by C L Walker
“Not now.” I tried it soft at first, hoping she’d hear me despite what was going on in her head. When that didn’t work: “Angelica, get your ass up. Now.”
She looked at me like I’d threatened to hit her, in that she was about to kill me. If there’s one thing that’s predictable about Mouse it’s that she doesn’t take shit from anyone. Normally.
“I’m good,” she said, but I was barely listening. The music was gone and I could hear the deputies approaching.
I’m a killer, and I’m good at it, but these guys were just doing their job. I’d defend us if I had to, but I had no interest in hurting them if it wasn’t necessary.
I pushed her toward the darkness of the woods and stepped out from behind the tree with my hands up. Three deputies were coming. They stopped in their tracks and trained their weapons on me. I could hear Mouse escaping behind me.
“Get down,” a female deputy said, gesturing with her gun. More had arrived at the house and were barreling inside. I had a moment before this got unwieldy. I dropped to my knees and held my hands out at my sides.
“Cuff him,” one of the remaining men said. They were flustered, excited and scared and forgetting their training. Their eyes were as wild as Mouse’s and they kept checking each other and the shadows for danger when I was right in front of them.
The woman reached for my left hand, her entire focus on making contact with me. The one giving the orders looked back at the house and the third, positioned between the two, looked down at his gun.
I took the woman’s hand and twisted her between me and the others. As they realized what was happening I already had her gun out of her hand and was throwing it at the guy in the middle. I missed my target – his gun hand – but I hit him in the chest and he stepped back. He was no longer aiming at me, leaving only the guy in the back.
I pushed the woman forward and ducked behind the tree, then ran for the woods. Nobody fired after me and I was halfway to the road before I heard anyone moving through the brush.
I hit the road and stopped dead with another gun trained on me. Three heavies in normal clothes were grinning at us, pistols at the ready. They didn’t look like police so I figured they must be Littleton enforcers.
Mouse had her hands up and a determined look on her face. I kept my distance and raised my own hands so they could see I wasn’t a threat.
“There’s a bunch of deputies coming up behind me, boys,” I said. “They’re chasing me but they’ll take you if you’re here.”
“Shut up,” one of them said, his grin never leaving his face. “We brought her in once and we can do it again. Pig.”
“Not a cop,” Mouse said.
“Sure,” another replied. I could hear the approach behind me, a lot of people trampling half the woods to get me. Things were about to explode with bullets and I had no interest in being there when it happened.
I moved slowly toward Mouse, crab walking so they could always see my hands. Their guns followed me but nobody did anything about it. Shooting someone is harder than they make it look in the movies. If I didn’t give them a reason, I was hoping they’d let us walk.
“We need to leave,” I said. “All of us. Can’t you hear that?” I pointed to the trees and the noise they could surely hear by now. “I don’t want to get shot and I doubt you want to, either. Just run and we can all get out of here in one piece.”
I reached her and took her hand before walking backwards in the direction I thought the van was. Their aim never left us but they didn’t shoot either, so we were doing alright. Then a gun fired from the woods and a bullet tore through Mouse.
They must have seen us before they spotted the other guys. After what I’d done to them, and with what was going on tonight, they’d shot without thinking.
Mouse spun away from me, keeping on her feet but crying out. Her hands slapped over her side and applied pressure like it was something she did all the time. I grabbed her and dragged her down the road as answering gunfire erupted from our former captors.
With a more pressing threat in their sights, nobody followed us. I didn’t let us stop until we reached the van. It still stood with the door open. I pushed Mouse inside and slammed it shut before dashing around to the driver side and starting it up.
“I think this is bad,” she said as I put my foot down and the van lurched forward.
“You’ll be fine. We’ll get you some help.”
“No, I meant you driving.” She laughed and it turned into a cough, then a moan. When she could speak again, she went on. “I don’t think we’ll make it.”
“Suck it up, buttercup. I’m new at this, sure, but I’m good at everything.”
Blood spilled around her fingers.
“And so modest.”
“Keep your hands on the wound. We’ll be there soon.”
In that moment I had no idea where there was going to be, but I floored it, anyway.
Chapter 10
Where was I going? I couldn’t take her to the hospital; they report gunshot wounds. I can do triage in a pinch but I wasn’t up to the kind of attention she’d need. Breaking into a doctor’s office and doing impromptu surgery is the kind of thing people do in movies, but in reality it’s a great way to get people killed.
My mind turned to the only real option: ambrosia. If I could get her a bottle of that, she’d be fine. She’d be better than fine; she’d be bouncing off the walls with fresh energy.
The dirt track finally ended at a proper road, and I turned onto it with no real idea where we were. I headed in the direction of the town and hoped for some signs. At least we weren’t bouncing around anymore.
Mouse was pale and groaning, twisting in her seat as though trying to get away from the pain in her side. The blood flow had slowed down and I couldn’t remember if that was a good thing or not. Did that mean she was stabilizing or on the verge of death?
