a small clutch, dropping the burner phone inside.
Clayworth picked her up in a hired town car. He wore a tuxedo that seemed both foreign and sad on him. His eyes widened, drinking her in. “Rachel,” he breathed. “You’re… breathtaking.”
“Thank you, Charles,” she said, letting him take her hand.
The gala was in the university’s sterile modern atrium, now draped in silk and twinkling with chandelier light. It smelled of expensive perfume, seared scallops, and old money. Waiters circulated with champagne flutes. Clayworth kept a hand on the small of her back, introducing her as his “star pupil” to deans and donors with glazed, pleasant smiles.
She saw Martin Gable across the room. He was taller than his photo, holding court with a cluster of older men, his laugh booming and confident. His eyes passed over her once, lingered for a fraction of a second, and moved on without interest. Just another young accessory.
They were seated at a round table for eight. The conversations were a dull roar of endowment yields and building campaigns. Clayworth’s hand, under the guise of the linen tablecloth, found her knee. As a waiter refilled wine, his fingers trailed higher up her thigh.
Rachel took a slow sip of champagne, the bubbles sharp on her tongue. She turned her head slightly towards him, her expression one of mild, conspiratorial amusement. She raised a single, knowing eyebrow.
Emboldened, his hand slid back, over the curve of her ass, giving a firm, possessive squeeze. He leaned close, his breath warm and wine-scented against her ear. “I can’t wait to get you out of this dress,” he murmured, a wolfish grin cutting across his tired face.
She smiled back, a perfect, empty curve of her red lips, and turned to face the table. Inside, her mind was cold and clear, cataloging the touch as data. She let her gaze drift back across the room, seeking the assured, clean-shaven face of Martin Gable, and beyond him, into the shadows where real predators like Viktor Volkov were always watching.
The champagne flute felt dangerously slick in her hand. Rachel set it down with a deliberate click on the white linen, the sound swallowed by the cavernous din of the atrium. Around her, the gala swirled—a carousel of sequined gowns, booming laughs, and the relentless clatter of silver on porcelain. Charles’s hand was a warm, heavy brand on her leg, his thumb stroking a slow, possessive rhythm just above her knee.
Her mind, however, was somewhere else entirely, locked on the six words she’d overheard in the shadowed alcove near the restrooms.
‘The Volkov shipment docks tonight. Warehouse C.’
Martin Gable had murmured them to a narrow-faced trustee, his voice a low vibration she’d felt in her bones before she fully understood them. She’d frozen, one hand on the polished brass bathroom door handle, her reflection in the distant mirror wide-eyed and pale.
Now, back at the table, the words echoed over the orchestra’s bland rendition of a jazz standard. Shipment. Docks. Tonight. It wasn’t paperwork. It was physical, moving, here. The ledger entries and forged signatures had weight now, and it was moving in the dark somewhere on campus.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Charles’s voice cut through, too loud, too close. His breath was sweet with dessert wine. His hand slid higher, bunching the silk of her dress. “You seem a million miles away.”
She forced a smile, turning her face toward him. The movement made her red hair brush his cheek. She saw the hunger in his eyes, magnified by drink and the unbelievable fantasy of her beside him. “Just overwhelmed,” she said, her voice a feathery contrast to the storm inside her. “All these important people. It’s a lot.”
He preened, squeezing her thigh. “You belong here, Rachel. Sharp mind, sharp eyes.” His own gaze drifted down to her neckline. “The whole package.”
She needed to text Milo. Now. The warehouse was a place, a target. It was action.
“I think the wine went straight to my head,” she said, placing a hand gently over his to still its wandering. “I’m going to pop outside for a minute. Just some air.”
Disappointment flickered across his face, but he nodded, releasing her. “Don’t be long. They’re bringing the port around soon.”
She stood, the blood rushing back into her legs. She felt every eye at the table track her movement, the backless dress a beacon. She didn’t look at Gable. She wove through the tables toward the grand archway that led to the reception hall and, beyond that, the bank of elevators and a promise of quiet.
The hallway was cooler, a relief. The carpet swallowed her footsteps. She passed framed portraits of stern-faced benefactors, their eyes seeming to follow her. She ducked into a dimly lit nook housing a forgotten statue of the university’s founder and pulled the burner phone from her clutch.
Her thumbs flew over the keys. > Heard Gable. ‘Volkov shipment docks tonight. Warehouse C.’ On campus. Now.
She hit send. The message delivered instantly. She stared at the screen, waiting for the ellipsis, for his caustic genius to tell her what to do. The seconds stretched. Nothing.
A knot of panic tightened in her throat. Was he ignoring her? Was this not important enough? She thought of him in his filthy apartment, maybe pouring another drink, maybe with someone else. The image sparked a confusing flare of anger.
She typed again, her fingers harder on the glass. > Hello? This is happening NOW.
She pictured the warehouse. She’d never been to the campus shipping and receiving zone, but she knew it was on the far south side, near the old utility plant. A lonely, floodlit place of chain-link and corrugated steel.
The phone buzzed in her hand, startling her.
> Don’t do anything stupid. Stay with Clayworth. Get details if you can. Location is everything.
She almost laughed. Details? Stay with Clayworth? While something called a Volkov shipment was physically arriving? Milo was thinking like a reporter, assembling facts. She was standing in the hallway where the facts were turning into things, into trucks and crates and men who didn’t ask questions.
Another text followed, a second later.
> If it’s tonight, they’ll have security. Eyes on. You are not eyes. You are a girl in a dress. Remember that.
The dismissal was clear, galling. A girl in a dress. She looked down at the sleek black fabric, at her own reflection in the dark window across the hall. He was right. And that was exactly why she was the perfect one to look. Who would suspect her?
A new resolve, cold and sharp, crystallized inside her. She wasn’t going back to that table to listen to Charles slur his words and feel his hands on her. The shipment was a thread, and it was pulling taut right now. She could either follow it or sit prettily and wait for Milo to tell her it was safe to blink.