The smoke from Flor's cigarette curled in the dimness of the apartment, mixing with the smell of cheap marijuana and the dust accumulating in the corners. It was there, on that dilapidated sofa, that Valkyria saw you for the first time. You weren't just any girl, she knew that instantly. You didn't have the anxious, paranoid look of her regular clients, nor the brashness of those who thought the world owed them something. You were leaning against the wall, observing the scene with a distant curiosity, almost anthropological. Flor, always the carefree intermediary, made the introduction with a drunken smile. "Hey, Valky, this is my friend. She needs some good stuff, ya know?"

Valkyria nodded, slow, calculating. Her eyes scanned you. You wore a loose t-shirt and worn-out jeans, but there was a silent elegance in your posture, a reserve that intrigued her. The deal was quick, efficient. Money for merchandise. But when your fingers brushed against hers as you passed the bills, something cracked in Valkyria's automated routine. It wasn't electricity, or heat. It was the recognition of two solitudes colliding in the same dark night.

The visits repeated. Not always through Flor anymore. You started going directly to her building, a block of gray concrete that smelled of damp and resignation. You climbed the poorly lit stairs and she opened the door, sometimes with a look of annoyance, other times with a barely concealed curiosity. The transactions grew longer. First it was an improvised coffee in the dirty kitchen, then a shared beer on the sofa while the rain beat against the single window. You spoke little, but observed each other a lot. Valkyria, always on guard, let fragments of her life fall like crumbs: a tough childhood on the margins of the city, the need for control, the distrust of a system that had always turned its back on her. You listened, you absorbed her marginal reality without judgment, and that, to her, was more valuable than any praise.

The first time she kissed you was against the door of her apartment, after you confessed, in a voice so low it was almost lost, that you weren't just coming for the drugs anymore. Her mouth tasted of black tobacco and something bitter, but you didn't pull away. Her hands, rough, closed around your hips with a possessiveness that should have been a warning, but only excited. It was a rough start, without romance. There were no flowers or promises. There was raw need, the mutual recognition of a void that, for a few hours, could be filled with skin and muffled gasps.

Everything collapsed on a Tuesday afternoon. A regular customer turned out to be a snitch with a plea deal. The raid was quick and brutal. The police burst into her apartment while she was meticulously packaging the merchandise. There were no shots, no chase. Just the cold of the steel handcuffs biting her wrists, the sight of her little plastic and powder treasures being bagged as evidence, and your name, screaming in her mind like a damned mantra of defeat. She saw you outside, behind the police cordon, your face pale and your eyes wide with a panic she couldn't console. Her gaze was ice. A clear message: Stay away. This isn't for you.

The three years passed with the cruel slowness of a leak dripping in a punishment cell. The day of her release was as gray and bureaucratic as everything else. She signed papers, they gave her back her belongings, the clothes she was wearing the day of the raid hung loose on her, and she walked out through the heavy iron doors without looking back. Freedom smelled of gasoline and damp city. She took a deep breath, but the air didn't taste like victory, it tasted like emptiness.

She had no plan. She had nowhere to go. Her old world was dismantled. But there was a thread, thin and worn, connecting her to something that, once upon a time, had seemed real. She took a bus, then another, moving through the city with the disorientation of an animal newly freed from a cage.

And there it was. Your building. Your door. She stood in front of it for a long minute, observing the cheap wood, the faded number. She raised her hand and knocked, three sharp, firm knocks, like those of a debt collector or a cop.

She heard footsteps on the other side, the lock turning. The door opened.

And there you were. Time seemed to have treated you with a mixture of cruelty and mercy. You had the same eyes, but with more shadows underneath, more history written in the corners of your lips. You stood frozen, your hand still on the knob, your eyes wide with a shock that was a mix of disbelief, fear, and a hope you thought was dead.

Valkyria didn't smile. She didn't open her arms. She just tilted her head slightly, her cold eyes scanning your face, your body, searching for... something. Whatever was left after everything. Her voice, the same one you'd heard on cold visits and distant calls, came from her lips, flat, devoid of emotion, laden with the shadow of all those empty encounters and the years of confinement.

"Did you miss me?"