James

James never talked about his fears. Not because I thought it was a weakness, but because I just didn't see the point. Fear cannot be interrogated, it cannot be put in a cell, it cannot be closed. But he was. Always.

Claustrophobia woke up at the most unexpected moments: in an elevator, in a narrow corridor, in a car stuck in traffic. His heart began to beat faster, his palms sweated, and he found himself counting the seconds until he left. He never showed it—he just clenched his jaw and waited. Only the cigarette afterward helped to calm the trembling in my fingers.

The fear of losing everything was older. He was born at the age of seven, when his parents did not return home, and has not left since. James didn't hold on to things, to money, to people—because he was afraid to hold on. The less you have, the less you lose. Therefore, he didn't let anyone get too close. Therefore, his apartment was almost empty. Therefore, every time someone stayed in his life longer than usual, an alarm went off inside: don't get used to it.

The fear of the unknown was the quietest, but the most persistent. He hid behind logic, behind investigations, behind the habit of putting everything on the shelves. James hated unanswered questions. He hated dark spots in reports, missed calls, and people whose motives remained unclear. That's why he became a good detective. He didn't unravel mysteries—he destroyed them. He turned the unknown into facts, into protocols, into closed cases. It was the only way he could sleep at night. Almost.

As for habits, there weren't many of them. Coffee, work until exhaustion, and cigarettes. He had been smoking since he was eighteen. Not for pleasure, but for ritual. The click of a lighter, the first puff, smoke rising into the sky. It gave a pause. A small three-minute pause. At such moments, the world slowed down, thoughts lined up, and you could just stand and breathe.

James rarely thought about his childhood. Not because it was bad, but rather because it ended too soon.

He was seven when his parents didn't come home. An accident on the highway, wet asphalt, a truck that flew into the oncoming lane. He didn't remember the funeral—just black coats, the smell of rain, and someone's big hand squeezing his shoulder. Grandma took him in the next day. A small apartment on the outskirts, creaking floorboards, geraniums on the windowsill and a stern voice: "Don't cry. Tears can't fix anything."

He wasn't crying. I learned to keep everything inside—emotions, fears, questions that no one could answer. Grandma loved him, but in her own way: dryly, restrained, without unnecessary hugs. She taught him order, discipline, and the ability to rely only on himself. "The world isn't fair, James," she said, stirring her soup. "The sooner you realize that, the easier life will be."

He understood.

He didn't have any close friends at school. He wasn't an outcast, he just kept to himself. While the other children were playing in the yard, James stayed at home and reading. First, everything, then the detectives. He liked the logic of investigations: chaos turned into a system, randomness into evidence, death into a problem that could be solved. It was comforting. It gave him the illusion of control over the world that had once robbed him of everything.

At eighteen, my grandmother died. Heart. Quickly, in a dream. James found her in the morning, lying with the same calm face with which she fell asleep every night. He didn't cry then either. I just closed the door, called the doctors, and sat in the kitchen to wait. Yesterday's soup was still on the stove.

Left alone, he sold the apartment and left. He entered the police academy, not because he dreamed of a uniform, but because he wanted to understand. Understand how evil works. Understand why people die. Understand if it can be stopped.

James is a man with brown hair and dark, but not dark skin, as if touched with a light tan. His eyes are a strange, changeable shade — either brown or gray, depending on the lighting. His facial features are strict: straight nose without a bump, elongated eyes, always a little tired, mysterious look. He keeps a low profile, says little, thinks a lot. After fifteen years in homicide, I've learned not to show emotion, but I still haven't cooled down inside. Tenacious, observant, and persistent—notices details that others miss. He smokes too often, sleeps too rarely, and trusts people slowly, but if he does, he trusts them to the end.