19 Seven
I couldn't breathe.
I knew it even as I dreamed—the sensation was so strong I could've choked on it. Something held me down. My body fought, but there was only the heat. All the old training kicked in, the counting, the slow rationing of breath, but it didn't matter. The heat pressed in, burning my eyes and lungs.
There was a young woman on the other side. Pale, skinny hands, long dark hair. She waited behind a glass wall, holding out something to me—a small figurine, the kind you buy at drugstores, cheap resin painted gold. The figurine had wings. Angel wings. She pressed her face to the glass, lips moving.
I heard her voice, soft and quiet. "It'll be okay, Mi—"
And then it cut off, and the wings shuddered in her grip.
I reached for the figure, but the glass grew a second layer, then a third, until she was distorted—just a blur of flesh, and no matter how hard I tried to see her face, I couldn't.
The darkness behind her shifted, became fire. The woman's hair caught flame. For a second, I was certain her voice would break through. It never did. The flames roared, devouring the resin, melting the wings into a single black smear.
I kicked at the glass. It shattered. Shards opened my palms, hot blood spilling from the wounds. The world flipped—down was up, up was down. I surfaced into a room filled with screaming.
My own.
I snapped awake, shooting up from the thin pillow and swinging my legs over the edge of the bed. My elbows were on my knees. It was still night. My pulse jackhammered. The nightmare, so vivid, clung to my skin, ten times worse than the usual breed.
I sat there for a while, staring at the floor, and trying to erase the visual, but the taste of the dream lingered—smoke, salt, wood, paint, blood.
Every part of me felt wired to the point of collapse.
I forced myself up, paced the room, then peeled the damn sheet from the bed, bunched it up, and threw it against the wall. For a long minute, I stood in my shorts in the cold, letting the sweat freeze me down.
I caught my reflection in the mirror over the bathroom sink when I went there to wash my face.
And even though I was in good physical shape, the silhouette in the glass looked like a skeleton in training.
Hollowed out. The canvas of ink on my pec ached.
A nagging feeling. I traced the line of my burn scar above the waistband with my index finger, half-expecting it to hurt.
It didn't. But it nagged just like my tattoo.
I didn't remember the young woman. Or the real angel.
Or even what it was supposed to mean. I just knew there were fragments of my life, perhaps distorted, before Father.
But I thought that if I had the wings with me at all times, one day my memories would come back, even though I wasn't sure I wanted it.
The nightmares always left me with a strange feeling of being empty and lost. Each time after waking up, I had this nagging sensation that something was missing.
I turned on the tap and splashed my face, then braced both hands on the edge of the sink and tried to calm down my breathing.
A beep from the earpiece back in the room broke the silence. Three rapid blips, just below hearing if you didn't know to listen for it.
I wiped the water from my face with a towel, and with it, whatever feeling still lingered. I couldn't afford to think about things that didn't matter too much. They skewed my focus. Then I walked back to the bed and grabbed the device from the crate. I jammed the earpiece in. "Operative Seven."
Viper's voice hit at once. "Glad you're awake, boss."
"I'm here. Go."
"I've got something weird. Thought you'd want to know before you started your day." He cleared his throat. "The client may not be delusional after all."
"Explain."
"Our first target has hired a PI right after he was released on bail. He's also in touch with target two. Which is shady since the two of them haven't been in contact these past twelve months. I also picked up chatter on the dark web. Someone's trying to dig up info on the client. Dirt and all."
The feeling in my gut changed, became hunger. "Target three is either aware of what's going on or will be aware soon," I said out loud.
"Sounds about right. These assholes could be catching on. Or at least the first two since they haven't made contact with the last target yet according to my records."
"And the PI?"
"I pulled all the security footage of the client I could.
Someone is definitely following her. I haven't been able to verify his identity yet.
This guy is almost as good at avoiding cameras as you.
I need more time." Viper paused. "It's getting messy fast, boss.
You need to be careful. Last target won't be easy to crack. He has connections and resources."
"Copy," I said. "Keep following whomever is following the client. I want to know who he is."
"You got it, boss."
"Any bugs on her phone?"
"Someone did try to remotely hack it, but it was a failed attempt. I don't think we should be concerned about it. She's got the burner anyway to talk to us if needed."
"Okay."
"What are you going to do?"
"My job," I replied and ended the call.
By dawn, I was on the roof of the building across the street from the client's apartment.
The rooftop was flat and graveled, dotted with HVAC units that whined and stank.
The city stretched in every direction, lights flicking on one by one, until the horizon was nothing but a grid of possible outcomes.
I sat cross-legged next to a ventilation duct, black windbreaker zipped to the jaw, binoculars glued to my face. My earpiece squatted in my left ear.
