by Peiri Ann
I left, storming from the house, ready to strangle my own brother.
The door opened behind me with Anna and Janet quickly following.
I got in the truck and vented. “How the fuck can he do this to me! We did everything for him. Opened our doors to him, forced Mom and Dad to adopt his ass. He’s going to take a fucking bargain with Purcell! What type of shit is that?!”
“He’s probably pissed because we made him stay locked up for so long,” Anna said.
“No one told him to admit to killing our dad. Nobody asked him to do that; he did that on his own.”
“Maybe he is just ready to get out.”
“Nah, there has got to be more to it than that. He wouldn’t throw me under the bus for some cash. He couldn’t… it has to be more. That’s not like him. Maybe Purcell is up to something. This isn’t even Nixon’s line of work.”
“They probably got him out just to get you to go on the assignment.”
I shook my head. “I have no idea, Juniper.”
“Tell me about Val, tell me what happened,” Janet requested.
“Arch, I’m not worried about her right now. My brother just told me if I don’t take on an assignment he’s going to kill me, all so he can get two million.”
“Isn’t that the same amount of money Val’s worth?”
“Yes,” I said with a shrug. “So what?”
“Did you tell him her name came up?”
Drenched in regret, I rolled my eyes. “Shit… Grimmer did.”
“I bet he told who the benefactor was too.”
“Fuck!”
Kyle: Are you still at my house?
Me: Yes, Rick and I are here.
Kyle: I thought I told him to leave.
Me: He said he was concerned.
Kyle: I’m on my way back.
“Kyle said he’s on his way back.”
Rick looked at me and then he sent a message from his phone. “Let me tell you something, Valerie. You’re not going to come into the picture and start trying to steal Kyle away from me. Don’t deliver me messages from him. You tell him if he wants to tell me anything that he better tell me himself.”
I pulled my eyebrows together, confused about the type of friendship he and Kyle shared. “Are you all involved?”
“Deeply,” he replied, getting up and going to the kitchen.
Oh…
My phone rang. Claudia.
I answered, “Yes.”
“You can’t go offline, Valerie.”
I looked behind me to Rick, who seemed more concerned about making himself something to eat than my conversation. “I’m done. It’s over. You said you’ve got someone else to do it.”
“Valerie.” Samson got on the call. “You have until tonight. Prove me wrong. Prove to me you can complete your assignment. Report to me by sunrise tomorrow morning. If, after this assignment, you’d still like to discontinue employment, I’ll approve you. I’ll make sure you’ll have severance pay for the next three years, and if you ever need a letter of recommendation, I’ve got you covered.”
His offer was extremely hard to pass up.
“I’ll give you ten minutes to get back to me.” He dropped the call.
I pulled the phone from my ear and stared at my parents’ picture. I still wanted out. And either way, taking it or leaving it, let me get out. But taking it would get my name off any list; they’d help me disappear. I’d get a new name, a new state to live in. Valerie Harper would become a blow in the wind. And that’s what I wanted. I wanted a new life, a new start. I wanted to be someone else and put this all behind me.
Kyle could’ve cared less about me. He didn’t care if I was here or gone. All I thought he really wanted was to make sure I didn’t kill him. And I wanted to make sure he didn’t kill me. What’s to say he wouldn’t kill me? For all I knew he could’ve been playing me. He could’ve suggested I stay here so he can come back and kill me and Rick was here to make sure I stayed, or to update him if I were to leave. That’s why he kept looking at his phone. He’d been updating Kyle since he left.
I was sitting in an assassination zone. I need to get out of here, now! I headed for the door.
Rick called to me, “Hey where are you going? I thought you were waiting on Kyle.” As he talked to me, he was texting.
“I have to go.”
My phone rang as I fled the apartment. “Yes?”
Samson cleared his throat and said, “I need an answer, Valerie.”
“I’ll do it. But after this, I want out. I want a new everything. I also don’t want to be contacted after it’s completed.”
“Okay. Sunrise,” he restated before hanging up.
“I thought you said Val was here,” Janet said, sitting on the couch.
“She was,” I said.
“She just left ten minutes ago,” Rick said. “She talked on the phone for a second and left right after. She was a little shaken.”
I nodded, unsure of what to take from that. “Can you tell me about this guy Roger you mentioned?”
Rick was leaning over my bar eating some pasta he’d made in the microwave. “He’s a drug dealer. That’s it. He deals locally to the school.”
“You see him around often?”
He shook his head, not looking at me. “Not recently.”
“If you run across him, let me know.” Something told me Anna knew a little more than Rick. But I didn’t know if she would be comfortable talking about it. She was here, and contented, and something told me if I brought this on her, she would be gone before morning.
I pulled my phone from my pocket, checking an incoming text.
Val: You made it home yet?
Me: I did, why’d you leave?
Val: I thought Rick was going to try and kill me. Then he told me you all were deeply involved…
Me: Not the way you think.
Val: Meet me somewhere?
Me: Where?
Val: Campus football field. Just you and me if that’s okay.
Me: Have you been drinking again?
Val: No, of course not. I’m just really nervous. I don’t even know if I can trust you. But I figured you told me and you’ve been in this situation for a while so you can help. You did offer to help.
