That night, Langston stood at the narrow path that led out of town, his duffel bag slung over one shoulder, the wind tugging at his jacket. 
He had never planned for any of this.
Eight months. That's all he'd spent here. Just eight quiet months. A modest apartment above Margit's bakery, where the scent of fresh bread would seep through the floorboards each morning at 4 AM, pulling him from sleep like a mother's hand on his shoulder. A part-time job repairing old clocks in a dusty backroom at Tobias' shop, where the gentle tick-tock of timepieces kept him company through the quietest hours, their rhythmic heartbeats the closest thing to peace he'd known in years. And a rhythm of life that felt almost redemptive. He hadn't asked for redemption, but it found him anyway—settling into his bones like warmth from a fire he'd forgotten he deserved.
At least for a little while.
Until karma caught up.
Or maybe karma never left. It just waited, patient as a cat, until you got comfortable enough to believe you might be safe.
He adjusted the strap on his shoulder, shifting the weight that seemed to grow heavier with each passing second, and looked down at his scuffed boots. The same boots that had carried him through a dozen cities, a dozen failed attempts at starting over. He should keep walking. He had the money—thirty-five thousand in crisp bills, stuffed deep in his bag between folded clothes and a dog-eared paperback. Sean and Michael's money. Payment for silence. Payment for survival. Blood money, if he was being honest with himself.
But his feet refused to move.
His legs felt anchored, heavy, like the ground was gripping him with fingers made of guilt and regret, refusing to let him go. And his mind—God, his mind—kept circling back to that night like a dog returning to a wound, unable to leave it alone even as each touch made it worse, made it fester.
He closed his eyes, his breath forming small clouds in the cooling air, each exhale carrying a piece of his soul into the darkness.
Mr. Stephen's garden.
The memory hit him like a punch to the gut, doubling him over with its clarity. Langston had crept through the overgrown rows of tomatoes and spinach, his hands brushing leaves slick with dew that felt like tears in the moonlight. The garden smelled of wet earth and forgotten summers, of potential and nourishment—of everything good and simple that he'd been stealing from, piece by piece. It wasn't stealing, not really—he told himself that every time, the lie wearing thinner with each repetition. Just a few vegetables. The old man wouldn't miss them. Besides, Mr. Stephen had mentioned once how he couldn't harvest everything himself. "Garden gives more than I can take," he'd said with a dismissive wave, when they'd crossed paths at the market. Such kindness in those words. Such generosity from a man who barely knew him.
And how had Langston repaid that kindness?
He'd done it maybe ten or fifteen times before. In and out. Clean. A ghost among the vegetables, taking just enough to survive another day.
But that night felt off.
There was a stillness in the air. Not quiet—Estonia was always quiet—but this was different. A tightness, like the world holding its breath before a scream. Like the silence had teeth, waiting to bite.
A twig snapped beneath his foot, the sound too loud in the thick hush, and shame flooded through him that he gasped. Here he was again, creeping through an old man's garden like a common thief. What had become of him? When had survival become more important than dignity?
He paused, heart beating faster, aware of the rustle of his jacket against his skin, the way his breath came too quick, too shallow. Then the creak came—from the bedroom window, a sound of wood straining against metal hinges.
Langston froze, crouched low behind a fig tree whose roots pushed up against the garden fence, buckling the wooden slats. A shadow moved against the house, fluid and purposeful. Someone was slipping inside.
But this wasn't him. This was someone else.
He narrowed his eyes, squinting through the faint moonlight, his pulse hammering in his ears. The figure was dressed in black—tight and deliberate. No drunken teenager stumbling home late. No random burglar looking for quick cash. Whoever it was, they moved with precision, with intent. They had a reason.
A cold certainty settled in his stomach like a stone.
Langston's breath shallowed. He should've turned and run. Every instinct screamed at him to flee, to pretend he'd never seen anything, to go home and lock his door and forget this moment ever existed.
But he didn't.
Curiosity, stronger than common sense, made him lean forward. Or maybe it wasn't curiosity at all. Maybe it was the same thing that had driven him to steal vegetables instead of asking for help—a need to witness, to be present for moments that mattered, even when he was too afraid to act.
Inside the house, a voice hissed—sharp and low, cutting through the night like a blade.
"What did you know? Who did you send a message to?"
Langston flinched, his body recoiling as if the words had been meant for him. That voice—he didn't recognize it, but it carried violence in its tone, practiced cruelty wrapped in forced calm. It was the voice of someone who had done this before.
Then, another voice, soft, answered with a dignity that made Langston's chest tighten:
"Soon you'll find out." There was a pause, weighted with the kind of courage Langston had never possessed, then Mr. Stephen added, his voice steady despite everything, despite the knife that must have been gleaming in the darkness, "You aren't as invisible as you think."
