by Peiri Ann
Nixon jumped in the car and I drove off.
“How long have you been waiting?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Not long. Five minutes.” It was two in the morning. I wanted to call Rick and find out if it was him. The guy was much taller than Rick and he didn’t have Rick’s body shape. What role was he playing in this?
I needed answers.
“Tomorrow, five in the evening, meet me at the car,” Nixon told me as I walked past his room.
I passed Val and Janet’s door on the walk to my room and I was tempted to knock. I thought maybe I could avoid our talk. But the door opened on my passing.
“Hey, you just making it back? You on your way to your room?” Val asked. She was in baggy sweats and an oversized tee shirt. She had her glasses on and her hair pulled into a messy ponytail.
I smiled, nipping her chin between my thumb and index finger. I liked seeing her like this, one hundred percent authentic. “Yes. Are you coming with me?”
“No, I’m getting Janet some ice. I’m tired. Can we talk tomorrow?”
“Sure, when you’re ready.” I didn’t want to have that talk anyway.
She looked away from me, walking down the hall. I left to my room, stripped for a shower, and threw on some shorts to sleep. I texted Rick, but he wouldn’t text me back. It was three-fifteen and I needed to turn in. Today was becoming even worse of a headache than when it had started.
Silencing my phone, I hit the lights, turning the room pitch black. I was relieved by the quietness as I lay back, feeling the tension leave my back and shoulders. The bed was comfortable and I quickly fell asleep.
My door clicked, closing.
I woke up, alerted, looking into the darkness. I reached for the light but stopped when I felt a hand on each of my legs under the sheets, gliding up my legs and over my shorts.
Spirit.
I smiled to myself as she tugged my shorts down. “This is new for you, Spirit.”
Without touching me, she lifted my cock with her tongue and took me in her mouth, sliding me over her soft palate, wrapping her lips around me. She sucked me hard and I hit the back of her throat. It got softer and the air left her mouth as she sealed around me, moving up and back down. She usually couldn’t take me this deep, and her mouth would hesitate to spread this wide before she dived in.
I wanted to watch her. I tried to pull the covers from over her head, but she wouldn’t let me. “Spirit, you don’t have to be shy. I’m sure you look amazing right now, glasses and all.”
She did some type of trick with her tongue on the head of my cock that silenced me. Gritting my teeth, I held in my groan.
I tried to touch her and she swatted my hand away. “Dammit,” I growled, feeling frustrated and too damn good. “I’m mad you won’t let me touch you or see you, Spirit. But that shit feels good. Slow down, okay?” She did, sliding back to the head of my cock, stalling, as she sucked it and jerked me off, and then dropping down taking me deeper than her throat should’ve allowed. “Shit, Spirit. I’m gonna bust if you keep doing that.”
My phone lit up, blinding me. I brought it to my face to see the alert. A text.
Val: I changed my mind. I’m on my way. I have a key in case you’re asleep.
The door to my room opened, letting in the light from the hall.
Fuck!
Fuck!
Fuck!
I ripped the comforter back.
Janet lifted her head, looking behind her.
Spirit was walking into the room, catching everything.
I froze, taking in Spirit’s face. I was fucked. “Kyle,” she said in a voice filled with hurt and distrust. “I can’t believe you.”
I tried to push Janet away as she came up on me. “Spirit. It’s not what you think.”
Spirit ran from the room, closing the door behind her. I pushed at Janet as she held me down. “What the fuck, Janet.” I shoved her and no sooner had I moved then she was back over me, as naked as I was.
“Kyle, stop pushing me away.” She held my arms down. “It felt good, right?” she crooned, leaning down to kiss me, but I avoided her.
I didn’t want to physically hurt Janet, but I needed to run after Spirit before she thought I wasn’t coming after her. Before she got too far.
“Janet, get the hell out of my face. This is so fucking low for you.” I pushed her. She fell from the bed and hit the floor, complaining from the pain. I jumped off the bed, searched for my shorts, found them, threw them on, and ran from the room.