Me: Yeah.
Val: Thanks.
“Hey, I’ll be back soon. Stay in the house with Anna, Janet. Rick, you’d better leave. I’ll call you later.”
I waited by the entrance of the football field’s stadium for Kyle. His truck pulled up and I stood up straight, clutching the syringe between the fingers of my left hand.
He got out and ran over to me.
“You feeling okay?”
I shook my head. “No,” I said, forcing a look of sorrow, letting my head fall. He came closer and wrapped his arms around me, offering me a hug to console my hurt. This hurt that started off as a scheme and grew inside me as I raised my arms, wrapped them around his neck, and stuck the needle of the syringe into the right side of his neck.
He shoved me back, grabbing the left side of his neck. “The fuck…” He swayed and hit the ground.
“Kyle, I am sorry.” I briefly stared down at him, and then looked around me. Night had fallen and the area was dark. I grabbed his keys and ran to his truck. Driving it up on the grass, I parked it so I could pull him into the back seat on the driver’s side.
Oh God…
He was huge and heavy. It would have been a much better idea for me to have knocked him out in the truck. That would have been smarter. I was finally able to lug him up and into the truck. “God Kyle, what do you eat? You’re too damn heavy.” I pushed his legs in and closed the door.
I got in the driver’s seat and drove away from campus.
Consciousness slowly drew me awake. My head was pounding and my ears rang. I tried to lift my hand to my head, but it was pulled behind my back. I was standing, tied to something. My head swam and I shook it hoping to clear the fog.
“What… the… fuck?” I gr
oaned.
Quick steps scurried across the floor of a room I couldn’t see. My head wasn’t clearing, and the swaying continued as I swam in and out of consciousness.
“Kyle,” sang a familiar voice. “I’m sorry.” The last part wasn’t as clear; the words were slurred. “Here, drink this.”
I tried to lean away from her and shake her hand from my shoulder. I wished I could grab my head. I wished I knew where I was. I wished I knew what the hell happened to me.
“It’s not what you think.”
“What…” I groaned, groggy.
“You have to drink this. It will help.”
“No, get away from me.”
“Kyle, it’s me, Val.”
“Val?” I closed my eyes tight and reopened them. Everything was hazy. “You did this to me?”
“No. Well, yes. But I’m going to get you out. I had to kill you, but I brought you back. I couldn’t kill you. I couldn’t. I’m sorry I tricked you.”
“What?” I heard her, what she was saying, but it didn’t make any sense to me.
“I love you, Kyle. I couldn’t kill you. But I needed to get out of this. In order for me to get out, I needed to kill you. So I did and brought you back.”
“Where is the stuff you told me will help me feel better?”
“Here.” A straw touched my lips.
I had no idea what I was drinking, but I was tied up and unable to focus. The worst that could happen was that it could kill me. But if she’d wanted to kill me, she would have done so by now.
I sipped the flavorless liquid through the straw and waited as my head started to clear. I still felt like shit, but it was better. “I am not going to make it a habit of being dosed and waking up at the hand of someone else.”
“I didn’t hurt you.” She lifted my head by my chin. “I just needed the shot of you looking dead. You weren’t out for long. Just a few hours.”
“Spirit, let me go. Get me out of here.”
She cut my arms loose and I hit her. I couldn’t help it. My arm acted on its own by reflex. It just hauled off and slapped her. I regretted it. “I’m sorry, Spirit. I don’t hit women, but for a split second you were a man in my eyes.”
She rubbed the side of her face. I hadn’t hit it that hard. It was only red; no bruises. “You have some nerve!” She charged at me and punched harder than I thought she could hit.
She threw punches at my face and I did my best to block them. “Okay Spirit, calm down. I said sorry.”
“Dammit Kyle, so did I!” she yelled, punching me again.
I stepped away from her, out of reach of her attacks. “You could’ve told me what was up, Spirit. You didn’t have to set me up, dose me, and tie me up just to prove something to your agency.” She had to have done it for her agency.
“You can’t even let me explain first. You’re just going to slap me,” she accused, her voice high-pitched and angry.
I shot back, “Nothing about what you did is right, Spirit. At least I only slapped you and didn’t kill you.”
“At least I brought you back! I didn’t let you stay dead! God, Kyle!” She was yelling at me, and I was the one that was played, hoodwinked, tricked, and bamboozled!
“This is the exact reason I don’t deal with you women. You lie, you all play ridiculous games, you drug us.” I rubbed my neck where it hurt, probably from where she shot me. “What did you hit me with?”
“Kyle, listen to me for a second.”
I threw my hand up, cutting her off. “Save it, Spirit. I can’t take it right now. I’m trying to remember some important shit I was going to come back to my house and tell you. And now, thanks to you, it’s taking me a long time. I was looking out for you, or at least I’d planned to. I thought you’d at least do the same thing for me. By the way, your fake dosing me is not going to work. Your agency will know I’m still alive. And I would have told you that if you’d told me your plan. Now you’re definitely fucked.” I pulled my watch from my left wrist. “See that?” I pointed to the long horizontal scar line over my pulse along my wrist. “Rub your finger along it.” She did and I felt the thin metal stick press down under her finger. “It’s called a life detector. Purcell put it in to check on me. It’s accessible to anyone if they wanted to find out if I were still alive. Congratulations, Spirit, you just royally fucked yourself. Hope you didn’t send your shot yet.”
