Al lowers his voice. “I’m not telling you to let it go.”
“I could not if I wanted to.”
“I know. I’m telling you to see her first. Look with your eyes before you start making corpses with your hands.”
I close my fists. “I did not kill them last time.”
“No. You didn’t.”
“That was a mistake.”
“Maybe.” Al’s face tightens with something grim and old. “Maybe not. I ain’t got clean enough hands to preach mercy at you. But I know this. If that girl wanted a monster, she wouldn’t keep feeding the man.”
My throat tightens in a way that makes anger easier to hold than the alternative.
“I am not her man.”
Al snorts. “Yeah, and I’m a virgin priest.”
I turn away.
He calls after me, “Kauss.”
I pause without looking back.
“Don’t make her afraid to be grateful.”
The words follow me into the access tunnel and stay there like hooks.
I climb toward the street with too much speed, the ladder protesting under my weight. The upper grate opens into an alley three blocks from the bakery. Rain has returned, fine and cold, silvering the air beneath the streetlamps. The city above is all dirty light and wet pavement, hover engines murmuring in the distance, voices ducking behind locked doors as evening settles over Halo.
I move fast.
People see me and get out of the way. A vendor folding his awning stops with both hands in the air as if surrendering to an occupying army. Two teenagers near the pawn shop vanish around the corner at a sprint. A patrol drone swivels toward me, decides not to interfere, and hums away with bureaucratic wisdom.
Good.
Let the city move aside.
As I near Lark and Mercy, the smell reaches me first.
Broken glass has a scent. So does spilled coffee, ruptured power cells, splintered furniture, fear-sweat, and pastry crushed under boots. Sweet Tooth’s warm sugar usually pushes through the rot of Halo like a small rebellion. Tonight, that sweetness is buried beneath ozone, wet plaster, and the ugly metallic tang of violence.
The blue tooth sign still flickers above the door, but one half of it hangs crooked, buzzing in the rain.
My vision narrows.
The front window is cracked in a spiderweb pattern. The display case inside is shattered. One table lies on its side. Chairs are overturned. The mural on the far wall has a smear of something dark across the painted ring of old Halo, maybe coffee, maybe sauce, maybe something from a customer who fell.
I open the door.
The bell tries to jingle and produces a broken clatter.
Everyone looks up.
There are only a few people left inside. Mr. Eddison kneels awkwardly near the window, sweeping glass with one stiff hand while Renn from the machine shop rights a table. Mrs. Pell stands near the counter with a bag of towels clutched to her chest, face white and furious. Darlene is behind the register, smoking inside for once, cigarette burning between two fingers while she stares at the wreckage like she intends to outlive it out of spite.
And Evie stands in the middle of the bakery holding a broom.
