by Jake Irons
“Tara is that you?”
“Yes,” I groan. “Eli I was hopping across the room and I just fell and I need your help…”
“What?” He sounds groggy. “My head is killing me.”
“Eli, we’re tied up in the bottom of your house and I fell and you have to get us OUT OF HERE!”
“…Oh fuck.”
Eli struggles with the ropes. “Fuck they’re tight.” He continues to struggle with the ropes. “Shit these are so fucking tight.” Eli struggles more with the ropes. “Fuuuck these mother fuckers are tight.”
“We get it they’re tight!”
“They’re getting looser.”
Eli is still struggling with the ropes. I’m trying not to complain, so as not to distract him, but I’m feeling pretty shitty. Half my face is smushed against this carpet, and all my blood is rushing to my head.
“Almost got it,” Eli says.
Oh, good.
“Just have to twist my wrist like… Shit! Okay.” His voice sounds strained—but he’s up! I see his shadow rise, and then he’s beside me.
“You ready?”
“I was born ready.”
Eli lifts the chair—and me—then kneels in front of it. He brushes my hair out of my face. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. I’m fine. Just get the ropes.”
“Right.” He’s bending over me when the door opens, spilling light around a figure…
The person flips the lights on.
Fuck.
It’s the guy we saw on the deck.
“Smith,” Eli says as he moves in front of me.
“Mr. Murphy.” Smith has a gun. A pistol. “Ms. Daniels. You’ve both been busy.” Smith’s smile is amused.
“Let Tara go,” Eli says. “She’s got nothing to do with this. Your boss’s beef is with me.”
“Michal isn’t my boss.” Smith lifts his jacket to show his badge. He winks. “Oh yes, this is as real as it gets.”
Eli stares at the badge for too long, so I ask the obvious question: “Then what are you doing? Let us go!”
Smith shakes his head. “Michal isn’t my boss, but he is my friend. Well, let me take that back. He’s a family friend. We grew up in the same neighborhood. Our fathers were drinking buddies.”
“So you’re doing a favor for a family friend?” Eli asks.
“Yes. But he’s also paying me.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
Smith sighs. “Mr. Murphy, I already told you I don’t like that kind of language.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
Smith’s demeanor becomes decidedly less pleasant. “You know Michal’s on his way, don’t you?”
If it’s possible, Eli’s body seems to wind even tight. “How would I know that?”
Smith’s eyes dance. He’s fucking with us. “It’s a rhetorical question,” he says. “I just wanted to see the fear in your eyes.”
“He’s in Colorado?”
Smith nods. “When the original extraction and/or assassination went to shit, he hopped on a plane; he wanted to take care of things personally. It landed an hour ago. If you’re wondering, that’s right around the time I was punching you in the face.”
Eli’s looks dumbstruck. Smith’s smile widens. “The day of reckoning has finally arrived, hasn’t it? You know he blames you for his niece’s death.”
“He was the one who killed her!” Eli snaps.
Smith shrugs. “Be that as it may.”
Eli takes a deep breath. “Michal wants to kill me, but Tara’s got nothing to do with this. Let her go.”
“Oh ho ho ho ho,” Smith fake laughs. “I’m really going to do that. After all she’s seen?” He shakes his head.
“You said you had kids. Do you have a daughter?” I ask. I want to appeal to his fatherly instincts.
Smith smiles. “I do, but I’m afraid that’s not going to work on me.”
“You’re a disgrace,” Eli snarls. “You’re a sociopath. A cancer. You—”
“Don’t care what you think,” Smith interrupts loudly. “I just came down to make sure you—”
“Please, sir, imagine if we were your kids.”
Smith rolls his eyes. “You,” he points at me. “You’re twenty-five. You’re hardly a child.”
“Your daughter will be twenty-five some day!”
“In seven years. And when she is, I hope she has enough sense not to hang around undesirable sorts like this one.” Smith jerks his finger at Eli.
“Fuck you!” Eli spits. “You motherfucking psychopath. Fuck you and your shit-eating grin.”
