“Get the fuck off her!” Argos shouts at him, “Give me one fucking reason not to put a bullet between your eyes.” Argos shouts again.
“I will give you two,” Satan walks over to us, “Doc was wrong and he will know about that when we get home. You and Cash are in debt to us, you owe us two markers now. One for coming the night you found him and two for driving her tonight, so one marker will be cleared if you do nothing to Doc.”
I see Argos’ facial expression change and he knows that he has lost this fight, “I still have to tell Cash about this. But if he even looks at her again, you know that there’s nothing I can do to stop what’s coming to him.” Argos grabs my hand and pulls me closer to him.
“We’re leaving, if nothing has changed at the end of the month then we will turn the machine off, if he does make it then call us.” Satan says and the three of them leave.
“I hate Doc.” I tell Argos, I can’t believe he kissed me, how fucked up in the head is he?
“You want to go see Cash?”
“Please.” I say following him to the room and kneel at the bed wanting to be as close to him as possible.
The door closes and I know that Argos has just left, leaving Cash and I alone. “I’m still waiting for you to wake up. You would be proud of me today. I drove a car while Storm did the shooting and I think I did a good job too. So, if next time you want me to come along with you, I’m more than happy to be the driver.” Sitting up, I pull the chair closer to me; I’m going to tell Argos that we have to move the couch in here so it’s more comfy to sit on.
“When this is all done, I want to go away to the beach somewhere relaxing. Somewhere that the only sound I hear is the ocean, somewhere it’s just you and me.” Leaning back in the chair I watch him sleeping, looking at the heart monitor and seeing the beat of his heart makes me feel a bit more at ease. When I see the respirator, I hate it, this isn’t Cash. He shouldn’t be intubated so he can breathe. I fall asleep worried that I may never get the chance to talk to him again.
Chapter 21
Lucy
“Lucy,” rubbing my eyes to wake up, “I’ve made dinner,” Argos says, and I look behind him to see Cash still lying on the bed. It’s coming to two weeks now and as the days go by, the more I’m starting to get scared. I really thought he would wake up by now.
“I’m not that hungry,” I tell him, I haven’t been feeling that well the last few days. I’ve just been so tired that I just want to sleep.
“Lucy, you’ve not eaten much the last week. For me, please can you at least try something?” I give him a smile as he puts out his bottom lip.
“Fine, what did you make?”
“Pasta and salmon,” pulling me off the couch that we brought into the room. I walk outside to the dining table, not sure where we are going to eat as the table is full of papers, and he’s added another two laptops to the set up.
I’ve been helping Argos as much as I can. Neither one of us can find anything, and we think it’s because they’ve have gone underground making it hard for us to find Raphael. Argos is still trying to find him and I’ve been working on finding out how his system was hacked. I think that I have found something, but I want to double check before I tell him about it. We both need something good to happen, and I really don’t want to give false hope.
“How are you? I know that you haven’t been well, but other than that, how are you?” Argos puts a plate in front of me.
“I’m okay I suppose, I mean the longer he is lying there, the more…” I stop I don’t want to say anything, just thinking about it is making me feel sick.
“I know, and I wish that I could tell you something good, but at the moment I’m just as lost as you,” I can feel him staring at me, I know he wants to ask me something but his stopping himself.
I need Cash to wake up. I need to talk to him, to see his face. To tell him something. I feel so alone right now and I need him more than ever.
Eating my lunch, I watch Argos tapping away in the laptop, “I’m thinking that we get Mandelson first. Killing the president won’t work. We need to have him arrested. It’s the easiest thing for us and I’m going to be working on trying to hack his private and non-private computer, which is going to be harder than I thought. As of right now, that is my main focus.” Argos says as he looks up at me and then points to the other screen, “That laptop is set to beep the moment Raphael shows his face anywhere. You’re still looking through the IP addresses?”
“I am, we will win this.” I’m confident as I know that there is only one of two ways this can end and us winning is the only way I want. I turn my attention back to my food, as Argos gets back to tapping and eating.
Finishing my food, I grab the laptop and make my way back to Cash. I sit on the bed taking his hand in mine. “You know this would be a great time to wake up, I would love to talk about something, but at the moment I don’t even know if you can hear me. If you can then you must be laughing as I have said that every day to you.” Raising his hand up to my lips, I plant a kiss. “I just want you to give me a hug…” wiping the tear away, I sit on the couch and get my laptop ready to start yet another day of looking for assholes that are in the world.
I hear beeping coming from the other room, walking over to Argos to see what’s happening. “What did you find?”
“We have a ping on Raphael; I’m just seeing where he is going.” I pull the seat up to him and look at the cameras that Argos is following where Raphael is going.
“What is the next move?” I ask him. Our hitman is really in the kill mood, and there is no way that we can go after him.
“Nothing, I want to know where he is going, so I’m trying to see if we can follow him enough to see where he is hiding out,” Argos tells me and I continue to watch the cameras changing from one screen to the next.
I look over at Cash’s room, and wonder what will happen to all this if Cash is still lying there. Has all this been for nothing, does this sick asshole get to walk away? Do the people of this country not have the right to know what the president is doing? I don’t want Cash to kill him, but I want the world to see what a sick bastard he is. I want the world to know that the government is more sick than we ever thought.