Brave to the end. The thought hit Langston like a slap. Here was a man facing death, and he was still fighting, still defiant. While Langston crouched in the dirt like an animal, too paralyzed by fear to help, to shout a warning, to do anything at all.
Langston's fingers dug into the tree bark, splinters biting into his palms. He could just make out the flicker of movement through the curtains—arms raised, then a flash of steel that caught the moonlight like a falling star.
A knife.
One stab. Quick, efficient, brutal. A short grunt—pain and surprise and the sound of life leaving a body.
Then—silence.
The kind of silence that follows violence, heavy and complete, as if the world itself were stunned by what it had witnessed.
A clock chimed somewhere in the house. A sound that seemed to mock the violence they followed, marking time that no longer mattered to the man who lay bleeding on the floor.
Langston's knees buckled. He dropped to a crouch, chest tight with panic and self-loathing, eyes wide with horror he could never unsee. From the kitchen window, he watched the killer wipe the blade clean with eerie precision—methodical, practiced, someone who knew how to clean up after themselves. Then he placed it beside the dead man on the floor.
The violation of it made Langston sick.
His ears rang with phantom screams—his own, maybe, trapped in his throat by cowardice. He gripped the dirt to ground himself, his breath shallow and ragged, tasting bile and shame.
Then came a voice—panicked, from the front yard.
"Mr. Stephen?"
A young woman's voice.
Langston's breath caught like a fish hook in his throat. He turned toward the voice, then back at the house, his head spinning between two horrible realities. He couldn't move. Couldn't think. His thoughts were jagged shards, cutting at every edge of his reason, drawing blood from his conscience.
Move, you idiot. Warn her. Do something. Be a man for once in your pathetic life.
But he remained frozen, locked in place by the same fear that had kept him stealing vegetables instead of asking for help, the same fear that had kept him running from town to town instead of facing his problems.
The killer moved fast—back through the bedroom window, glass rattling in its frame like chattering teeth. But just before disappearing into the night, the man yanked his mask down for a breath of air, revealing a face flushed with exertion and something that might have been satisfaction.
And Langston saw him.
Sean Carter.
The recognition hit him hard, stealing his breath. Good cop Sean. The clean one. 
Langston's breath hitched.
Sean saw him, too.
One second. Maybe two. But everything changed in that small window of time, the axis of Langston's world tilting off balance. Their eyes locked across the darkness, and Langston saw something in Sean's gaze that chilled him to his bones—not surprise, not panic, but calculation. Cool, measured assessment.
Sean didn't blink. Didn't run. Just stared, and in that stare was a conversation as clear as if they'd spoken aloud.
I see you seeing me.
I know what you know.
And I know who you are.
A threat, silent and lethal, hung in the space between them like a blade suspended over Langston's neck. The promise of violence wrapped in the quiet of a suburban night.
Langston didn't speak. Couldn't. His voice had fled along with his courage, abandoning him when he needed it most. But the message from Sean was unmistakable, as clear as if he'd shouted it across the garden:
Speak, and you die.
Then Sean turned and vanished into the shadows, leaving nothing but the rustle of leaves in his wake and the certainty that Langston's life had just changed forever.
Langston leaned back against the tree, bark rough against his spine, and whispered into the night, his voice breaking like a child's:
"I'm sorry, old man... I'm too much of a coward to do what's right."
The words hung in the air, a confession that felt too small, too late, too worthless to mean anything. But they were all he had.
Somewhere in the distance, the woman's voice called out again. "Mr. Stephen?" Her voice grew fainter as she walked inside, unaware of what lay waiting for her in the darkness, unaware that help had been hiding in the garden all along and had chosen silence over action.
A breeze rustled through the trees, brushing cold against his skin like the touch of judgment, carrying with it the scent of earth and growing things—life persisting even in the presence of death. He didn't know how long he sat there—ten minutes, maybe more—paralyzed by the weight of what he'd witnessed and his own failure to act.
At the sound of the police siren wailing through the night like a mourning song, Langston sneaked away. His hands were still trembling when he made it back to his apartment, locking the door behind him like it could keep the fear out, like it could keep the guilt from seeping through the walls.
He paced the small room, seven steps one way, seven steps back, wearing a path in the floorboards like a caged animal. "Christ," he muttered, the word a prayer and a curse rolled into one. "Christ, Christ, Christ."
The repetition didn't help. Nothing helped. He was trapped now, caught between what he'd seen and what he couldn't do about it, between the man he wanted to be and the coward he'd always been.
Minutes later—or maybe hours, time had lost all meaning—a message came through his old phone. No ringtone—just the buzz. Anonymous number. But he knew who it was. In his bones, in his gut, in the sick certainty that had been growing since their eyes met across the garden.
"I'm going to make you a suspect and still save you. You just need to do as you're told. After which you'll receive something huge."
Langston reread it five times, the words blurring not from tears—though those came later—but from the sheer dread that gripped his chest like a vise. Each reading made it worse, made it more real, made it clear that this nightmare was just beginning.
