The Broken Peace

by Martha Adele

  Riley nods back. “And after that, I don’t think I will be doing any more anytime soon.”

  I roll my eyes at them and look down to Tom’s knee as it rests directly against mine. His dark-gray striped suit makes him look much taller and much skinnier compared to the rest of the advisors. I look Tom up and down to find that I favor this suit of his more than any of the others I have seen.

  “I really like your suit, Tom,” I tell him. Looking back to the rest of the advisors, I realize each of them seems to wear a different suit every day. “How many suits do you all own?”

  Dotson looks to Tom and chuckles. Each of the advisors straightens up and attempts to look proper.

  “We were just having this conversation the other day,” Dotson tells me. “I have over one hundred different suits, not counting all the other office clothes I own.”

  My jaw drops as I look to Tom. He gives me a small and shy smile. “I know. It’s a bit much.”

  “A bit much?” Riley asks him. “That is an overwhelming amount of suits.”

  “Don’t act so surprised,” Dotson snorts at him. “You told me that you have nearly one hundred yourself.”

  Riley rolls his eyes back at him and takes a sip of his drink. “That isn’t over one hundred, though.” He swallows the last of his drink and points over to Madden. “And my count isn’t nearly as many as Madden’s is.”

  Madden rolls his eyes and looks over to me. “I have almost two hundred suits at the moment. The only time I ever rewear the suits is if I haven’t been seen in one by the media.”

  “Which is never,” Riley adds. “You are on the news at least three times a week.”

  Madden shrugs. “So?”

  “So,” Riley continues, “that is a ridiculous amount of suits, which cost hundreds of dollars each.”

  Madden shrugs again. “Your point?”

  I force myself to keep the eye rolling to a minimum and scoot a little closer to Tom. “I actually know someone who makes suits for a living.”

  “Oh yeah?” Tom asks me, ignoring his advisors as they grumble insults to each other.

  “Yeah! It is a friend of mine.” I look to the others as they give me a small look of amusement. “Well, technically it’s my friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s uncle.”

  I feel Tom’s small laugh against my leg as a smile rises on his face. “Yes? Are they decent suits?”

  “Yes, they are. I have seen them myself.” I look to the others and force myself into a giddy mood. “I think you all would just absolutely adore them.”

  The advisors all look at each other with an awkward smile. Dotson looks to me, trying to force the awkwardness away. “I don’t know, sweetie. I just don’t really see myself wearing a suit of someone whom I don’t know personally.”

  Riley scoffs, “Yeah right, like you know every suit designer you’ve ever used personally.”

  As Dotson shoots Riley a look of “shut up,” Madden turns back to me.

  “What he means by that is that we are sort of suit snobs”—Madden looks to the other two—“if we’re being honest.”

  “Yeah, no.” I place my hand on Tom’s leg and lean in to get a little closer to the advisors. “I totally understand. How about this. I will take your measurements and then bring in some suit jackets at no charge. If you like the jackets, you can get the rest of the suit for a great deal.”

  “It’s not that we are looking for a great deal.” Dotson tells me. “We can afford it. It’s just that we don’t know if we want to wear—”

  “Shut up,” Riley tells him. Looking back to me, Riley smiles. “Go ahead and take our measurements. We will try the jackets.”

  Logan

  Finishing a ten-mile trek from one associate to the next, I slowly make my way up her backyard and to one of her windows.

  I hold my silenced pistol up and aim through the window, right for the back of her blonde curly hair. With one squeeze of the trigger, I will take out the woman who did this to me and most likely did this to many others along the way.

  The wind continues to blow outside, allowing me to listen to the leaves crackling in the sky above me and easing me in to finish what I came here to do. Just as my finger tightens on the trigger, I see someone else in the building move. I duck beneath the window and listen to a familiar voice as he walks through. Only after I hear the footsteps stop do I look back up through the window to find Amanda and Eric sitting on her couch together, watching something on the hologram.

  Outraged by the sight, I find myself circling the house, breaking down the door, and holding them both at gunpoint. I enter the house with my pistol aimed at both of their heads and shout at them, “Get down. Get down now!”

  Eric immediately hops off the couch and looks to me. “Hey, man, what do you think you’re doing?”

  “I said—” I close the door behind me and pull the trigger. The silenced bullet whistles through the air and destroys a potted plant behind both of their heads. “Get down. On your knees. Now.”

  Without hesitation, tears begin flowing from Amanda’s eyes as she holds her hands up to me and falls to her knees. I then point the gun back to Eric and wait for him to finish getting down. I watch him slowly but surely force his way onto the ground but see he is having trouble with the prosthetic.

  “What do you want?” he asks me. “Just take what you want and leave.”

  “Do you know this girl?” I ask him, now pointing the gun to the flustered Amanda who won’t even look at me. “Do you know anything about her?”

  “Who is she? Who are you?” Eric asks, “Why are you asking me this?”

  My voice rises with hatred and disgust. I feel my scratchy voice growling at him at the top of my lungs and ignore the sandpapery feeling in my throat. “I am one of her victims!”

  Amanda’s tears slow as Eric looks to her. The two of us see two emotions on her face. Fear and shock. Her now-pale face seems to have drained with blood as she slowly puts the pieces together.

  “What?” she asks me, looking up to my face but never really finding my eyes.

  I yank off my mask and shout at them both, “Look at me! Look at this!” I point to my face with the pistol, not caring what happens anymore. “You see this? This is what you did to me. This was all because of you!”

  Eric continues to stare at my face and scans me over. He rises to his feet and continues to stare.

  “Get back down”—I point the gun back to his face—“now.”

  “Logan?” he asks me, shocking everyone in the room. “What … what happened? You’re walking.” He looks back to Amanda and then returns to me. “What happened to your skin?”