I didn’t know which way she had gone, so I checked their room first. I knocked. “Spirit. Please come out.”
“Fuck you, Kyle.”
“Spirit, I swear. I didn’t know it was her.”
She opened the door and shoved past me with her bag in her hand.
“Spirit, please listen to me.”
“I want to listen to you about as much as I want your dick to smell like Janet’s breath.”
She charged off down the hall. She wouldn’t look at me and I could tell by her voice she was crying. What made this shit so bad was that she was expecting it to happen. It was the one thing I guaranteed her would never happen.
I ran after her, snatching the bag from her hand. I grabbed her arm. “Spirit. Stop.” I tried not to yell. “Can you please listen to me? Please.”
She looked away, trying to keep her back to me. I yanked her around to face me. “Kyle, stop. Leave me alone.” She was crying, tears streaming down her face, and I wanted to shoot myself. I couldn’t stand to see her like that.
“Please, Spirit. I promise. I swear I thought it was you. I thought she was you coming in.”
“And I bet she felt like me too.” She tried to yank away from me.
I held her still, using all my strength. I had to have been hurting her arms because I was squeezing her hard as hell to keep her from walking away. She tried to pull away from me again and I yanked her to me. “No. She wouldn’t let me touch her, the lights were off, she was under the covers and she wouldn’t let me pull them back. I don’t have a better explanation because there isn’t one. I didn’t know it wasn’t you. I’m not lying to you.” I tried to hug her, but she shoved me away.
“Get the fuck out of my face, Kyle. And let go!” she shouted.
A few room doors opened.
I let her go, not wanting the people peeking out of their rooms thinking this was a domestic violence situation. That would make my night worse. Now morning, actually.
Val grabbed her bag from the floor and resumed her walk. I stood there in nothing but shorts, watching her. I roughly pushed my hand through my hair, trying to figure out if I should go after her or let her go.
She hit a corner and shortly afterward, the elevator arrived. I raced down the hall after her, I couldn’t let her leave upset and mistaken about what happened.
“Can you take me to the airport?” I asked the taxi driver in English.
He turned around to face me. His face was chunky with deep crater-like holes for pores. His large nose didn’t move as he said, “No, my dear friend, you’re not leaving yet,” in a heavy German accent. A gun was in his right hand, resting on the passenger seat. “Don’t get any big ideas.” He slightly nodded toward the back window.
A car behind us cut on its lights as the taxi pulled away from the hotel.
I was super-fucked.
I wasn’t even sure I’d gotten into a taxicab. I was so spaced, tears crowding my eyes, head fuzzy, legs weak, heart breaking bit by bit in my chest. For all I knew, I could have gotten into the silver car that was following me earlier.
Looking around the car, I saw it wasn’t a taxicab at all, but a regular car. Regular fucking car!
I began kicking and punching the seat in front of me. I screamed, frustrated, and cried. I felt heavy, my brain was crowded, and I was angry. I was trying to hold it in but on my way to… probably die… I released it.
“Hey! Hey! Shut up!” the man shouted.
“Fuck you!
” I shouted back.
“If you don’t shut up, you’re going to be slapped with my gun. I am nice, but I will put you in your place, girl.”
I lost it. I started punching the crater-faced man in the head. His gun went off as I rammed his head into the window. He dropped the gun and I grabbed it as he swerved. “Slow down the fucking car!” I shouted, aiming the gun at him. “Now!”
He slowed. I opened the door and jumped out, skidding across the street onto a sidewalk.
Jumping from a moving car was not one of my brightest ideas. It hurt, concrete scraping my skin until I rammed into the curb.
I jumped to my feet and ran. Both cars stopped and the drivers jumped out in pursuit. I fled down the street, running as fast as my sprained ankle would allow me.
As I got to a corner, a car skidded to a stop, cutting off my path. A blonde-haired, straight-nosed female jumped out, aiming her gun at me. She cocked it back and said, “Stop. Or I am going to add another hole to your face.”
