The Midnight Train

7:

The evening light cast a warm glow over the room, creating long shadows across the floor. Lydia sat on the couch, her eyes wandering toward Nolan, who had been glued to his laptop at the dining table for what felt like hours. His fingers moved swiftly over the keys, his eyes flicking back and forth across the screen, but his expression was unreadable. She sighed, bored of watching him from a distance, wondering what exactly was so important that it demanded his attention for this long.

With a determined breath, Lydia stood and walked over to him, her footsteps soft against the hardwood floor. She pulled out the chair across from him and sat down. Nolan briefly glanced up at her, his face impassive, before he shut the laptop down with a quiet click and set it aside. His gaze lingered on her for a moment, as if weighing her presence before he finally spoke.

“What now?” he asked, leaning back slightly in his chair, his tone neutral. “Are you hungry, or do you want something else?”

Lydia shook her head, folding her hands on the table as she met his gaze. “No,” she said slowly, “I want you to tell me about yourself… who you were before you began working for the Syndicate.”

Nolan’s expression hardened at the mention of the Syndicate, his jaw tightening almost imperceptibly. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table, his fingers lacing together as he considered her request. "That’s for you to figure out," he said after a long pause, his voice cool. "When you get your memories back, you’ll remember."

Lydia scoffed softly, her eyes narrowing at him. "I thought you wanted to help me, Nolan."

Nolan raised his hands in mock surrender, letting out a sigh. "Alright, fine." He leaned back again, his fingers tapping lightly on the edge of the table. "I was once like you," he began, his tone reluctant, as if every word was being dragged out of him.

Lydia’s brows furrowed. "Like me? What, you lost your memory too?"

Nolan shook his head, a humorless smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "No. Not that." He paused, his gaze distant for a moment, as if lost in a memory he wasn’t quite ready to share. "I used to be a detective. LAPD."

That caught her attention. She leaned in slightly, her curiosity piqued. "A detective?" she echoed. "What happened?"

Nolan’s muscles tensed, and Lydia noticed how his jaw clenched again, a subtle sign of discomfort. He exhaled slowly before speaking. "I got suspended. Indefinitely."

"Why?" Lydia asked, her voice quiet but insistent, sensing the weight of what he was about to share.

Nolan’s eyes darkened, his hand clenching into a fist on the table. "I was working on a case… a case everyone wanted to sweep under the rug. I took the wrong approach, pushed too hard. Stepped on the wrong toes. And someone… someone set me up."

Lydia’s heart skipped a beat at the bitterness in his voice, the barely concealed anger simmering just below the surface. She swallowed, her gaze searching his face. "Do you know who did it? Did you ever get to the root of the case?"

Nolan’s lips pressed into a thin line, and for a moment, she thought he wasn’t going to answer. Finally, he shook his head. "No," he said quietly, the word laced with frustration. "I never found out who set me up, and the case… it disappeared. Just like that."

The silence between them hung heavy in the air, filled with the unspoken weight of things left unresolved, things that had haunted Nolan for who knows how long. Lydia watched him carefully, her mind racing with questions, but one stood out the most.

"Did they ever call you back?" she asked softly, almost hesitant to break the tension. "After the suspension, I mean."

Nolan’s eyes flicked up to hers, and for the briefest moment, she saw something raw behind his usual stoic mask. "They did."

Lydia frowned, her confusion evident. "So… why didn’t you go back?"

Nolan’s gaze drifted away from her, his jaw tightening once more. His voice was low when he spoke again, laced with a cynicism she hadn’t heard before. "Because the law is partial, Lydia. It favors the culprits, not the victims. It’s corrupt—almost everyone in the LAPD is working against it. They wear the badge, but they’re all in disguise. And if they find out you’re getting too close to unraveling a high-profile case, they don’t just stop you. They destroy you."

Lydia stared at him, her mind reeling from the revelation. She hadn’t expected him to be so candid, so open about his past. It was as if the mask Nolan wore every day had finally slipped, revealing the man underneath—someone disillusioned, betrayed by the very system he had once believed in.

"You really believe that?" she asked quietly, her voice almost a whisper.

Nolan’s eyes met hers, hard and unyielding. "I know it," he said, the certainty in his voice chilling. "I’ve seen it firsthand. And that’s why I walked away."

Lydia didn’t know what to say. She had always sensed there was more to Nolan than he let on, but hearing him speak with such bitterness, such resignation, made her realize just how deep his scars ran. He wasn’t just a man who had fallen into the Syndicate; he was someone who had been forced into it by a world that had turned its back on him.

And now, as she sat across from him, Lydia couldn’t help but wonder what other secrets he was hiding—secrets that might never see the light of day.