Chapter 8 Halo
Chapter eight
Halo
“In the Grey”
I knew better than to linger in grey areas.
That’s where mistakes lived, where hesitation peeled open a weakness, and where emotions got you killed.
This girl lived in the grey, though. She wore softness like armor, unaware that the world could eat her alive.
I wasn’t sure how it hadn’t yet. Every time I saw her, I was more and more surprised that she’d managed to survive this long.
It made me wonder what sharp edges she hid under all of that kindness.
What protected her from all of the hurt?
I found myself parked across from her café longer than I needed to be. I memorized the way she pushed her sleeve up when she poured coffee, how she smiled when someone used her name. She was beautiful in the boring ways that most people overlook.
And then before I realized I had crossed the street, I was the goddamn fool sitting in the corner of her cafe, pretending I still knew what I was doing.
I cupped one of her lattes between my calloused palms. A plate with blueberry muffin crumbs sat off to the side.
I picked pieces of the berries out of my teeth with my tongue, keeping an eye on everyone who walked in and out of the cafe, but mostly I kept an eye on her.
She caught me watching her, maybe not directly, but enough that her eyes skimmed over mine and paused. She approached, and I looked away, jaw tight, hands flat on the table.
“You need anything else? Another muffin?”
“I’m good, thank you,” I responded, keeping my eyes on the cup in front of me.
I felt her standing there a second longer than she had to, like she was about to say something and thought better of it.
Maybe she wanted to sit down, but instead, she walked away and I could breathe again.
Every time she came up to me, she took the oxygen right out of my atmosphere.
She disappeared into the back and I took it as my opportunity to leave.
I tossed a twenty-dollar bill on the table and headed out the door.
I couldn’t do this, and I was wasting time pretending that I could. As though he could sense it too, Matteo called. I looked down at the burner phone in my hand, rubbing a frustrated palm over my face before I put it up to my ear.
“What?” I snapped.
“Halo, you’ve had time. She’s still breathing. What are you doing out there? Sightseeing?”
“I’m… being careful. This girl doesn’t go anywhere; she doesn’t do anything. Just waiting for the right opportunity.”
“You’re not going soft on me after all these years are you? You’ve always delivered faster than anyone else.”
“Nah. Just logistics on this one. She isn’t some guy I can kill and make it look gang or drug related.”
“What are you thinking then? Do you have a plan?”
“Going to fake a robbery. Kill her in the shop.”
There wasn’t fear in me when I said the words; there was nausea.
“Listen. I like working with you. If this just isn’t in your wheelhouse, I have about five other guys that would jump at the chance for easy money like this.”
“I’ve got it,” I bit out the words.
“Alright. I’ll check back in, but your time is up. If someone beats you to the punch, I can’t help that.”
The call ended, and I tucked it back into my pocket.
I didn’t remember getting on my bike or riding back to my apartment.
It was a place I bought in the center of town.
It made for an easy alibi: claiming you were home, setting things up to make it look like you never left most days.
Luckily, I’d never needed one, but I liked to be prepared for the worst.
Eden’s apartment was half the size of this one – a shithole, if I was being honest: peeling wallpaper in the hallways that probably contained more lead than was legal.
But inside her apartment, the world shifted.
She’d made it feel like a home. I knew this because I’d installed hidden cameras in her apartment last night.
They gave me an isolated view of her world and her life.
One feed faced her couch and the front door behind it. Another pointed towards the kitchen.
I sat on my mattress, flipping on the CCTV feed from her apartment on my laptop, and I waited.
Nothing stirred, other than the occasional motion of the cat.
She seemed to keep the animal at her apartment half of the time, and at the cafe for the other half.
Eden came home late, took off her shoes at the door, and fed the cat.
She turned on music that barely reached my mic feed. Jazz, maybe. Something slow.
Then she danced alone. Spinning in the middle of her kitchen, barefoot and smiling like she’d just remembered she was alive.
She smiled alone, for no one but herself.
I leaned in, something cold and sharp twisting in my chest. It wasn’t the smile itself; it was what it meant.
People didn’t smile like that unless they still believed in something, unless they loved themselves, and still had the notion that tomorrow was always a better day.
This innocence was what made her so dangerous for me. I knew I had already fucked up. This wasn’t mercy or attraction… it was something deeper. The moment I spared her, I doomed us both. This obsession was a rot that would spread through me and inevitably infect her, if I wasn’t careful.
I moved from the bed to a chair, setting the laptop on the table. In the darkness of the room, I sat and watched her.
She was an anomaly I couldn’t understand.
I wanted to understand how her mind worked, how this black world hadn’t tarnished her in some way.
I watched her dance, pressing my fingers against my temple like I could squeeze the thoughts – of stabbing her to death, firing a bullet into her brain, taking this life – out of my skull.
She danced until she was yawning, swaying on her feet like she was drunk. She curled up on the couch under a blanket that didn’t match anything else in her apartment. She fell asleep with her head on the arm of the couch. I noticed how she often chose the couch over the bed, and I wondered why.
I slept in the chair that night with my gun on my lap.
I dreamed about her for the first time.
I woke up sick to my stomach.