It chilled him more than the murder itself, this casual confidence, this assumption of control. They didn't need him dead.
They needed him controlled.
And they knew right how to do it.
He'd nearly thrown the phone out the window. Nearly. His hand had been raised, ready to hurl it into the street below, to smash it against the pavement and pretend this was all some terrible dream. But in the end, he placed it face-down on the table and stared at it like it might bite him again, like it might deliver another message that would drag him deeper into hell.
"What the hell am I supposed to do?" he whispered to his empty apartment, his voice echoing off walls that felt too close, too small to contain his fear. The silence offered no answers, just the faint smell of cinnamon from the bakery downstairs—Margit's bread rising for tomorrow's customers, life continuing its steady rhythm even as his world collapsed.
The normalcy of it made him want to scream.
The next day, another text arrived like a punch to the gut: "Tonight. The clock shop. Back door. Come alone."
He'd gone, of course. What choice did he have? In that moment, sitting in his apartment with his hands shaking and his future crumbling around him, he understood that choice was a luxury he could no longer afford.
Sean had been waiting, leaning against the workbench, fingering an antique pocketwatch with the casual interest of someone browsing a museum. The sight of him—clean, composed, normal—made Langston's skin crawl.
"You know how these work?" Sean had asked, voice casual, conversational, as if they were discussing the weather instead of murder and blackmail. "All these little gears. One out of place and the whole thing stops."
The metaphor wasn't lost on Langston. He'd said nothing, afraid that if he opened his mouth, accusations would pour out like blood from a wound.
"You're a gear, Langston. A small one. Don't get out of place." Sean's fingers stilled on the watch, and when he looked up, his eyes were empty of everything except cold calculation. "Name your price."
The words hung between them like a transaction, reducing Langston's conscience to a commodity that could be bought and sold. It should have outraged him. Instead, it made him feel smaller than he'd ever felt in his life.
"Just promise you won't hurt me and I'll do as you said," Langston had whispered, hating himself for the words even as they left his mouth.
"You're smart, Langston." Sean's smile was approval for a dog that had learned to sit on command.
"And how do you intend to make me a suspect?"
Sean placed a hand on his shoulder, the touch light but somehow threatening, like a snake testing its prey. "She knows you've been frequenting the old man's backyard."
"Who?" But even as he asked, Langston felt the trap closing around him, felt the walls of his new prison taking shape.
"A colleague of mine, who would want to do everything to peg you as the culprit."
The casual cruelty of it—using his own desperate hunger, his own small thefts to destroy him—made Langston's stomach turn. "So what do you suggest? I can't go down for..."
Sean cut him off with a gesture, impatient now that the pleasantries were over. "Figured that out. That's why you need a story. Maybe illicit affair. Anything. Just make it believable." His grip tightened on Langston's shoulder, friendly pressure that felt like a threat. "Then after that, let's have a deal."
Sean had smiled then, a cold thing that never reached his eyes, and Langston understood with perfect clarity that he was looking at his future—an endless series of compromises, each one making the next easier, until he forgot who he'd been before fear made his choices for him.
Now, standing at the edge of town with the weight of thirty-five thousand dollars and a lifetime of cowardice on his shoulders, he touched the phone again through the pocket of his jacket. It felt heavier than the money, heavier than the guilt, heavier than the crushing knowledge that he'd watched a good man die and done nothing to save him.
Langston opened his eyes, blinking away the dusk and the memories that clung to him like smoke. 
He exhaled, his breath visible in the cooling air, each cloud a small piece of his soul dispersing into the darkness.
"Just stay alive," he muttered, the words a mantra against despair. "Stay alive long enough to do something right."
But what if staying alive meant never doing anything right?
What if he was already too far gone to find his way back?
He glanced back toward town for the last time. Then he turned and walked away.
Not far. Maybe a mile or two. Just far enough to breathe, to think, to figure out what came next. He knew he'd be watched. 
But he also knew something else—Fear couldn't be his home forever.
Maybe he couldn't bring Mr. Stephen back. Maybe he'd never be able to undo what he'd witnessed, never be able to wash the blood from his hands even though he'd never touched the knife. Maybe he was a coward who chose his safety over the truth, who valued his own worthless life over justice for a man who'd deserved so much better.
For now.
But "for now" wasn't the same as "forever." And somewhere in the darkness ahead, in the uncertain future that stretched out before him like an unwritten page, maybe there was still a chance to be something more than what he was. Maybe there was still time to find his courage, even if it came too late to matter.
Maybe redemption wasn't about deserving it.
Maybe it was about choosing it, again and again, until the choice became who you were.
The path ahead disappeared into shadow, uncertain and full of danger. But for the first time in months, Langston didn't feel like he was running toward nothing.
He was running toward the possibility of becoming someone he could live with.
Even if that someone had to live with what he'd done.