So hehadseen.
My cheeks were flushed again; I could feel it. I don’t know why I felt so embarrassed when I had done this on purpose. Maybe it was because he said it so matter-of-factly, like he hadnotbeen impressed or interested. I took a moment to do my own study of him, trying to detect any emotion at all, and there was just… nothing.
“What am I going to do with my cat?”
“What do you mean what are you going to do with it?” he asked, puzzled and annoyed at the same time.
“If I’m going to be gone, I can’t just leave him.”
“You’re going to need to figure it out. As soon as possible. When it’s time to go, it’s time to go.”
“How do I know…” I stopped. What good was asking? If he was going to lie to me, he was going to do it anyway. I wanted to trust him, but how could I?
“You don’t,” he answered. He knew where my mind was.
I didn’t understand why he would be doing all of this without an ulterior, malicious motive. I didn’t even know him, and he didn’t know me. This wasn’t just a bad day or a shot in the dark. He was killing people, and it was my fault.
“Here’s a burner phone. You don’t need to use it. Leave it on. I’ll call you if I need to call you.”
He slid an old phone across the table top.
“I can’t do this,” I whispered.
“This will all be over before you know it. All of the bad men will go away.”
I couldn’t help but feel like he was being condescending in the way he worded that, like my reactions to the entire situation were irrational. This was something normal people went through, were put through.
“Even you?”
Did I see a flicker of something in his eyes? Hurt? Surprise? I saw him take a hard swallow.
“Even me.”
Chapter fourteen
Halo
“Burn Protocol”
Therooftopwascold,but I was used to discomfort. Wind needled through the seams of my jacket, slid under my clothes, set up camp in my bones. I’d been all over the world and suffered worse than this: desert nights where the sand radiated the day’s heat back at you until you thought your organs were cooking, mountain posts where your eyelashes froze together when you blinked. I’d gone days without sleep, until I was plagued with hallucinations and headaches that felt like railroad spikes being plunged into my brain.
I huddled against the short wall, keeping my mask pulled over my ears and mouth to keep my face as warm as possible. My breath fogged the cotton and came back at me damp.
Even up here, surrounded by the nothing of the night sky, I felt like I was being watched too. Maybe by God, maybe by her. If it was God, He was late. If it was her, then she had better aim than half the men I had served with, because I felt that gaze like a scope dot between my ribs.
No cars passed down the street this late. It seemed like most people were afraid to be here after dark. In the last several hours,I’d noticed one or two… that was all. The city had gone to sleep here, every window dark but hers. It made the rectangle of light that much more prominent: an intimate glimpse into her life, like a door left open by mistake. Eden was watching a movie with the orange cat, I guess. They hadn’t moved from that spot since she got home. She still wore the button-up shirt and blue jeans I had seen her in at the cafe. A neat, simple uniform that did a shit job of hiding how her body filled it out.
That shirt had gaped when she leaned over the table this morning. Just a little. Just enough for lace and the pale hint of skin. I’d looked away, like a good man, like a professional. Then I’d caught myself replaying it here six hours later, which said more about the man I actually was.
She hadn’t smiled at me today like I had gotten used to. She didn’t greet me; she didn’t try to make friendly small talk. She hadn’t trusted me today. Not that I could blame her… I killed two men in her name and dropped a burner phone on the table like it was a love letter.
She was scared of me, but she should be. I wanted her to be. That was the easiest way. Fear made people predictable, easier to protect, easier to move around the board. It should not have made her more beautiful, but it did, like every sharp edge of her had finally turned to face me.
I leaned back against the wall and let my eyes close, not to sleep but to drift. It was the kind of micro-rest I taught myself overseas, where a twitch too long meant you died in your sleep.
I opened my eyes the moment the light shifted in her window. Even behind my lids, I caught the nuanced change. I had been conditioned for that too. When I was being trained as a sniper, I would have to find a match taped to a brick building through my scope. They would plant something at an impossible distance… and we would find it every time.
Her silhouette moved across the room. She was acting casual and unbothered. That was a lie, though – I could see the hesitation in her fingers. She started unbuttoning her shirt, and I bit the inside of my cheek. Each button slipped free with the slow, practiced care of someone defusing a bomb. It killed me that the thing she was dismantling was my focus. I felt it in the base of my spine: that first curl of heat, low and unwanted, like a match struck too close to dry leaves.