“You never send a man to do a woman’s job.” The tall blonde-haired woman said, pulling me into a wide room. They had me cuffed and bruised. She slapped me around after she took my gun and my phone. The crater-faced man in the car was her uncle and she was pissed I’d busted up his face.
“Well done, Georgette.” A single desk sat in the middle of the wide room with hard cherry-wood floors and walls painted black. Behind the large desk was a large chair, turned so I couldn’t see who sat in it. In each corner of the large room was a man in a black suit, hands clasped in front of him.
I was about to meet Melor. There was no doubt in my mind about that. The blonde pushed me forward. I jerked forward in my steps as the chair turned around. A tall, bulky, dark-skinned man sat in it. His face was clear, no facial hair or blemishes. He wore a tailored grey suit with a white shirt beneath the blazer. And in his right ear he wore a gold loop earring. He smiled at me, shining his pearly white teeth.
He wasn’t Melor. Melor, I knew, was Russian. This guy didn’t look Russian. Though I could be wrong.
The man in the chair spoke German, and it took me a minute to register what he was saying.
I didn’t respond.
“You speak German, no?”
“No,” I said.
“Then English?”
“Yes.”
“Valerie Harper, Cohen agent, assassin.”
“No. My name’s Amy, I’m a student, and I have no intentions on assassinating anyone.”
“No?” He picked up a small remote from his desk and pointed it behind him as he pressed a button. A screen dropped down from the ceiling and a projector shined upon it. My picture, name, résumé, affiliates, previous employer, all the languages I spoke, everything about me was revealed. It even had my blood type at the very bottom, and beside it the word donor. “That’s not you?” the man asked, accent heavy enough it was distracting.
I offered a shrug.
He slowly nodded. “You have interrupted some major business.”
“Excuse me,” I requested.
He shook his head.
“Then what?”
The man leaned back in his chair, his hands folded, the fingers of his left hand clasped over his right, tapping it. I counted the seconds as he tapped.
Thirty taps in, he requested, “One moment.” Reaching out, he grabbed a phone from the desk. Bringing it to his ear, he nodded but said nothing as he looked over my head. When I tried to turn around, Blondie popped me in the back of the head as if I was her child.
That infuriated me. She better be miles away from me when they take these cuffs off.
“Miss Harper. There is a large amount you can pay to cover your death. Twenty million dollars. If you do not have it, you can work it off. You are a professional assassin. We’ve looked at your work. You’re clean and precise and we like that.” Oh, do you. “We will pay you the twenty million.” I waited for him to continue. He took an extremely long pause, staring me down. I waited longer. “Would you like to thank us?” he asked, confusing me.
“I’m sorry, I seem to have missed a major part of this deal. You’ll pay me the twenty million if I do what…?”
“I will let you know after you have taken the deal.”
“I don’t know what the deal is.”
He smiled, leaning back in the chair, folding his hands once again.
I kept my composure strong as I unscrambled the code. “I get it. I don’t have a choice.”
He nodded, the smile remaining.
“What do you want me to do? And I assume if I don’t do it, when and how you want me to do it, my life pays the twenty million dollars.”
He nodded. The smile faded. “You’ve heard of Denis Reynolds. He happens to be from where you currently reside, Texas. He’s here for an… event.” His pause let me know this wasn’t the average event. “He has made some guarantees he can’t follow through with. You don’t need to know the details. He needs to be taken care of. Cleanly. In no way are you to make it look like murder. In no way are you to it make it look like it was us.”
Us?
“Purcell has sent a few… DOAs out for us.” Dead on arrivals. That meant when Melor’s goons found out who the DOAs were, when they got here, they were to be taken care of. These people were a bit behind schedule. “They need to be taken out, messy like. We want to send a message.” He threw up four fingers. “And the last: we have a bug. And we know you can find out who that bug is. Find him or her. Bring them to me.” He picked up a different phone from his desk and tossed it at me. Blondie caught it. “When we need to contact you, we will. When you need to contact us, dial star-seven-pound-three-two. You won’t be able to make any other call.”