I had a direct line of sight into the client's apartment.
Kimberly Holt's life unfolded in a series of small, predictable movements.
At 7 AM, she woke up. The lights spilled first from behind the curtains of the bedroom window, then from the living room. The curtains were pushed open in twenty minutes. Lights went out. She headed to the kitchen, securing her hair into a ponytail with a beige scrunchie.
She made herself coffee and walked the perimeter of the apartment with the mug in her grip, slowly sipping on the drink.
Then she pulled out a pastry from the fridge, popped it in the microwave for ten seconds, plated it, and went to her work desk.
There, she opened her laptop and munched on whatever it was she considered breakfast.
She worked for a while, fingers flying over the keys, posture rigid.
Occasionally, she would take a call. She wore an oversized T-shirt and sweatpants.
Her slippers were the fluffy pink kind. When she took a break, it was always the same.
A bottle of water from the fridge and a single pass through the living room.
She double-checked the locks on the door and glanced out into the street.
Once, she stopped and stared at a photo on the wall. I tried to see her face, but the angle was wrong. All I saw was her grabbing the end of her ponytail and twisting it around her index finger.
Around 1 PM, she started making lunch. Chopped vegetables, sautéed something in a middle-sized pan, wiped down the counters after every step. I watched her mouth as she counted out the slices, lips moving in a silent arithmetic.
She ate at the bar, scrolling her phone with one hand and giggling at something. Every few minutes she'd freeze, glance at the window, and scan the street. I knew the signs. She was spooked. Hyper-vigilant, maybe, but not irrational. I catalogued the details anyway, filing each one for later.
What was she laughing at?
Memes?
Ask Viper to hack her phone and socials.
I shook off the thought.
Who the fuck cared?
After lunch, she watered her only plant and returned to her laptop.
Around 3 PM, she went to the kitchen and grabbed something from the cabinet.
I had to look very carefully to be able to deduce what it was in a blue pack.
It was one of those organic dark chocolate-covered coconut sweets you'd see in the aisle of Whole Foods or Erewhon.
Her face was suddenly different as she bit into the candy. It went from plain to animated. Same way it changed when she giggled looking at something on her phone.
I wondered if sweets changed a person that much. That made me hungry, and I realized I hadn't had anything since I left the compound. From my backpack, I pulled out a chicken wrap. I'd always bring something with me on a stakeout since I never knew how long the task would last.
The day continued on.
There was nothing interesting going on objectively speaking, but I found myself stupidly fascinated by watching her.
I imagined a day of a twenty-six-year-old woman would be all silly content creation, outfit trying, and chatting on the phone with girlfriends.
But the client's day was quite boring. And the fact that I had to witness something ordinary made me strangely warm on the inside.
So that's how normal people lived…
After dinner, she paced the apartment again. Ten laps, twelve. I lost count. She didn't pick up the TV remote, didn't even look at it. Just walked the circles, hands jammed into the pockets of her hoodie she put on at some point.
She did some home chores for about an hour, then sat cross-legged on the couch, staring at her iPad. She looked like she was reading.
I shifted position for the hundredth time today, letting the gravel grind under my boots. The cold was setting in, but I didn't feel it. My body was running too hot for some reason. I kept the binoculars on her, waiting for the moment when she'd do something unexpected.
She never did.
By 10 PM, she turned off the lights. For a while, the apartment was just darkness and shadows, then I saw the curtains pulled shut in both rooms.
I kept watching.
Maybe it was the dream, or maybe it was the way she moved through the world—as if every second was a test she might fail. Whatever it was, I found myself reviewing her routine in my head again and again, looking for a pattern that maybe didn't exist.
Thirty minutes later, the curtain in her bedroom was drawn aside a little. She reappeared by the window and scanned the street.
She didn't move for a long time. Just stood there, face pensive, hair streaming down her shoulders.
Then, without warning, she looked up. Her eyes fixed on the glass, on her own reflection, but for a moment it felt like she was staring straight at me. I knew that was impossible. She couldn't see me from her vantage point, but I lowered the binoculars anyway.
I watched the window as the curtain hid the interior of the bedroom.
I thought about the protocol—the necessary wall between an operative and a client. Lines were drawn for a reason. But the longer I watched her, the less the line mattered.
This wasn't a regular job anymore.
It was something I couldn't name. Because I'd spent my entire day here, watching her without a valid justification.
Viper could always pull the footage from the nearby businesses and surrounding streets to find the person following her.
Besides, if she spent her entire day inside the apartment, the chances of spotting someone tracking her movements were extremely low.
I didn't need to be here. Didn't need to make sure she was safe.
Still, I'd come.
And it frustrated and irritated the hell out of me.