“What about you and Havoc?”
He barked a short laugh that was humorless as he looked off into the trees. “Me and Havoc,” he echoed quietly. “That’s different.”
“How?” I raised my eyebrows, trying to call his bluff.
“It’s a knife. It ain’t soft, it cuts going in and coming out… but we’re too damn stubborn to stop crawling back to each other. It’s a mutual destruction. Love with people like us isn’t poetry, or a movie ending with a house full of kids and a sunset behind the credits… It’s a chokehold, sweetheart. It’s a warzone. You’re on the movie set, but you’re about to walk into the minefield.”
“I don’t care.”
“That’s what scares me.”
“If he dies,” I said, voice cracking, “I don’t want to be alive without him.”
Ghost stared at me like he was trying not to care, but something in his eyes went dull. Those eyes that had been piercing blades in the dark no longer seemed so threatening.
“I’m not a soldier,” I went on, “I don’t have training or weapons or anything like the rest of you, but I swear to God, Ghost… if you try to stop me, I’ll fight you with everything I have.”
He looked at me for a long time, then glanced up at the sky like he was praying for patience. “Jesus,” he muttered. “You reallyareone of those.”
“What?”
He turned away, muttering to himself. “Havoc’s gonna eat my liver, rip my dick off, use my bones as a windchime…” He paused, then looked over his shoulder at me. “You get caught, you don’t say I helped. Got it?”
My eyes widened. “You mean you’re going to let me go?”
“I mean,” he said, voice sharp, “I’ll give you ten minutes before I tell her you’re gone. After that, you’re on your own.”
I stared at him, gratitude caught in my throat.
He groaned, shoving his hands through his hair. “She’s gonna chew my ass, and Iwon’t get laid for months.”
I smiled then, despite everything.
“I’m serious,” he growled. “You better keep that spine when shit starts falling apart, Eden. Because once you step into that mess… there’s no climbing back out.”
I nodded once, and then I took off into the trees toward whatever was left of the world.
Ghost lit another cigarette and watched me disappear.
“Goddamn it, Halo,” he muttered to the night. “She issoyour type.”
Chapter forty-five
Halo
“No Angels”
Ishould’vebeendeadhours ago. Every heartbeat was a borrowed one. I was bleeding from… somewhere. Maybe the two gunshot wounds had opened back up. The rifle weighed heavy in my arms. It wasn’t just metal anymore; it was every choice that had brought me to this place: a ledger, the weight I’d earned.
Across the dockyard, the meeting was underway. Matteo, smug and slick in his fitted coat, surrounded by his dogs: men with steel in their eyes and blood on their hands. I couldn’t pick them off clean, not from this range, not with that many.
But I didn’t come here to survive; I came here to end this. I could start the fire. I could take out several of them from here, then go down and do the rest close up. I fire once, then again. Two bodies dropped like their souls had been sucked out of their bodies. Panic exploded, the men screamed and scattered, shouts broke out, bullets whined, and I moved. I wasn’t hiding, I wasn’t ducking. I was advancing. I was both numb and overstimulated by feelingeverything.The edge of euphoria sharpened against cold method. It was beautiful, in a way, how pure the worldbecame when death was certain. No choices left, just follow-through.
I had five more men dropped before they even saw me.
Then six.
Seven.
