His gear hits the floor with a muffled thud before he steps forward, picking a careful path through the broken glass and lowering himself into the chair.
Only when he settles does a thin slip of tranquility thread through my veins. Up close, I see the life carved into him: the fine web of wrinkles, the slackened skin at his jaw, the roundness of his face pulled thin by age. He’s old, but not worn down. The kind of old that still bites.
“Nearly ten years ago,” I begin, and his eyes narrow, sharpening, “The Order sent you after three targets. A family.”
A smirk ghosts over his lips, and his thick grey brow lifts in amusement. “Man, if I remembered every family I killed, I wouldn’t have any room left in my head for anything else.”
I sneer. “Of course you don’t remember. I didn’t expect you to.”
He leans back with a creak, his eyes narrowing further until the skin around them nearly swallows the color. “So that’s why you tore my house apart and dragged yourself up here? Because I killed whatever family you cared about?”
“You killed my parents. And you left me to bleed out. That was your mistake.”
A frown tugs at his face before he drags a hand through his greasy hair. “Nearly ten years ago, you say,” he murmurs, almost wistfully. “I was more impulsive back then, probably riding thehigh. And now, I suppose, that mistake finally found its way back to me?”
I press my lips together, searching for words I spent half my life rehearsing. I used to script this conversation in my head—imagined a hundred ways it would go, all the lines I’d throw at him, all the ways he’d crumble.
But sitting here, looking at him now… there’s nothing. Whatever fire once drove me to this moment burned out long ago.
“I used to think killing you was the meaning of my life,” I say, letting the truth fall flat between us. “I dreamed about all the ways I’d do it. All the things I’d say.”
His smirk stretches wider, dry amusement flickering in his eyes. They’re dull and dark—so dark they feel like the same void that swallowed me whole years ago, the same black hole that refused to spit me back out.
He spreads his arms lazily to the sides. “Is this what you were hoping for?”
I shake my head. “The truth is, I don’t believe killing you would change anything. I don’t think it would make me happy.”
“You’re no knight in shining armor, that much is clear,” he says, finishing the sentence with a low, rasping laugh. “You’re desperate. Hollow. Haunted by something you’re not going to find here.”
He leans forward, placing both arms on the table, his stare boring straight into mine. “Do you want an apology? Is that it? Do you want to know whether I regret what I did?”
I stay silent. I already know the answer.
“The only regret I have,” he begins, voice sharpening to a venomous point, “is not putting a bullet between your brows. Regret for not finishing the job. Regret for coming home and seeing a face I don’t even fucking remember.”
His voice rises, rougher, meaner, his hands slicing through the air as if he could cut me with gestures alone. I don’t move. I just stare through him, into the empty field behind him—the one filled with the graves of people whose lives he erased without a second thought.
He’s as desperate as I am. As empty. The only difference is that I have something outside this place. Someone.
A light bright enough to cut through the dark pit in my chest.
A reason to get up. A reason to endure the weight of the days.
“You’re alone,” I tell him, a thin smile tugging at my split lips. “And for you, it’s too late to change that.”
“I’m fine being alone,” he lies, his tone suddenly thinner, lighter, as if the weight slipped for a moment and revealed the crack beneath. “I never needed any of that sentimental shit.”
“When you walked in, I saw your face change when you saw the mess. And then it changed again when you saw me. This,” I gesture around the destruction around us, “is the most excitement you’ve had in years. So don’t feed me that independent, unbothered crap. You havenothing.”
His faint smile dies, the corners of his mouth sagging as his expression empties out. He tilts his head a fraction, studying me with an old predator’s stillness.
“Since I’m so miserable, the best thing you could do is leave me here.” His eyes flick across the room. “Leave me with the shards. Let me suffer for the rest of my days.”
I scoff, the sound scraping up my throat. “That way we come full circle, right? You left me the same way—surrounded by broken things, nothing left but pieces.”
“Symbolic.”
I nod, letting the word settle between us while the mountains hum in the distance.
