Halo
“When This is Over”
Sunningwasacitythat never slept. All night and day, it was crawling with people. I didn’t prefer to kill people in the middle of town, so when I set out to follow Brian Tate in the early hours of the morning, I was more than annoyed that he was staying inside city limits. I found him easily, exactly where I expected him to be. He was riding a sportsbike, one that was way too small for him. Judging by the way he killed it at every red light, I was sure he was new to riding. No helmet, arms uncovered, regular sneakers.
I didn’t have to get too creative.
I waited in the parking lot across the street from the sandwich shop he’d just entered. He took his time standing at the deli counter, asking a lot of questions or making a lot of comments. Didn’t matter to me either way; the fucker was enjoying a hoagie for his last meal.
I tried to distract myself from the way Eden had looked when I left, but memory was so unmerciful. It played back like a loop. She hadn’t said goodbye, or asked when I would be back or whatI was doing. I tried to tell myself that it was fair and that I deserved it.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the bullet that I kept there. I turned it over in my hand, running my finger along the name scratched into the casing. My name. I couldn’t remember when I started carrying it; I just know that I kept it in case I needed to get out of a bad situation. Stateside, you would think those situations were less likely to happen… but sometimes homegrown violence was worse than anything I’d witnessed overseas.
Why I had started carrying it in the beginning didn’t matter. All I knew was that when this was all over and Eden was safe and far away from all of this shit… I wasn’t going to have to live with the version of myself that was left without her. I could use it, and there would be no more ache or weight, and more importantly, there would be no temptation for me to knock on her door and pull her back into this world. I thought about what it would feel like to finally use it. Just a little pressure, a little light, then nothing. Clean, final, honest.
Brian left the sandwich shop empty-handed, cussing into the wind as he got back onto his bike.
“Suit yourself,” I muttered.
I slid the bullet back into my pocket and turned the key in the ignition. He didn’t know I was following him, even when I made all the same turns. I was hoping he’d notice, try to go down some weird alley or side street, or try to get out of town… somewhere it would be easier to take him out. Brian Tate was completely oblivious, though.
He was driving too fast to be inexperienced and unprotected on the damp roads. I’d been all over these highways, and there were potholes and rogue gravel everywhere. He might kill himself before I ever had to. He turned down a familiar street, and I perked up: the dockyard entrance.
I watched the bike slow, the rider glancing back once before committing to the turn. As he descended the hill to the empty dockyard, I gunned the gas.
The impact was brutal. Metal screamed as the motorcycle snapped sideways with a crunch of steel and bone. Brian hit the hood of my car with a sickening thud before rolling off, disappearing beneath the chassis with a clatter that echoed across the bay.
I slammed the brakes, getting out of the car as quickly as I could. No one was around. Whoever he was meeting here hadn’t shown up yet. The world held still for me yet again.
Steam hissed from the broken radiator where the bike lay mangled like another corpse. Brian was alive, but barely. He was coughing blood, trying to crawl, one leg twisted beneath him like a snapped tree limb, eyes wide with panic.
I stood over him as he crawled, screaming into the empty yard. I didn’t linger long, withdrawing the pistol and sending a single shot through the back of his skull. He slumped to the gravel, curling in on himself in the throes of death.
One shot. Clean? Not really, but satisfying.
I stood over what was left of Brian Tate for a long time. The gravel beneath my boots was soaked in the blood bubbling from the ragged hole at the back of his skull. There was no thrill, no rush. Purely transactional.
I turned away from the body, walking back toward the car, trying not to look at the blood smeared across the hood or the crack in the windshield from where his helmetless skull had bounced off it like a rock. I didn’t bother dragging him into the bay. He was always meant to be found; they all were, because this was a message.
Chapter thirty-nine
Eden
“Dead Man Walking"
Ididn’tthinkI’dever really been down like this before. Sad? Yeah, I remembered when my parents passed away, I had this hollow ache in my chest for years. I still missed them. I had cried over a movie or sad song on the radio. Who hadn’t? But this emotion that was swallowing me was something I had never experienced before. It was a soul-deep helplessness that I couldn’t overcome. Halo had been gone maybe ten minutes. He was going to kill the last guy on the list before Matteo and his inner circle… and I knew he would succeed. He never failed. We were one step closer to him disappearing, and there was nothing I could do about it. There was only the unbearable weight of knowing that everything we had shared would be over. It would be like he never existed, a secret I had to keep for the rest of my life.
There was a knock on the door and I jumped to my feet too eagerly. Had he forgotten something? Was he coming back because he had a change of heart? Both of those were equally unlikely, but I jerked the door open anyway. Hope truly does make fools of us all.
The man from the snack machine was standing outside the door, leaning on the door facing expectantly. His grin was oily, smug, and it turned my stomach before I even registered the two men standing behind him. Both of them were built like concrete walls.
“Well, hello, sweetie,” he said with a grin. “So good to see you again.”
I tried to slam the door as panic seized me, but one of the big guys caught it with his thick hand, shoving it so hard that it slammed into my shoulder and knocked me off balance. They were in and after me the next instant.
I scrambled across the carpet, my knee hitting the corner of the nightstand hard enough to numb my whole leg. The bathroom was the only thought in my head, some illusion of safety… until I saw the knife. The one we used the night before, still lying there on the floor where Halo had thrown it after I cut him.
I dove for it, my hand closing around the handle just as fingers brushed my ankle. I spun and slashed. The knife sliced through the small man’s arm with a sickening give of flesh.
