Chapter 81: Peace And Quiet
The docile calm David held Leon’s gaze with was effortless. Not the practiced stillness of someone keeping themselves in check — just empty, flat, like looking at a wall.
Leon took a step forward.
David’s expression didn’t change.
"You bumped into me," David said. "We were both at fault. Why don’t we let it slide?"
Leon stared at him. And a beat passed, then two. Someone in the small cluster of pedestrians that had stopped to watch shifted their weight. Leon caught it — the flick of his eyes to the side was quick, almost imperceptible. Witnesses. Phone cameras. The math of the moment doing its quiet arithmetic.
Then Leon smiled. It was the kind of smile that had probably gotten him what he wanted his whole life.
"I suppose you’re right." He reached out and gave David’s shoulder a light tap. Not aggressive. Friendly, almost.
"It was totally not intentional from both parties. You should take care then."
He turned and walked.
"Let’s go."
"O-okay."
The voice had called out just before that — from somewhere behind Leon — and it was only now that David clocked the source.
Thin. Glasses. Young, in the way that made you think of something not yet finished.
The same kid from the alley who Leon had been bullying.
David looked at him for a moment, something small turning over in his chest. The kid had followed Leon. Was still following him now, falling into step behind him like that was just where he belonged.
’Huh.’
He watched them go.
Then he exhaled through his nose, turned around, and kept walking.
The convenience store was ordinary. The drinks section more so. David stood in front of the refrigerated shelves longer than strictly necessary, eyes moving between rows of cans and bottles with the focus of someone defusing something.
Orange soda. Apple soda. Two of each, in the end, because he didn’t actually know which one April would want, and buying both felt like the kind of hedge that looked like thoughtfulness from the right angle.
He paid. He left.
The walk back was quiet. His head was quieter than it should have been, maybe, given the last hour. But the thing with Leon kept resurfacing in short bursts — not the fear of it, not the anger, just the residue of almost.
’He actually thought I was going to apologize.’
The idea was so absurd it almost didn’t land. Almost.
Not reacting had been the right call. He knew that. But the urge to put that smile through the back of Leon’s skull had been real and uncomplicated and deeply, deeply satisfying to imagine.
He hadn’t, though.
’Give people like that power and they think they’ve earned it.’
He believed Leon didn’t understand it, or rather couldn’t see it — that the old ranking systems and their gatekeeping were starting to crack at the edges, that the next generation of hunters wasn’t going to look like the ones before them. Perhaps he had grown hoping for power, but the future surely had better hopes than that.
Or maybe Leon understood perfectly, and that was the whole problem.
He reached his floor.
Stopped outside April’s door.
Knocked.
Waited.
Cleared his throat quietly, took a half step back, and looked down at the drinks in the bag. Orange. Apple. Both still in place as he adjusted his grip.
Nothing.
He knocked again.
Still nothing.
He stood there a moment longer than he meant to, listening to the hallway’s particular silence — the hum of a distant appliance coming from April’s room.
Third knock.
Slower this time. Deliberate.
The door opened mid-knock.
April stood in the frame, hair slightly dishevelled, one hand braced on the door. She looked like someone who had recently lost an argument with her own evening.
"Hey — sorry, I’m so sorry, something actually came up—"
"Something came up," David said. "In the middle of the night?"
"I know how that sounds."
"Do you."
She winced, then seemed to remember herself. "I really do appreciate it though. Genuinely." She held up a takeaway container by way of evidence — jollof lasagna, steam still ghosting off the lid. "I even saved you some. Which I feel like counts for something."
David looked at the container. Then at her. "I got drinks."
He lifted the bag.
April blinked at it, then her expression softened into something that might have been guilt if it had tried harder. "Thanks. Really." She took only an orange can with her free hand. "I’ll see you later, yeah?"
"Uhh...Yeah, sure."
"Bye."
"Bye."
The door swung shut.
David stood in the hallway for a moment, hands now empty, blinking at the wood grain.
’...Hmm...that was odd.’
He turned and walked back to his door.
Fished his keys out. Paused with them in hand, glancing once back down the hall at nothing in particular, then shook his head.
"Women."
He unlocked the door, stepped inside, and pulled it shut behind him.
---
The bed received him like it had been waiting.
David didn’t so much lie down as surrender — full weight, face half into the pillow, one arm sprawled wide, the other folded under him at an angle he’d probably regret in the morning. Something in his lower back unknotted on contact. He let out a groan that came from somewhere structural.
’I needed that.’
The ceiling was dark. The room was quiet. Somewhere outside, the city was doing whatever the city did, and for once it felt far enough away to ignore.
’Finally... peace and quiet—’
His nightstand shuddered.
He didn’t move.
It shuddered again.
"...Come on."
He lay there for another three seconds of pure denial, then reached sideways without lifting his head, fingers walking blind across the surface of the nightstand until they found the phone. He dragged it back. Cracked one eye open as he viewed a text. Holly’s name at the top.
Holly=> Heyyy. My sis has some sleep over planned out tomorrow so she’ll be out all night. So I was wondering...you down with meeting up ;)
David stared at it with the glazed expression of a man whose brain had already clocked out for the evening.
Then he typed.
David=> Yeah... you bet.🌚
Three dots appeared almost immediately.
Holly=> Let’s say...7?
David=> You’ve got it. it’s a date.
He set the phone back on the nightstand, screen down, and closed his eye again.
The corner of his mouth stayed where it was for a moment.
Then settled.
He was asleep before the next vibration came.