Chapter 21 Eden
Chapter twenty-one
Eden
“Erasure”
Everyone has had to clean a little blood out of their carpet, a little stubborn stain off the tile… but I’d never seen anything like this before. The apartment felt haunted, and I wondered if I’d ever be able to feel the same in this room again.
I had changed into pajamas, the only matching set I could find, but nothing felt good against my skin.
Even the soft cotton pants and oversized shirt offered me no comfort.
My hands were still shaking, my ears still ringing with the sound of Halo’s fists hitting Parrish’s face: the crack of bone, the wet rhythm of violence.
And now there was a stranger in my kitchen, humming to himself as he put on gloves.
“Kade,” Halo had said, almost too quietly, as if summoning either a demon or a saint — I wasn’t sure which. “He’ll handle everything.”
Kade didn’t look like someone who handled everything.
He looked like either a very tired skateboarder or an off-duty barista.
He was all curly hair under a beanie, earbuds in, mismatched socks peeking out above his high-top shoes, the scent of mint gum and cleaning solution trailing behind him like a weird little cloud.
He gave me a friendly nod when I came out of my room.
“Hey,” he said, too cheerfully. “You must be Eden. Sorry for the mess. You want like… a piece of candy or something? I’ve got peppermint. Butterscotch, if you’re more of an old-soul candy type.”
“Do you… normally bring candy to crime scenes?”
He shrugged. “You’d be surprised how often people need sweets after something like this.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I settled down on the arm of the couch and watched as he got to work in my bedroom. He pulled out a bottle of industrial cleaner and started a playlist that did not match the tone of the room. I couldn’t make out exactly what it was, but it was very upbeat.
“What exactly is your job?” I asked as he knelt beside the streaks of blood.
“I’m a certified problem eraser,” he said, flashing a charmingly crooked grin, “specializing in biohazard remediation, trauma cleanup, and disposing of the occasional… inconvenience. Very delicate work.”
He said it like he was explaining a cookie recipe.
“You’re enjoying this,” I said.
“Oh, I don’t enjoy why I’m here, but I do enjoy a good before-and-after. You know, like those rug-cleaning videos with the pressure washers. I fucking love those rug-cleaning videos.” He paused, lifting a blood-soaked towel between gloved fingers. “Yeesh. He really went to town, huh?”
I glanced at Halo. He had been so quiet that I almost forgot he was still here.
He stood near the window, wearing the clothes Kade had brought: plain grey joggers and a black t-shirt.
His own were gone, already sealed in a heavy-duty trash bag, tagged and stored for disposal like evidence that couldn’t be allowed to exist. He looked clean now, but not calm.
He hadn’t spoken much since it happened.
As the smell of bleach started to overpower the metallic tang of blood, I watched Halo watch me.
There was something raw in him now. Like killing Parrish hadn’t released the pressure, but instead it had just redirected it.
Kade glanced between the two of us and wisely turned up his music.
Only an hour later, the apartment was… neutral. No more blood, no more broken glass. Even the dent in the wall had been spackled. It wasn’t any cleaner than it had been before; it was exactly how it had been before.
Kade stripped off his gloves, stretched, and Halo shook his extended hand.
“Your girl’s place is clean… but you owe me, man.”
“I know,” Halo said.
Kade turned to me and smiled again, softer this time. “Hey, if you ever want to repaint in here, maybe throw in a few plants… You know, get rid of the murder vibe? I know a guy.”
I couldn’t help it, I laughed. Just once, sharp and short and slightly hysterical, but it felt good to laugh. Even just a little.
“Thanks,” I said, “I think.”
Kade gave a little salute and wandered out like he hadn’t just erased a murder. When the door clicked shut behind him, silence fell again.
Halo didn’t move.
“Will you stay?” I asked, barely able to bring my voice above a whisper.
He just looked at me for what felt like forever. “I’ll be on the roof. If anything happens, I will be right here.”
“No… I mean, will you stay here?”
He shook his head. “No.”
I sighed and put my head down, closing my eyes tightly. The thought of being here alone made me sick.
“Can we just go to your apartment?”
“No.”
“I can’t stay here by myself, Halo. I’m really…” I didn’t want to say scared, but maybe that’s exactly what it was. Shaken up? Traumatized?
“I can’t keep you safe if I stay here,” he explained. “I can’t afford to be distracted or complacent.”
I crossed the room slowly, and his eyes never left my face. His hands were still raw, bruised, and swelling.
“I trust you,” I said.
“I don’t trust myself.” His voice was so quiet I almost missed it.
“Please.”
His resolve softened, but only mildly.
“Okay. Tomorrow, we have to go… I can’t let them try to come after you again. I’m going to go after them.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
My stomach sank, but I didn’t argue, I just crossed the living area into my bedroom.
I stopped in the doorway for several minutes, staring at the clean room.
Regret was hiding somewhere; he had run for cover the minute the scuffle started.
I knew he’d come out soon, but I wished he would do it now, so I could tell him goodbye.