I wanted to slap her again for being so damn stupid. I’d been willing to help this woman. I would have gotten everyone off her back. I would have told her the right way to do it, even if it meant cutting the shit out of my arm. No, no, I probably wouldn’t have done that. But we would have worked it out together, like I planned. And she fucks me over… just like everybody else. What a day this has turned out to be.
“I can’t believe I actually like you,” I told her, angry and betrayed. “I thought you would have been different. Yeah, you were a little off, feisty… but you were decent. Especially considering you were friends with Janet. It meant no matter what, you could accept people. Not to mention your letter. It was all a hoax.”
“What letter?”
I rolled my eyes, turning my back to her, looking for a door. I was in some type of warehouse. “Nothing. How do I get out of here? You’re on your own.” I shouldn’t have mentioned the letter. She had me all mixed up and confused, and I couldn’t think straight. I was really going to try the relationship move with her. Hell, I knew she loved me and I really liked her. She was fun and it seemed like when she did let go, she’d have a great personality. She would’ve fit in good with us. She would’ve fit in good with me. And she was really pretty, and she always smelled good, and she was an amazing kisser. I didn’t even like to kiss women on the mouth. But I wanted to do it over and over again with her. She made me feel something I’d never experienced with anyone else. Then she went and fucked it all up.
Frustrated, I rubbed my hand over my head. Where the hell is a damn door? “Dammit, Spirit.” I was so disappointed.
“What letter, Kyle?”
I whipped around. “The letter under your pillow,” I blurted. May as well tell her, she was dead anyway. “I read it, sorry. I invaded your privacy. I saw it. Everything,” I said dully, still pissed my head was hurting and the damn door was hiding.
“How dare you!”
“Get over it, Spirit. You were drunk. I was curious. Be happy I read it or you could have been dead that night. I don’t wait around. I take out the same day the text comes through.”
“I thought you said you weren’t the one who got the text.”
I walked up on her as she challenged me. “Yeah, so what. I got the text. A two-million-dollar hit, seventy-two hours to complete. I got it while we were at the club. Ask me what I did.”
She shrank, right in front of me. All that confidence she had, depleted. “What did you do?” she whispered.
“I dropped off my friends, checked on what you did to have such a number on your head. Don’t get me wrong; I thought about it. Two million is a lot. But I already knew about what you did for me. I wouldn’t. I didn’t take it. I rushed to your house and was prepared to tell you. Even help you if I needed to. I was going to warn you. I was going to look out for you.” Her eyes shook as she looked up at me. I lightened my toned, softened by her remorseful stare. “You know me a whole lot better than I know you,” I went on. “And I thought I had an attraction to you, and I’ll admit I liked you… a lot and a little. No way was I going to take two million dollars in trade for your life.” She bit on her bottom lip. I cupped the left side of her face with my right hand as I said, “It doesn’t make much sense, but I give a fuck. And you repay me like this.”
“I—”
“You what… you’re sorry, you didn’t know, you regret it, which one is it? You can stop me when I’m close. You what… you’re scared, you didn’t mean to, you wished you’d known? That night, we kissed. You were drunk, you know I could’ve done anything to you. And things got heated, and you’re so beaut
iful, and soft, and I admit I wanted to. God did I want to,” I said through my teeth. “But I wasn’t. I wasn’t going to take advantage of you. So I laid you down in your bed and as I was leaning over to kiss you goodnight, I saw the letter.”
Her head turned into my hand as I held her. She mumbled, with her lips against my palm, “You invaded my privacy.”
“You wanted me too.” I lifted my free hand to cup the other side of her face, turning her head to face me. I looked her in her eyes, caught in their virtue. “You wrote that you love me. You love me?”
She was silent, and didn’t breathe.
I dropped my eyes to her lips, remembering what they felt like against mine. I lifted my eyes back to hers. “If you love me, Spirit, why’d you do this to me? Why wouldn’t you tell me?” I leaned down to kiss her. “Hum?” I kissed her again, giving myself chills. They scattered through me until I pulled away. The room closed in on me, making Valerie Harper my only focus. I’d never experienced a kiss that took my breath away. It told me I should walk away. The easily-enamored disease I suffered from was starting to spread through my chest as I looked down at her. “Answer me.” I gently pressed my lips to hers, but I wanted to devour her mouth, to slide my tongue over hers, to suck her lips, to breathe in her exhales.
And I guess she would have answered me had I given her the chance, but I didn’t. I was an idiot, a sucker for a girl who just hours ago attempted to kill me, giving in to her fondness that was stealing my better judgement. I kissed her until I was used to the shock and tremor the feel of her lips gave me.
It was enough.
Her kiss…
It was enough to send me over, to remove my anger, to fill me with a diabolical need to know every facet of this woman. To want to be involved in every aspect of her life.
She inhaled and I felt her face heat against mine. It was as if she melted in my hands, against my mouth.