She nodded, seemingly calmed for a second, before she got off the ground and bolted for the door.
“Hey,” I called after her, running to reach her in the quiet hallway of the abandoned building she had been hiding in.
She didn’t stop, and if she opened the door at the end of the hallway, she would alert people to this hunt. I couldn’t let her do that. I would fail. My father would punish me for losing her. And if he had some other man take my place, it would be worse for her.
The kid in the car would be the tax for the inconvenience if I lost her.
“Stop!” I yelled, winded from the run. “Or your son will die.”
I didn’t mean I would be the one to end him, but the way she halted with her hand on the door made me think she thought I was threatening him.
“Please…” she said again, her voice a whisper at such a far distance. “Not him. Not my hope.”
I walked closer, eating up the distance and trying to reach her.
Her hand pressed the long metal line of the door, and the click felt like a shot.
No, I can’t…fail.
“Stop,” I shouted, my knife flying from my hand and landing in her back with a sickening sound.
Shit.
She gasped, and her hand fell from the door, her entire body falling forward to the ground.
“I’m…sorry,” I said to her body, her eyes open, tears falling free as the blood pooled around her.
“I can’t save you, lady. I’m sorry. But I can promise one thing.” Her breathing was so shallow, yet she didn’t make a sound. “I will make sure no one hurts your son.”
I looked out at the boy in the car, wondering if I really could keep that promise. I knew I wouldn’t tell my dad about him.
I placed my gloved hand on the glass, smearing the blood of the woman who finally stilled at my feet. I didn’t know why I was watching the wind blow the kid’s hair around his face, but I couldn’t look away. Normally, I cleaned up my mess, making everything disappear, but I didn’t have prints on this knife. I was a ghost in the job, and the dumb city cops would mark it as a robbery gone wrong.
Chewing my lip, knowing my dad would have my ass for this, I dialed 9-1-1 on her phone with my gloved hand, and laid the phone down by her head.
Through the blurry red of the glass window, I whispered to the boy.
“No one is going to take away your light…”
I jolted awake, smacking my stupid fucking face and splashing water on my cheeks to sober up. That was Shiloh that day in the car—Shiloh, whose mother begged to be spared.
I promised all those years ago not to hurt him, but I broke that promise before I even made it.
I did hurt him.
I was the reason he was an orphan.
The reason his dad groomed him to be a killer.
I…took away his light…
The days blurredinto one another like cigarette smoke, too thin, constantly lingering, and impossible to clear.
For five mornings straight, I woke up and checked the hotel bed because I was a fucking dog off leash, still unable to quiet the crushing hope bubbling in my chest that he would come back.
Each time I saw the bed empty, the realization and pain snapped a new piece of my soul with it, pulling me further into the darkness. The weight beside me wasn’t real, but the scent on the pillow that had been his consumed my senses.
For five nights, I drank shitty liquor until the room spun the way my head wanted to spin. For five nights, I fucked my hand until the burn of the rough touch brought tears to my eyes.