Smith’s grin is gone. “Mr. Murphy, this is your last warning. Do not—”
“Fuck you and fuck your wife and fuck your kids and—”
Smith closes the distance between himself and Eli in three long steps, and he slaps Eli so hard Eli staggers back. I can see an angry red mark on his face.
“If Michal wasn’t set on having you for himself, I’d kill you where you stand!”
“How do you fuck your mother with that limp dick?”
Smith is red as a strawberry and shaking all over. Even the gun in his hand is trembling. I’m convinced he’s going to kill Eli, and there’s nothing I can do but watch as Smith raises his gun and stares murder at Eli for easily a solid minute straight. Eli stares right back. I don’t know what the fuck he’s doing. Does he have a plan? Does he want to die? Is he that terrified of Michal?
Because Smith is pretty fucking terrifying to me right now. Even if he’s lowering his gun.
“I’m going to step outside this room. For only seconds. Maybe, seven.” He takes a step back. His cheeks are still red, but the rest of him seems composed. “I suggest you stay exactly where you are, Mr. Murphy. Leave Ms. Daniels in her seat. If you make any attempt to escape, I will shoot you both in the liver. You can die slowly and painfully until Michal arrives to finish you off. Do you understand?”
Holy shit. “Yes,” I say quickly. Eli just nods.
“Good.”
Smith steps outside the room and closes the door.
“What the fuck are you doing?!” I hiss.
“Sorry,” Eli says quickly. “I don’t know. I—I just hate that guy.”
“Are you fucking kidding me,” I snap, just before the door opens and Smith steps back into the room.
He has his pistol in his hand, and he casually sets it on the floor between himself and Eli. “I’m in the mood for a game.”
Eli stares at the pistol. I stare at Eli. I feel like I can see his head spinning as he tries to think of how to get it before Smith. That’s the game, right?
Eli stays quiet, and Smith gets tired of waiting. “Well?”
“Well what?”
“There’s a gun on the floor. Are you going to try to get it?”
Eli stares at Smith, then glances at me.
“She’s got nothing to do with this,” Smith says. “It’s you and me.”
“Why?”
Smith shrugs. “I want to shoot you.”
“You’ve got your other piece?”
Smith nods. “Strapped to my ankle. That’s the game.”
So Smith has another gun, and he wants to shoot Eli. But why go through all these dramatics? Why not just shoot him?
“Look, son, either you take your chances and you maybe die now, or you wait fifteen minutes and you definitely die. It’s your choice. But I think you know as well as I do that Michal is going to make sure you die.”
“Why do this in the first place?” Eli asks. “Why not just shoot me?”
Smith shrugs. “I could. Michal offered your bounty to me at a cool 100K, dead or alive. But since he made the trip out here, I assume he’d prefer to kill you himself.”
Eli smirks. “You got played then. He was offering a million to anyone who got me alive.”
Smith grins. “I know. He made the same offer to me, but I asked for a smaller amount. One million dollars is too much money to hide. I’m
a federal officer, after all. I have to be careful.”
Eli glares. “So you don’t want to piss Michal off but you do want to shoot me, is that it?”
Smith nods. “Yep.”
“Don’t do it Eli,” I warn, and Smith’s gun turns toward me.
“I already said this is between me and your boyfriend.”
My mouth is as dry as Death Valley. Eli steps in front of me while I try to look anywhere but the gun. “Point that thing back at me,” Eli says.
Eli steps to the left, and the gun follows him.
“You’re running out of time Mr. Murphy. I—one second.” Smith’s phone is ringing. He answers it. “Yes. He is. Okay, We’ll be read.” He ends the call and puts the phone back in his pocket. “That was Michal’s driver. He’s ten minutes out. This is your last—”
Eli dives for the gun, and time seems to slow. Smith’s last word, “chance,” stretches into a long note as Eli’s body inches through the air. His fingers stretch and stretch until they finally land on Smith’s pistol, and everything speeds up. Eli rolls up with the gun in his hands and points it at Smith. I almost can’t believe it.
“Hands above your head!” Eli orders.