The blonde grabbed my arm as someone came up behind and took my head in his arm. He yanked it to the side, stretching my neck. A cold barrel pressed against the side of my neck and there was a hissing sound as I was injected. My shirt was lifted and on my left side, I was given another shot.
I flinched from the pain, biting down on my teeth.
“Trackers. Just in case you try to skip town or don’t check in, or we don’t hear from you.”
I stretched my neck. That shit hurt.
“Get a move on, Valerie Harper. You don’t have much time.”
“How much time do I have?” I asked as the blonde uncuffed me.
The man smiled again, leaning back in the chair.
“Guess I better hurry up.”
He nodded.
I looked at the blonde as she handed me the phone. I took it with my left hand. And with my right, I pulled back and slapped her across the face, open-palmed. “Don’t you ever thump an adult in the back of the head. That is rude and disrespectful,” I told her, as her head turned back to face me.
She glowered at me, eyes narrowing into an angry scowl. “If you don’t—”
“Let her go, Georgette. If she does really well, we could use her. We don’t want you to make early enemies. Right, Valerie? You don’t have anyone or anything waiting for you back home. You quit your agency.” He spit the word. “And I’m sure you’re looking for a way out, a free ride. A release. Do this. You’ll get it. All the hits called off, a free life, new identity, whatever you want. It’s yours,” he promised.
I looked away from the dark-skinned man with the pearly white smile as I walked from the large empty room. A man in a suit opened the door for me to exit.
“This way,” a gentleman said to my left. I entered another empty room, nothing but white walls and grey carpet. He led me to a door that led outside. Speaking in German, he said, “There is a driver waiting for you at the end of the block. Take this money to get by for now. A bag waits for you in the car. Everything you need is in there.” He pointed for me to go.
I did as he instructed, walking down the street to the all-black Lincoln. The driver got out and opened the door to the back seat, I slid in over the leather seats next to the bag.
The driver got back in and said, “Luxus Rückzug.”
Feeling like he was telling me instead of asking, I confirmed, “Yes.”
We got to the hotel I was staying in and he said, “Your suite is 654B.”
“Okay,” I said, getting out with the bag.
I opened the door with the key I’d retrieved from the side pocket of the bag and walked into the suite. It was over the top. Funny how when someone hates you, they give you the most luxurious shit. I turned the corner to the bedroom, separated from the rest of the suite. In the chair, set beside the bed, was Richard Newman. The bug.
The elevator took too long to return.
I raced down the cold metal stairs. My feet were freezing along with the rest of my body. We were on the fifth floor and there were two flights of stairs between each floor. I hoped Spirit would be standing in front of the revolving doors outside, waiting for a cab. And as it was four in the morning, I had a reasonable hope that no cabs were around.
I ran through the lobby, gaining looks from the desk clerks. Before I made it to the door, I saw through the glass she wasn’t there. But I went outside anyway.
A tall man with a red buttoned coat stood by the door, trying to avoid looking at me, his eyes shifting from me to the street.
“Excuse me.” I forced him to look. “Did you happen to see a girl come out here? Sweats, big shirt, hair in a ponytail, she may have been crying, lugging a bag with her.”
He stupidly stared at me like I was speaking another language. Then I realized I was speaking another language and he was probably confused by why I was babbling and half-naked.
“I beg your pardon.” I turned to the young boy who had spoken. His accent was the same heavy German one as the receptionist. “The girl you describe. She got into a silver car and they drove down the street.” He pointed behind me. “Something happened about a mile down. The cars pulled over. Five minutes later, they drove off again.”
I looked behind me then back to the boy, whose clothes where too big for him and face was smudged with dirt. I would have given him some cash, but I had nothing. “Thank you.”
He nodded and turned around, walking to a bike. He mounted it and rode away.