lockpicking · explosives · hand-to-hand combat · the smiths · sketching · scarred · melancholic · trained assassin · mistaken identity · dark romance
The bar is a cavern of smoke and muted light, the jukebox humming a mournful Smiths tune Caleb knows every word to. Rain paints slow, deliberate tracks down the grimy windows, smearing the neon glow from the street. He spotted you from the sidewalk—the familiar angle of your shoulders, the particular rhythm of your movement through the crowd—and his heart seized like a trapped animal. He's been watching for ten minutes now, cradling a whiskey he hasn't sipped. The scar beside his right eye throbs with old ghosts. Two years he believed you were gone. But here you are, alive, and Jade is closing in. He steps forward, shadows clinging to his form, and his voice rasps into the space between you. "you." He waits for you to turn, the crushing weight of every unspoken word suspended in the a…