Smith holds his hands at half-mast and wobbles them in fake terror. “What is it my girls are always saying? Oh noes?”
“You really think I won’t shoot you because you’re a marshal?”
“I think you won’t shoot me because your firearm isn’t loaded.”
My stomach drops as Eli checks the gun in a panic. The chamber is empty. The place where the magazine goes, also empty.
Smith laughs, and he laughs harder when Eli slips his hand in his pocket. “You think I left it on you?”
Eli’s hand sinks all the way to the bottom of his pocket. He looks at Smith, who is casually retrieving his revolver from his ankle. “I’m going to enjoy killing you,” Smith says. “I have a good read on people. You have to be good at that, in my line of work. Not like writing, where you can just make up—”
Eli spins around, so his back is to Smith, and Smith’s revolver is up in an instant. “I don’t know where you think you’re going, but you aren’t going to get there. Turn around.”
“No,” Eli says. “You won’t be able to convince your friend Michal that you shot me in self defense if you shoot me in the back.”
“You think I won’t shoot you in the back?”
“I know you’ll shoot me if I turn around.”
Smith rolls his eyes. “Are you kidding? Fine, if you want to die by Michal’s hand so much, I’ll still get to see it. Turn around.”
“No.”
“I’m not going to shoot you.”
“I have no reason to believe you.”
Smith sighs. “I swear on my daughters’ lives. And I love my daughters very much, so I don’t take that oath lightly.”
I’m on pins and needles as Eli turns slowly around. He’s still got Smith’s pistol. He’s holding it front of him.
Smith snorts. “What do you think you’re—”
Eli raises his arm— BOOM!
I scream but I can hardly hear myself. My ears! Fuck that hurt!
Smith’s down. I don’t know how. Eli is running to him. He grabs his revolver. I hear banging—is that in my ears?
“Nathan!”
No that’s someone upstairs. They’re running down. A guy. Probably the guy who got me. Eli steps to the left of the door and presses himself against the wall. The guy runs in, stumbles to a stop when he sees Smith on the floor, his brown eyes wide in alarm, and Eli quietly puts Smith’s revolver to the back of the bad guy’s head.
BOOM!
A stream of blood arches from the man’s mouth as he collapses to the floor. Eli kicks him, then turns to Smith, who is still alive.
“Eli!”
Eli startles, then hurries to me.
“What the fuck!” Smith screams.
“You good?” Eli asks as he races behind the chair to untie me.
“I think I’m deaf but otherwise I’m fine,” I say.
“Sorry about that.”
I shake my head. “I’d rather be deaf then dead.”
“Dead’s what you’re going to be,” Smith groans. “Both of you.”
Eli gets the knots untied, but leaves me to untangle myself.
“How did you do it?” Smith groans when Eli stands over him. He’s still on the floor, writhing in pain.
“When I took your gun upstairs, I put the round from the chamber in my pocket, too. You got the mag. You didn’t get that.”
“Ah come on!”
I’m finally out of the chair, and I stand beside Eli. Smith’s been shot in the abdomen. Top left. Blood oozes out of the hole with every breath, and I look away—and my eyes land on the other guy Eli just shot.
“Where’s my dog?” Eli asks.
Smith chuckles, but it quickly becomes a coughing fit. “That’s what you’re worried about?”
“Just tell me.”
“I let the him out,” he wheezes. “I didn’t see any reason. For a dog—”
Smith coughs. Eli glares.
“Eli we need to go.”
He ignores me, and continued to stare daggers at Smith, who has noticed.
“The dog’s fine. I promise.”
Eli still has his gun pointed at Smith’s face, and I’m starting to get nervous. I grab his arm. “Eli, don’t.”
He looks at me, blue eyes burning. “He’s going to die anyway.”
“Or I might live,” Smith groans.
“Eli, please, Michal is almost here. We have to go!”
He nods. “You’re right.”
We step around Smith, who coughs out, “I don’t like your chances.”
We dash upstairs, Eli in front, and he clears the floor. “Get to the truck!” he commands, and I dash to the door. I open it and—shit! That’s headlights coming down the drive!
