"You never did this when you were a kid?"

I was perched on one of the balcony chairs, watching John go through the process of turning a pumpkin into a jack-o-lantern. The pumpkin had turned up earlier that week – "confiscated", he'd jokingly said, from a friend of his who wasn't allowed large vegetables or sharp objects (at least, I thought he'd said it jokingly).

Now John paused in his work, cocking an eyebrow at me with a disbelieving look. "Figured every kid had carved a pumpkin at least once."

"My dad . . . wasn't the type." I shifted, uncomfortable; the question came close to the kind of personal details that neither of us usually revealed.

John noticed – nothing ever escaped him – and nodded, bending back over the task of scooping out guts from the gourd. Every so often he'd lean out past the balcony railing and drop a handful of slimy orange seeds into the dumpster three stories below.

I grinned at that. "You've got good aim."

John chuckled. "Yeah, you get to have, after a while."

It was another one of those question-raising statements, but I'd gotten used to them by now. I leaned forward and watched as he finished cleaning the pumpkin and started carving it with deft, skilled strokes.

John kept his gaze moving as he worked – a habit of his, glancing from the pumpkin to me to the view of the street below. On one of those glances his hands paused, his back stiffening slightly. I turned my head to follow his gaze, curious at what he'd seen.

It was the Man In Sunglasses, back for the first time in weeks; meandering down the street and occasionally glancing back at our building.

I turned back to John, intending to ask who he thought the Man was looking for; and what I saw startled me.

The expression in John's eyes was cold, sharp; something in his face had suddenly become dangerous, calculating . . .

Hunted.

I won't lie – in that moment, I was a little afraid of him.

John's keen blue eyes stayed on the Man in Sunglasses until he rounded the edge of the block. Then he stood abruptly. "I'll see you kid. Got a meeting with my agent." He didn't quite meet my eyes as he said it, and I knew without any question that he was lying to me.

He'd left the balcony before I could fully process what that might mean.

I stayed on the balcony, thinking about what had just happened and wondering what I should do, studying the jack-o-lantern which John had abandoned mid-carving. It had the requisite toothy smile and pointy nose, but only one eye had been finished – the other was only a half-carved slit.

I sat there for a long time, but things didn't become any clearer. After a while I gave in, picked up the winking pumpkin, and settled it on the balcony railing.

Then I turned and went inside, feeling the jack-o-lantern's single eye follow me as I went.

TBC