I couldn’t do anything about it either way. I focused on the road, taking a turn that angled us more toward Midway. There weren’t many roads this far outside town and they all led either to the town or the highway at some point. I could find my way from the highway if that was what I had to do.
My mind buzzed with the thought that this was all my fault. I’d lost focus and missed what was happening in the van. I’d left her defenseless because I couldn’t keep from jumping into a fight that had nothing to do with me.
I could hear her voice in my head, telling me that it showed I was a good person. But I’m not a good person; I’m a killer. Born and raised to snuff out life, and I couldn’t control myself enough to keep from beating on people fresh out of high-school.
Mouse and I made an agreement when we decided to run together. She and her husband had a policy of not taking a job that involved an innocent person, for a specific definition of innocent. If I wanted to join her in her new venture, I had to agree to the same. I had to play by her rules.
I agreed because I had no other choice, not because I’m a good person. I figured if Mouse wanted to pretend she was something she wasn’t – and try to be my conscience in the process – then more power to her. I had escaped and I knew I needed help, and I could fake it if I needed to.
What I didn’t know at the time was that Mouse actually was a good person. She had an interesting take on morality and flexibility toward legality, but deep down she thought what we were doing was a service to humanity. Serial killers probably think the same thing, I know, but it matters to me.
She didn’t understand that I don’t think that way. I’m a bad person, raised to be worse. When I see the opportunity for a fight, I jump. I know it even if she doesn’t.
The road led to town, thankfully. Looking at her, I wasn’t sure she would have made it if I’d made a wrong turn. Her breathing was shallow and her hands had gone slack over the wound. The blood had stopped flowing. I was now pretty sure that wasn’t a good thing.
I pulled up behind the diner and sprinted from the van to the door in the alley. Banging and kick
ing it didn’t draw a response so I dashed around the front. The lights were on and there were two tables of people eating, but I didn’t care. I shouldered the front door aside and entered.
“Claire,” I said, walking to the bar and toward the back door. One of the tables had a couple who kept their eyes down and ignored me but the other was a family. The parents were turning their children away from me and I realized I was covered in blood from half-carrying Mouse to the van. I looked like I’d just come from a fight with the police.
Not good for my cover, but I didn’t care.
“Get in here,” Claire said from the entrance to the back room. I hadn’t noticed her appear; I was rattled and in shock, out of control and weak when Mouse needed me the most.
I hurried to the back room and waited for Claire to shut the door before telling her what I needed.
“I don’t just have it in the back room,” she said. “And I don’t just hand it out to anyone.”
“No, just people who threaten you and want to destroy your town.” I grabbed her arms and gave her a shake to emphasize what I was saying. “I need this to save a friend and I’ll take you apart if I have to.”
That blue glow began seeping from her pores but she didn’t try to lash out again.
“I don’t want to get involved,” she said. She looked determined, holding eye contact in the face of my desperation.
“Heal my friend and I won’t kill you. You say you’re a god. Prove it.”
“You won’t kill me, and the police are probably already on their way with the way you look.”
I threw her against the wall and my knife was at her throat before she recovered. “If she dies you die, and I’ll leave Foster to do whatever he wants with the town.”
She smiled and I almost stabbed her. It was something I hadn’t been expecting and it was the way she did it, as though she’d been waiting for me to say a specific set of words before agreeing. As though this was all a game to her.
“We can make a deal, if you like.” She didn’t care about the knife at her throat, didn’t care that I had just threatened to kill her. “I’ll heal your friend, but in exchange I want you to do something for me.”
“I’m already going to kill Foster.” I could practically feel Mouse dying out in the van. I wanted to kill Claire just for slowing me down after the mad dash from Littleton.
“When you do, I want you to do something for me. If you agree, I’ll save your friend.”
“Fine.” I grabbed her and pushed her toward the back door. I didn’t want her to change her mind or come up with some other condition. I didn’t want to delay any longer than I had already.
She opened up and I led her to the van. Mouse had slipped half off the chair to the floor of the van and she wasn’t breathing.
The world faded away for a moment and all I could think of was what I was going to do to this woman who thought she was a god. And the deputies for raiding Littleton. And the people in Littleton for taking her out of the damn van in the first place. And Trevor for not dying when he was supposed to.
“She isn’t dead,” Claire whispered, her voice cracking the shell that had sprung up between me and the world. I focused again and saw her hand on Mouse’s side. Mouse’s blood oozing over the waitress’s fingers. Mouse’s slack face.
“Can…can you help her?” I sounded like a scared child, which I guess I was.
“She has not begun her journey to the nether and her mortal body is a simple machine to fix.”
I didn’t care what gibberish she was saying. Mouse was breathing and the blood had stopped. Her eyes fluttered as though coming out of a dream.
“She will live?” I asked, breathing heavily, my heart thumping in my chest.
“She’ll be sore for a few hours but she’ll be fine.” Claire turned that odd smile on me. “Remember our deal, assassin.”
