I look at the pry tool on the ground.
He follows my gaze and makes the error of reaching for it.
I cross the distance between us in one stride and place my boot over the tool before his fingers touch it. The concrete cracks beneath my heel. Not much. Enough.
His hand freezes.
“I will say this once,” I tell them. “You will not touch this door. You will not touch the windows. You will not trouble the woman inside this building. If I smell you near this place again, Iwill take a hand from each of you and nail them to the old transit sign as a public education.”
The drunk one whimpers. The pissing one stumbles backward with his pants half-fastened.
Pry Tool finds enough spine to speak. “You can’t threaten us. Memories run Halo.”
I bend closer until he smells the truth of me. War. Rain. Old blood beneath clean skin. A temper I keep chained because if I do not, people die.
“No,” I say softly. “You loiter in Halo. There is a difference.”
His face drains of color.
Behind us, a window slides open above the bakery.
I still.
For one careless instant, I have forgotten she lives above the shop. A rectangle of warm light spills down the brick wall. Then Evie leans out in a loose sleep shirt and a knitted wrap, blonde hair tumbling messy around her face. Her eyes narrow against the rain.
“Hey!” she calls. “What’s going on down there?”
The three gang youths look up. I do not. I keep my face turned partly away, hood shadowing me again, though it is too late for secrecy.
Pry Tool uses the distraction to bolt.
The other two follow with embarrassing speed, slipping in puddles, shoving one another, and vanishing toward Mercy Street without their tool, bottle, or dignity.
Evie braces both hands on the window frame. “That’s right! Run, you little creeps! Come back when you’ve discovered hobbies that don’t involve property damage!”
I stare at the empty alley.
Her voice drops, though not enough to hide the warmth in it. “Hooded mystery man?”
I should leave.
I do not move.
“Is that you?” she asks.
Rain slides beneath my collar. The rear door carries a fresh scrape where the pry tool bit metal. I pick up the tool, bend it in half with one hand, and drop it into the trash bin.
“Subtle,” she says. “Very normal thing to do to hardware.”
I pull my hood lower.
“Wait,” she says quickly. “Please.”
The word catches me. Not because it commands. Because it asks.
I turn my head just enough to see her from the corner of my eye. Warm light outlines her hair and shoulders. She should look ridiculous leaning out into the rain at midnight to address a stranger in an alley. Instead she looks awake, concerned, and impossibly alive.
“Were they trying to break in?” she asks.
