The outside air hit my face as I stepped onto the sidewalk, crisp and bright, carrying the distant sound of traffic and someone cursing at a bus that didn’t stop. The sun sat low over the buildings, sliding light across brick and cracked glass.
I turned left instead of right.
I didn’t know what the day would bring. Maybe nothing. Maybe trouble. All I knew was that for once, I wanted to be the one throwing the match.
Let someone else sweat in the dark for a change.
Less than twenty minutes later, I had made it to the community center. Cutting through the side streets and ducking around the bakery got me clear of the route I knew he waswatching, if he evenwaswatching. It felt like something between petty and brave, but either way, I’d committed: I had skipped the café. Now, instead of pouring espresso shots and faking smiles, I was sitting in a plastic chair in a drafty rec center, surrounded by strangers with paint on their sleeves and wine in their plastic cups. The community painting class was barely half full, consisting of mostly a few older women, one couple, and one guy who looked like he regretted showing up. No one looked like they wanted to kill me, so that was a start.
I let out a long breath as I dipped my brush into a blob of dark blue. It felt stupidly indulgent, childish even, like I was playing hooky from school.
We were told to paint whatever we wanted.
“A still life,” the instructor said, “a memory. A shape you like. Let your hands do what they want.”
I stared at my canvas for a long time before I started. Eventually, I settled on a vase because apparently I am a basic bitch. I painted it tall and thin, with a narrow neck and a small mouth, and flowers that looked like they’d been sneezed onto the canvas by a toddler.
It was awful. Not in a modern art kind of way, but likeactualshit. The proportions were off, the color muddy. The flowers looked more like bruises than petals. I pursed my lips together as I looked at it, trying to keep from laughing. I pinched the flesh of my finger between my front teeth while I giggled quietly at howatrociousthis was.
I caught myself scanning the windows by the end of the class. No one in the doorway, no shadow in the glass, no black sedan humming low outside like a threat. Something else wasn’t there, though: Halo. Maybe he didn’t want to put forth the effort to follow me, leaving me to my own devices. Maybe I wasn’t worth keeping track of anymore. That thought did something weird to my stomach. Disappointment.
The instructor called time.
Everyone clapped politely, even though none of us had created anything worth clapping for. I wiped my hands on the towel they'd given me, smiled at the woman beside me who had painted a suspiciously good portrait of a dog, and quietly gathered my things. I shoved my brushes into the communal soaking cup and walked out with the others into the empty hallway.
I made it halfway to the exit before I stopped, stomping my feet as I scolded myself, “Shit, Eden.”
I forgot the painting: the one I hated, the one that looked like sadness in a vase. But it wasmine, and I wanted it. Or maybe I just didn’t want anyone else to see it.
So I turned and started back down the hallway. The rec center was almost completely quiet now, my footsteps making little echoes in the hallway, creating a kind of almost-silence that had texture to it.
I padded past the bathrooms, past the vending machine that still made a buzzing sound that hadn’t stopped all morning, and reached the classroom door.
The door was locked.
“Shit,” I whispered, tugging on the cold metal handle. My painting was still sitting on the easel, crooked and forgotten. Just wasn’t meant to be I guess.
I stared longingly at the painting for a moment longer and then resigned to heading back down the hallway.
Chapter sixteen
Halo
“Deviation”
Shedidn’tgotothe café. I’d watched her apartment door like a goddamn hawk all morning. From the first peek of light, I was on high alert. I was antsy. The moment the door from the apartment complex cracked open, I leaned forward, breath held. She stepped out: coffee in hand, cardigan draped casually over that body she dressed like bait.
This girl had taken the exact same path every day; she had never deviated, she never missed work, she was never late. The route today?
Wrong.
Off.
She didn’t walk down the sidewalk toward 3rd. She turned left.Left.She disappeared between the buildings. Just like that. No hesitation, no backward glance, no more fucking routine. My fist clenched around the binoculars. I wasn’t expecting movement this early. I had been watching all night because I couldn’t sleep. After that phone call, I hadn’t been able to think about anything else.
She was playing with me last night, and she was doing it again this morning by trying to throw me off. She was toying with the line between defiance and danger like she didn’t even care what would happen if she crossed it. Like shewantedto see what I’d do. How could she not understand that I was not the only monster looking for her?
I checked my burner. No texts, no calls. Her phone was on, though; I’d pinged it twice to confirm. She just wasn’t using it. She was ignoring me.
