Page 169 of Let Me In

I pull a small vial from my jacket.

Unmarked. Clear.

He sees it.

And his breath leaves him.

“You know what happens next.”

He closes his eyes.

“I was just doing a job.”

My voice is a breath.

“So am I.”

The road windsout ahead of me in near-dark.

Long before dawn, before movement, before sound.

I keep the window cracked just enough to feel the cold. Let it sting the edges of my focus. Let it remind me that I’m still here.

Let it burn cold in my lungs. Cutting through the warmth I left behind, the last remnants of her scent still clinging to me, clearing the fog from my mind. Let it sting just enough to keep me awake, alert, sharp.

That I did it.

That it’s done.

The gloves are off. Folded neatly on the passenger seat. The burner phone is gone—tossed down a ravine fifteen kilometers back. The last of the gear sealed in a lockbox beneath the truck bed. No trace. No trail.

Nothing left behind.

Nothing but silence.

And the faint sting of antiseptic under my fingernails.

Not blood.

There was no blood.

Not in the end.

The vial did its job. Painless. Quick. The kind of death you only get when the person dealing it means for it to be clean.

No signs of struggle.

No reason for suspicion.

Just a man in a motel chair with a drink in his hand and no future left in his chest.

I staged the scene in under five minutes.

Left the door locked behind me.

Moved the way I used to move, before I started dreaming of warmth and a soft weight in my arms, before the scent of her hair and the hush of her breath made the violence harder to wear. Before I knew what it was to miss her even while doing what needed to be done.

I never flinched, never questioned. And I’d do it again.

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