“I will leave you to it,” I tell him and go back to the room, so that I can continue with my work. Looking through all the notes that I have printed out already. I’ve been highlighting any IP addresses that have appeared more than once, to see if there is a pattern or not. “Argos, you free?” I shout.
“No, still following him.” He’s seems distracted and irritated.
“Okay, I can do it,” when Argos told me this is what he wanted me to do, he told me how to find IP addresses, and how I can track them, so that I can do things without always asking him to help me.
There is this one IP address that has appeared a few times, and I remember Argos telling Cash that he was talking to someone to get info on Raphael. I want to check everything twice; sitting in this house waiting for Cash to wake up is killing me. I need to do something and this is something that could help us if I find something.
As I look through everything again, I stop as I realize something is very wrong. Nothing is matching up and I know that Argos will need to look at this better than me, as I’m not sure what to make off it. Walking out of the room, I look at him staring at the screen, and writing things down at the same time.
“What’s happening?” I curiously ask as I pull out the chair next to him.
“Nothing much, just wanted to write down the place that he’s just stopped at, so I can keep an eye on it,” Argos looks over at the laptop, “what have you found?”
“I’m not sure, something doesn't look right to me but I don’t know how to look in to it.” putting the laptop onto the table, for him to see what it is that I have.
Argos looks through the laptop, and stops tapping away, “Lucy you found it, I mean you have found the person that has finally hacked into my system,” Argos pulls his laptop
closer to himself and does whatever it is he does.
Whatever he is doing it’s taking a long time, I’ve been walking in and out of Cash’s room now for an hour, and he is still tapping away. Leaning on the door frame I watch Cash lying on the bed, taking in a deep breath as I wonder how long this is going to take. I thought he would be awake by now, and having banter with Argos, telling me that he loves me. But no, he is still asleep and I’m getting more scared with what is about to happen.
“Lucy, I have found him,” Argos shouts and I push myself off the doorframe and make my way over to him, “So this is the guy that has been hacking me, this is the bastard that was helping me! He was helping himself a lot fucking more.” Argos turns the screen to face me, and I have to do a double take, because I’ve seen him before. He’s still typing away, doing even more digging.
“Argos, that man was on the boat,” I turn to face him. Was this a big game for them? Did they have this all planned out from the start? There are so many questions running through my head.
“Oh fuck.” Argos whispers and my gut sinks. “Fuck!”
“What?” I ask.
“This little asshole is Raphael’s son,” Argos pushes the laptop and leans back on the chair, “They have had all this set up from the fucking beginning! They knew what we were doing before we even knew what we were going to fucking do.” You can hear how annoyed he is about this and I can already see that he’s going to work on a way to make them all pay. When Cash wakes up and learns about this, he is not going to be happy about it either. There is going to be a lot of blood splatter.
***
Argos spent most of the afternoon working on a way to bait them once Cash is ready to fight again. I kept telling him the best way to get him out in the open is to use me as bait but that was responded with a very hard NO. I know that Cash would have said the same, so I just let him work on something without me looking over his shoulder. He did say that he was going to work on it for a while as we will only have one chance to get him and he wants to talk things through with Cash before he has something set in stone.
Sitting on the couch I can’t stop staring at Cash. I know he will wake up, I know he will. Doc called Argos this afternoon to see how Cash was doing and I know that he mentioned it again to Argos about just turning the machine off. Argos hasn’t mentioned it to me but there was a moment that Argos looked at me and I had a bad feeling go through my body just telling me that it was bad.
I haven’t slept one good night in so long, I have forgotten what sleep is. Before I was waking up with a nightmare, or a fear that they found me. Now I can’t sleep because I’m so worried about Cash. I can’t wait for all this to be over.
“Lucy,” Argos shouts my name, and I run over to him, he rarely shouts so I always worry when he does, “I’ve hacked Mandelson, I’ve got into his personal laptop. Now the question is: do we go to the media with all the evidence, or do we let Cash kill him?” Argos looks at me and I have no idea what to say to him.
I mean killing the president or the vice president is not something that you can get away with, even if it is for a very good reason. Cash can go to prison for it and not just a few years. He will get life, no matter what evidence we throw to them.
“Cash can’t hear you. What would be your plan?” I ask him. I know Argos will see the bigger picture. While Cash is shoot first, think after.
I pull up a chair, and look at the laptop screen as Argos starts talking, “I think that we should get enough on both of them, then let it out to the press. I can hack into the TV system, play the videos that I will find on them. Plus tell Tanner about it beforehand so that he can arrest them both. If Cash agrees then we have a plan, if not then it’s back to the drawing board.”
“He wants to kill someone.” I add. I know when Cash wakes up he’ll be looking for blood, and he will have to kill someone to feel normal again.
“I know and Raphael will be our last mission. He gets to kill the man behind it all.” I see the little happiness as his lips curl upwards while he looks at me, he is working on a plan to finish all this; finish it for good.
“So now we wait until he wakes up,” I turn to Argo, “He will wake up, won’t he?”