“Whatever you need.” I turned away from the van and took a deep breath to clear my head. Then I started walking.
“Where are you going?” Claire said. She sounded preoccupied, which was fine. She had important things to do.
I had important things to do as well.
“I’m going to kill some people.”
Chapter 11
The sheriff’s department was a new building on the outskirts of Greenridge, a larger town on the edge of the county. Where Midway was stuck small and quiet, Greenridge had aspirations.
I stood in the shadows of a bar across the street. Deputies were still arriving from the raid on Littleton. They parked out front and dragged prisoners through the hungry mouth of the front doors. I think they called in help from other counties because there were a lot of them. Far more than I’d ever seen before, which allowed them to arrest what looked like half the residents of the shantytown.
I was only looking for three of them, though. The ones who had a hand in Mouse’s predicament had to die. When I was done with them I’d go find the hole the Littleton enforcers were hiding in and I’d take care of them, too.
I was bouncing on the balls of my feet, excited and filled with energy. I was made for this and I wanted it. I needed it. I could hear Mouse in my ear telling me to calm down, to think it through before I did something stupid. I could ignore her as long as I kept in mind the image of her bleeding to death beside me. That could block out anything.
I’d left the clan because I couldn’t rationalize what they wanted us to do with the ideals they instilled in me. Like Mouse, they believed they were doing something grand, making the world a better place one job at a time. Unlike Mouse, they were full of it.
Our leader, Walter DeLacy, would give a speech about the power we held and the responsibility that came with it, telling us that we had to use it with wisdom because there were bad people in the world. The world needed us even if they could never know we were there. Then he would send someone out to kill a cop who wouldn’t bow to corruption.
It was a cult, though I didn’t know it at the time. When Mouse pointed it out I rejected the idea without thinking, but I’d had time to consider it since then. He told us only what he needed to in order to get what he wanted. I became sure he had some grand plan he wasn’t telling us and I got into trouble for suggesting it, but I now believe it to be something simpler.
He wanted power, over us and over anyone he didn’t like. He had no greater goal than satisfying his ego.
I was doing the same as I watched the deputies arrive, and I knew it. I was acting on my impulse and it felt good. I had more power than they did, more skill and ability, and they had hurt me. I was going to show them why that was a bad idea.
You’d think this would have given me a reason to rethink what I was doing, but you’d be wrong. In that moment I had Mouse lying beside me dying. I had enough reason to kill them all.
The ones I was looking for had arrived together, as though it had been set up just for me. They handed their one prisoner off to someone at the door and headed inside. I wouldn’t have long to wait.
Early morning in that part of the world is colder than you’d think. It was a degree or two short of me seeing my breath. Beyond the sheriff’s building and the army of triumphant deputies, there wasn’t a sound for a mile. Everyone was tucked up tight and out of the way.
The female deputy left the building first. They parked their personal cars in the same lot as their cruisers. I had crossed the road and was planning my angles before she finished her last goodbye at the door.
She’d parked nearer the street than the building, and I had to duck behind a bush to avoid her seeing me during the long walk. It wasn’t hard to remain inconspicuous; they were tired and high on success, and they weren’t expecting anything this close to the seat of their power.
She stopped at a VW hatchback one row away and opened the door before someone called out to her from the station. She turned and I spotted one of the men I was looking for. He joined the woman at her car and, in hushed whispers, they had a conversation I couldn’t make out. I didn’t need to he
ar what they said to know what they were saying.
They kissed and she got in her car. The man headed for the street.
I memorized her plate number for later and changed target. The man would be easier and he’d be able to give me directions to the last person on my list. I followed him to a cross street, sticking to the shadows and keeping out of sight.
For some reason, I’d expected more. They’d almost killed Mouse and in my head they’d been worthy enemies, people I needed to take care of. This man was too tired to notice that the only other person on the street was following him, too stupid to worry that there might be some payback for what he’d done just hours ago. He was just a guy.
This was the moment I should have realized the error of my ways and gone back to Mouse, but I didn’t. I’m stubborn, and stupid. I know how to do one thing well and I tend to stick to what comes easiest. I’m a hammer so everything looks like a nail, right?
The guy’s apartment was above another bar. He dragged himself up the stairs in the alley beside it and let himself in through a dented metal door. I waited a few minutes for him to get comfortable before joining him.
Picking a lock is actually really difficult, and often unnecessary. Even people who have eight locks on their doors often leave a window open rather than putting on the AC. Smart move if you’re worried about energy prices, but not so much if you’re being hunted.
The window above his toilet was opened a crack and after I removed the bug mesh I was able to force my hand far enough inside so that I could reach the catch holding it in place. I slowly opened the window the rest of the way and slipped inside.
He was in bed already, crashed, with most of his clothes still on. I didn’t think he was asleep yet – his breathing wasn’t right – but he was on his way.
Did I want him to know why he was dying? What he’d done to deserve my vengeance? Did I plan to wake him up and show him my face before I slit his throat?