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V

He returned to the restaurant the next day when they opened at eleven a.m. and having only about an hour of sleep the night before. For once, he didn't have a nightmare about his mother dying, being consumed by an invisible snake creeping through her veins. He dreamt, this time, of a red-haired woman, standing on the beach, in a sage green dress, the wind blowing the dress and the fiery hair. Grey clouds emerged, floating close and fast, but before he could see the woman's face, he awoke. He knew, even without seeing the face, he knew who it was. There was only one woman who entered his life recently with fiery red hair such as what he saw in his dream.

He ended up stepping onto his balcony, looking out at the town below him, a few people bustling about to go to work at early hours in the morning but, other than that, the streets were left to sleep silently, better than what he could. He was troubled. He saved a woman once and now he was dreaming about her. He's saved plenty of people in his line of business—besides the obvious killing—he protected those who were innocent, those who couldn't stand up and protect themselves. So, what made her so different? Was it that red hair? Those green eyes? Why was he dreaming of her?

But the clouds, the clouds in his dream. The darkness of his mind always lingered, and even still tried to swallow the moment of happiness and relief he felt. It was a relief, for once, to not dream of something horrible, to not have his night riddled with nightmares, but this was worse. Now he was left to stand on his balcony for the remainder of the night, not getting any further sleep, for he was thinking too much now about her.

He stood at the front of the restaurant, right in front of the check-in counter, watching those who came in, those who left, those who lingered.

"You look like you didn't get a wink of sleep suga," Grandma said once she came in around three p.m. for her shift and to help with the evening rush they always had. She was in the middle of tying her hair up, a bobby pin resting between her lips as she awaited his response.

He shook his head once and she rolled her eyes at him, finishing her hair and patting her hands on her apron. "Whacha doin' comin' in here with no sleep, huh? How ya expect to do ya job properly, huh?"

"I can do my job, with or without sleep."

"You're not a robot, Ah-TUM," spoke the familiar voice of the woman he saved just the night before. He looked over to catch sight of her, her red hair up in a messy bun atop her head, mascara on her long eyelashes that made her green eyes more prominent, and lip-gloss on her lips, making them shine in the restaurant's light. She smiled at him, and he held his breath. "You take your job very seriously, huh?"

He only nodded and she clicked her teeth at him. "You could say yes or yeah like a normal person," she laughed, tidying the menus, and rolling utensils in napkins behind the counter.

He so badly wanted to ask her what makes you think I'm a normal person? As if his appearance didn't scream everything but normal, how could he just act like a normal person when he goes from killing groups of men to guarding a restaurant?

He looked back at her, for a moment, long enough to catch glimpse of a purple mark on her wrist, a mark she was quick to cover with her sleeve as she continued to organize seating arrangements and menus and wrapped utensils. He turned away from her, facing the front, his mind wandering. Why was he so curious about her? Surely, that mark was from the man from last night, Roderick. So, she got involved with the wrong man and now he won't leave her alone? Why would she stay close enough to him for him to do such things continuously?

"You saw it, didn't you?" she asked from behind him.

He turned his head only slightly and turned it back, nodding his head once.