“He better, this was not in our plan.” Argos lets out is little laugh and I smile.
“What did you have planned? I mean, I bet meeting a girl wasn’t in that plan.”
“No, it wasn’t, not for Cash anyway. He got burned once, he wasn’t about to get burned again. He knows that he is in the firing line a lot more than me, so having the worry about someone can be hard for him. Whereas me, I can meet someone. No one sees my face, and no one really ever will.” Argos stops as his phone beeps, and he taps a reply back to them. “Satan wants to know if there’s any change with Cash.”
“What do you think the plan is after this?” I haven’t thought about what the two are going to do, but I know that I will be part of it, as Cash won’t leave me. And I certainly don’t want to leave him.
“I don’t know. We started doing this for a reason, to stop what the government is hiding and a part of me wants to stop. I mean after this, how much worse can it get?” Argos takes one more look at his phone, “But if Cash is up for it, I’m more than happy to hit people that have done shit to other people. Just before the bounty put on you, we killed a rapist. A rapist that had a rich father, and paid the judge to push it under the rug.”
“Oh my God, you know I was in my own naive world where all of this was a world I knew nothing about. In one way I want to go back to my world, where I was clueless and just go on with my everyday life. But now that I know about it, I want to stop it, I want to help.” I tell him. There is so much bad in the world that I didn’t know anything about, and I bet most people don’t. Like Argos said ‘rich people have the money to pay them off’.
Argos and I have a plan, now we just need to wait until Cash wants to join us in that plan. I look over to his bedroom once more, and smile, this is going to end so bad for them all, and I hope it hurts them.
Chapter 22
Cash
I can’t breathe, something is stopping me from breathing. I reach out to grab them to stop them from trying to kill me but all I get is air. What the fuck? Opening my eyes, I’m met with pitch blackness. I still can’t breathe, I’m choking. What the hell is going on? “Oh my God, Cash! Listen to me, okay? You need to calm down; we’ll get it out of you. ARGOS!” She screams her eyes wide and wild, yet focused on me. She looks as though she’s seen a ghost.
I try and calm the fuck down but something is choking me. I reach up and try and find what the hell is making it so hard to breathe. “Calm the hell down Cash and I’ll get it out.” Argos says entering the room. He looks shocked and I see a grin forming as he realizes I’m seconds away from going crazy. Lucy takes hold of my hand, she’s crying now and I have no idea what the fuck is going on.
“Stop moving, I’ve almost got it.” He pulls a fucking tube out of my mouth and I try not to heave. What the hell was that doing in there? “Now, I’ll be back in a few minutes, I’ll get you a drink. I’m sure Lucy wants to hug the crap out of you.” He’s up to something, he’s acting suspicious and I want answers. Why am I lying in this bed and why the hell did I have a damn tube in my throat?
“Oh Cash.” She starts to cry, “I’m so happy to see you awake.” She squeezes my hand; her tears falling thick and fast.
I grab her arms and pull her into me, “Why are you crying?” My voice is harsh even to my own ears. Damn, my throat feels as though I’ve swallowed nails.
“Cash, you almost died. God, they were talking about turning the machine off, I thought I’d never hear your voice again.” She sobs harder, “Argos and I have been so worried.”
“Who are they? Where the hell are we anyway?” God, why is it so fucking hard to talk? She bites her lip, it’s like her nervous tick that she has; she twirls her hair when she’s horny and she bites her lip when she’s nervous. “Lucy, what’s going on?” I bite
out, hating that I have no fucking idea of what’s happened.
“Cash, you got shot.” She gets up out of my arms and walks over to the chair. Fuck, Raphael knew I was going to be at the house, he set it up. “Cash, do you remember what happened?” She’s looking at me as though I’ve gone crazy.
“Yeah, I remember. It was a set-up, they knew I’d be there and he was pissed that you weren’t with me. I was shot and I managed to kill the two sacrifices Raphael left. I was followed though, as I knew I would be. Why?” Even though my throat is raw, my voice is sounding less harsh. It’s gravelly now.
“Cash it’s been sixteen days since you were shot.” She starts to sob, she’s extremely emotional. “You can’t do that again!”
“Hey, calm down. I’m okay.” I can’t believe it’s been sixteen days since I’ve been shot, I reach over to touch her; needing to touch her but as soon as I reach my arm out pain shots through me. Fuck, why am I still so fucking sore? I know that while she’s here I can’t move because she’s going to be a pain in the ass. It’s going to hurt like a motherfucker and the last thing I need is for her to worry about me, so until she goes, I’m going to have to lie in this damn bed.
“Be careful, Cash!” She chastises me as she rushes over to me. She’s still got tears in her eyes but that fucking beautiful smile graces her face and I pull her to me and kiss her. I can taste the saltiness of her tears on her lips. She lies down beside me her fingers drawing circles on my chest.
“What the hell has happened since I’ve been unconscious?” I demand.
“Well Raphael’s gone underground; we have no idea where he is. We managed to find out who was hacking into Argos’ system.” Her fingers stop doing the circles and I know that she’s worried about my reaction.
“Who was it?” I ask quietly, not wanting to upset her. She’s worried for a reason.
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