“We should go.”
I didn’t remember checking out at the counter. I assumed Halo paid with cash. It was like I blinked, and we were back at the motel. I stared at the door to the room like I was walking into my own tomb. He carried the bags inside, without asking, and put them on the table. I noticed he’d quietly taken the shampoo and put it on the bathroom sink like nothing had happened. He acted like we hadn’t had a brush with something sharp and unspoken in that store.
When I went to sit down on the bed, I realized my hands were shaking.
“Do you want me to leave you alone?” he asked.
I wanted to say yes, but I also wanted to say no. I wanted to ask if it ever scared him, what he was capable of. I wanted to ask how he could still look in the mirror.
What came out instead was, “Can you just sit here? Just… not talk. Just be here.”
He nodded once. “Yeah. I can do that.”
And he did. He sat on the edge of the bed beside me, elbows on his knees, head bowed. He stayed there for a long time, silent and still. I watched him, this man who could destroy someone with his bare hands but who now sat with those very hands held carefully between his knees.
I woke up later that night because I couldn’t breathe. It wasn’t really a panic attack. It was just… pressure in my chest, in my head. Like something was sitting on top of me. The motel room was dark, except for the dull orange glow from the streetlamp bleeding through the curtain. It lit the room in slices, cutting across the carpet like a series of wounds.
I looked across the room to where Halo was asleep in the chair, or pretending to be. He hadn’t said much after the store, hadn’t looked at me the way he usually did. No teasing remark, no quiet questions, no checking in every fifteen minutes to make sure I was still breathing. He was giving me space, the one thing I didn’t know how to fill. He didn’t try to sleep in the bed with me, which I was thankful for. I didn’t know if I could handle it right now.
I got up quietly, my feet hitting the cold tile in the bathroom. The faucet squeaked like it was protesting the silence, and I splashed cold water on my face.
I had seen a man die. Not in the distant way we talk about war or crime or stories on the news. I had seenhiseyes. I had watched someone’s last breath hitch and spatter against Halo’s jacket. It wasn’t the same as seeing him beat the cop to death inmy apartment, although that had stunned me too. That felt so different. He was directly defending me.
Halo didn’t flinch when he killed that guy today. Not even once. That was the part that kept looping in my mind. Not the violence, but theease. No rage, just necessity, precision. A kind of detachment.
I slid to the floor of the bathroom, knees against my chest and I buried my face in my arms.
Eventually I heard movement behind the door. His soft steps halted at the door, but he didn’t knock. I heard him lean against the frame, quiet and hesitant.
“You okay?”
“I think…” I said slowly.
“Can I open the door?”
“Okay.”
He opened the door but stayed a shadow in the doorway.
“You should go back to sleep,” I whispered.
“I don’t want you to be afraid of me.”
“I’m not,” I lied.
He nodded like he heard the truth under the lie. He moved slowly, sliding down onto the floor across from me. We sat in silence. My heart was beating like a warning bell in my chest, but I didn’t move. He didn’t either. After a long moment, he spoke again.
“The first person I killed was my own father. I didn’t sleep for three nights. I watched the hallways, thinking someone would come for me. I was sixteen.”
I looked at him, but he still wasn’t looking at me.
“He was a piece of shit. He used to fight with our mom. Real knock-down, drag-out fights. She always fought back. I would go into my sister’s room and put her headphones on her and sneak her a snack, then I’d tuck her into bed and shut the door. Sometimes dad beat me too… but I didn’t ever want him totouch my sister. She wasfiery. She still is. When mom died, she became the next victim. I couldn’t have it. My sister would have never backed down. We put sleeping pills in his booze, then we set the house on fire. I’m not ashamed of killing him.”
“Do you feel shame now?” I asked softly.
“Only when you look at me like that.”
“I don’t know how else to look at you.”