Eli meets me at the door. “What’s the—ah fuck. Shut it, quick!”
Chapter 12
Tara
Eli slams the door shut, locks it, and drags me back downstairs.
“You’re back early,” Smith croaks from the office.
Eli closes him inside, and takes me to the other downstairs room. It’s a home gym. With a closet. “The ceiling slopes down to the floor,” he says. “Get inside, get behind things, don’t make a sound.” He thrusts the revolver at me.
“What about you?”
“I’ve got a shotgun in my bedroom,” he says grimly.
Eli shuts the door, leaving me in near darkness, where I stand for half a second before I leave the closet. Eli’s going upstairs, so I follow him upstairs. I see him disappear into his bedroom, and by the time I get to his door, he’s walking back out with a tricked-out tactical shotgun. It’s got a pistol grip, collapsible stock, flashlight, shell strap—honestly it’s pretty scary to look at.
When Eli sees me, his eyes widen. “Tara, get downstairs!”
“There’s no point! If you go down, I go down. Smith will tell them I’m in the house, or they’ll do a thorough search—”
“Then at least hide in the stairwell. I’m going to try to pick them off from the deck. If anyone gets inside, maybe you can get the jump on them if you need to!”
“Be careful!” I say to him.
“You to. Now hurry!”
I dash to the stairs and crouch at the landing. If I duck down, I should be hidden from view of anyone not standing close to the stairs. I’m standing now, and I can see Eli across the room. He’s crouching on the balls of his feet just inside the double doors that lead to the deck. He’s got his shotgun clutched to his chest, and I’m terrified for him. But there isn’t an option that doesn’t include a frightening amount of risk.
I strain my ears to try to hear what’s going on outside, but I don’t hear anything.
Am I deaf, or is nothing happening? The car had to have made it to the end of the drive by now. Eli is still on the balls of his feet. He seems
ready to spring.
I hear a loud noise downstairs and spin around with Smith’s revolver thrust before me, but it’s just a phone. Whose phone? Smith’s phone! I look at Eli—“Get the phone!” he hisses.
I scramble downstairs and open the door as Smith is fishing it out of his jacket pocket. I snatch it from his hand, and he’s too weak to resist. “I can work something out for you, with Michal,” he pants. He’s pushed himself against the wall so he’s sitting half up. His entire front is covered in blood, and his skin is ashen. “It’s the…only chance you’ve got.”
I leave the room quickly, close the door, turn off Smith’s ringer, and dash back to my perch on the stairs. Eli is right where I left him. His face, the half of it I can see, is emotionless.
I on the other hand feel like I’m going to vomit all over the stairs. What is taking so long? What are they doing? I lift Smith’s revolver and test the weight. It’s heavier than Eli’s. Does that mean it’s going to be harder to shoot?
I sense something—maybe from Eli. I peek back over the top of the stairs and see him. He’s adopted a sort of sprinter’s pose; he’s crouched down on his left knee and up on his right foot, and he’s holding the shotgun against the floor. I strain my ears, and I think I hear doors slamming, maybe. What kind of car was that? An SUV, but I didn’t see what type. How many guys are here right now.
I look at Eli—oh, he’s getting ready.
My heart is in my throat when the next moment Eli leaps onto the deck and aims his shotgun over the railing. BOOM his first shot echoes into the house. I watch him pump and shoot again, and I hear the cries of the men outside. Eli gets off three more shots before he dives into house and rolls up onto his feet.
“Three coming in through the front door!”
The words are barely out of his mouth before the door bursts open. I duck as gunfire rips through the living space. It’s loud and violent and over as fast as it started.
I uncover my ears and listen. In the vacuum left by the gunfire, the silence is almost painful. I don’t know if I can hold my breath any longer, so it’s a relief when I finally do hear something: someone panting. Gasping. I don’t know why but it sounds like Eli. Should I check?
“You,” someone says, and I nearly jump out of my skin. That’s not Eli. I wait for him to say something, but he doesn’t. I still hear the heavy breathing, the panting, but is that the person who spoke? Is Eli—fuck, Eli, don’t be dead.