“I’m sorry,” Halo said from behind me.
“For what?” I asked, eyes stinging as I settled on my bed and threw the covers over my body. “Saving my life?”
“For ruining this place for you.”
I watched as he settled into the corner, leaning there with his arms crossed. He looked like a different person in those clothes, like someone who actually knew how to relax.
“You can sleep by me,” I said. “There’s an extra pillow.”
He stiffened, bristling as though I’d suggested something worse than murder.
I frowned at him. “I’m not going to be able to sleep with you just staring at me all night. I’ll feel better if I know you’re here.”
He hesitated like his own limbs didn’t belong to him, like each step he took toward the bed was a decision he’d regret, but he did move over to the other side.
When he lay down beside me, I could feel him bring an aura of tension.
Not because I thought he’d hurt me, but because I knew how tightly wound he was.
All that violence still simmering just under his skin, like something he was struggling to hold down with both hands.
His back was stiff, his body completely still, as if even breathing too deeply might set something off.
I let the silence stretch between us, thick and strange and oddly comforting.
We lay back to back for several minutes before I reached back with my foot, brushing his calf with my toes.
He didn’t resist or pull away. To my surprise, he slowly rolled over, and his hand found the curve of my waist. Warm, steady.
Not possessive or suggestive… just there like an anchor.
I exhaled slowly, and then I felt something unmistakably solid pressed against me.
Oh.
I bit my lip, trying not to smile.
“You really brought your gun to bed?” I asked, keeping my voice dry and innocent.
“No,” he said, and I could hear the grit in his voice as he snapped out each word, “I did not bring my gun to bed.”
I clamped my hand over my mouth to stop the laugh, but it still escaped: soft and uncontrollable and completely real. My whole body shook with it.
Halo groaned behind me, and not in a pleased way. “Jesus.”
“Sorry,” I whispered, still laughing. “It’s just... it’s been a long night. If I don’t laugh, I’ll cry.”
“Yeah,” he muttered, his hand flexing slightly against my waist. “And now you’re laughing at me with a hard-on and PTSD.”
That only made me laugh harder.
“Careful. Safety’s off…” he grumbled.
“Did you just make a joke?” I asked, on the verge of tears with laughter.
He was quiet for a long moment after that, and I was kind of worried I’d pushed too far, but then I felt the slow rise and fall of his chest, the tension bleeding out of his body, and the unmistakable sound of him exhaling a little chuff that wasn’t quite a laugh, but close.
It felt like a small miracle.
“Can I ask you something?” I said, voice quieter now, the laughter still warm in my chest but fading into something else.
His voice was warm against the back of my neck. “You can always ask. Doesn’t mean I’ll answer.”
I smiled despite myself. “Where did ‘Halo’ come from? That’s not your real name, is it?”
He was quiet for a long moment. I thought maybe he hadn’t heard me, but then he sighed reluctantly.
“Back when I was still wearing a uniform,” he said, voice low, “they had a name for me. A lot of us had code names. Mine was an acronym. HALO: Hostile Acquisition and Lethal Operations. Black bag shit. The kind they’d deny in front of Congress, even if my body was still cooling at their feet. ”
“So it wasn’t about… you know, halos. Angels.”
A dry sound escaped him, a half-laugh with no real humor in it.
“No. Nothing holy about it. It meant I was the one they dropped in when they needed someone to disappear or if they needed someone brought in. No records, no medals, no trace. Quiet, efficient, off the record. I got in, got out. Took care of things. Usually clean… not like tonight.”
“What happened tonight?”
“Emotions. They’ll get you killed, make you sloppy.”
I didn’t want to push that, as much as I did want to know what he meant. Instead I moved the conversation on: “So, like a Navy SEAL?”
“Deeper.”
“Delta?” I hoped he was impressed that I even knew what that was. I saw it in a movie once and, honestly, I wasn’t even sure if it was real.
He huffed what might have been another laugh. “Deeper.”
“And you kept it? The name?”
“Seemed fitting. When I left that world behind, everything else went with it. My name, my file, my country… but that stuck. It got me into doors… or out of them.”
The thought chilled me, how easy he made it sound. Like erasing himself had become a survival tactic.
“Do you miss the name you had before?”
That made him pause.
“I don’t think about it much,” he said, but then added, “but… sometimes. It feels like it belonged to someone I killed a long time ago.”
I didn’t say anything right away. I wasn’t sure what to say.
“My name was Zayn,” he said quietly.
I said it out loud, testing it. “Zayn.”
He flinched a little, like hearing it aloud hurt.
“No one’s called me that in a long time.”
“I like it.”
The steel in his voice returned. “Don’t get used to it.”
I smiled but didn’t push it. I wasn’t sure when sleep finally found me, but I remember the moment I stopped shaking.
I remember the way his fingers pressed gently into the dip of my waist like a tether.
It was a quiet promise that he was still there and that he wasn’t going to vanish like the blood, or the body, or the name he'd buried.