  I point the gun back to Amanda. “She did this. She turned me in for asking a simple question, and the next thing I know, I am being tortured for answers I don’t even have!”

  “What?” he asks me.

  “It wasn’t just me either, no.” I keep the gun pointed at her. “That family you were supposed to be taking care of? The Pages? They’re both dead too. I watched them both die.” I feel myself letting spit fly as I shout with a full chest of anger. “All because of you!”

  “Hey, Logan,” Eric takes a step toward me, but I immediately shoot him in the prosthetic knee.

  He falls to the ground, and Amanda shouts back to me, “We were just doing our jobs!” She slides in front of Eric. “Don’t take it out on us!”

  My head jerks to Eric as her words sink in. “We?” I stare at them both and wait for an answer but don’t get one. “What are you talking about?”

  No one says anything, so I aim the pistol right back to Amanda. “Tell me right now what you both did, or I swear I will kill you without even blinking.”

  “Okay! Okay!” Her hands shake as she continues to hold them up in surrender. “You already know I was hired to tell them if I thought anyone was a problem or could know
something—”

  “Amanda—” Eric interrupts.

  “But Eric worked there too. He even ran one of the gas chambers for a bit.”

  “Unknowingly!” Eric shouts. He turns to me and looks to me with a sense of pity and pleading I have never before seen. “I swear, Logan, I didn’t know that is what they wanted me to do. I would never do something like that, I swear.”

  I aim the gun to Amanda and tilt my head. “How many times did he work in the chamber?”

  “I don’t know,” she tells me, obviously lying, “only once.”

  I shoot another shot behind her and hit the hologram box, knocking out the program.

  “Four times,” she tells me. “He worked there four times. But he didn’t know what he was doing, I swear. Neither of us knew how bad it was! We didn’t—”

  Both of them fall to the floor with the holes through their heads draining onto her perfectly white carpets. I stare at them for no more than two seconds before fleeing the scene and heading to my next assignment.

  This time, there will be no hesitation.

  Zane

  As I put in the final touches on the four suit jackets, I prick myself with the needle. Looking down at the jackets I have worked on for over a week straight, I pull my finger away and go search for a bandage.

  I won’t ever do anything to harm these jackets, and I especially won’t let my blood be on them.

  “Do you need one of these?” June hands me a small sticky bandage as I rise from the hunched-over position I was in to get to the junk drawer.

  “Yes, thank you.” I wrap my finger up and head back to my work desk. Looking around to the stuffed torsos I have the suit jackets on, I realize that after finishing this project, I never want to make another jacket again.

  “It’s so sad how they will never be worn in public.” June strolls over to the jackets and runs her hands over the sleeves. “They were brilliantly made and, might I add, gorgeous.” Her hands slowly run around the back of the suits and find their way into the pockets.

  “Well, thank you very much. And I see you like the fabric I used?”

  She nods. “I love it.” Pulling away from the mannequins, she watches me head back to work on the final suit. “Now that I think about it, I guess there will be tons of press while they wear them.”

  I chuckle and think through the plan. “I guess so.”

  The news channel we keep on in the store suddenly catches our attention as the phrase serial killer echoes through the room.

  June and I pause for a moment and listen to the woman’s voice from the radio. “Since last week, there have been a total of thirty-two victims from the Executioner. Each victim died of a single gunshot wound to the head but almost never from the same gun as a previous victim. Here is a clip from an interview with Police Chief Griffith from earlier today.”

  Another man’s voice appears on the radio, “The killer used a variation of different guns. Some pistols, some snipers, but each shot was always execution style. It looks to us like this killer is on a mission.”

  “How so?”

  “These killings are too random to be random. We have a slight hint that this man or woman thinks they are a vigilante.”

  “Meaning what exactly? Should we be scared that we could be next?”

  “No, ma’am, if anything, only those who are committing crimes should be worried.”

  The voice changes back to the original newswoman, “From this report, it sounds to me like everyone needs to be on their best behavior, or they may be next.”

  I roll my eyes and go back to the jacket. “Well, that’s a wonderful way to strike fear and panic into the hearts of Frieden citizens.”

  “Yeah,” June agrees, “and what about the fact that they are trying to use the deaths of all those people as some sort of promotion for being on our best behavior?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know how I feel about that.”

  “I do,” she snorts. “It is ridiculous.”

  “Yeah.” I force one of the final stitches into the jacket and hold it up to take one last look at it. “Let’s just hope that this guy isn’t going to get in the way of the next plan.”

  Logan

  The more aware the media is of my mission, the harder it becomes.

  I managed to off thirty-four of Burris’s employees since I started; but since I have made the news, my targets have begun to go into hiding.

  With this recent development, one of my side missions has become my top priority and the next task I will complete.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Zane

  Though I barely know how to drive, I feel as if I am better than most people I’ve ridden with.

  As I drive through the woods in the car she provided me, down a dirt path that I’ve never seen before, I squint, looking for Van standing somewhere where I would be able to see her.

  Even with my lights on their lowest setting, Van’s white skin glows when they hit her. I immediately break, giving myself some form of whiplash, and exit the car.

  “Are they all there?” she asks me, pointing back to the running vehicle.

  I nod. “Every weapon you had stored in the basement of the Fabric Room is in that van.”

  She nods back. “Good.” Pulling a small box out of her jacket, she smiles back up to me. “Are you guys ready to finish the mission?”

  “As long as you have the ring in there, we are.”

  She opens the box and shows me the small golden circle with the cube on the end of it and chuckles. “I bet you didn’t expect it to look this dull, did you?”

  I shake my head and take the box from her. “How does it work again?”

  Pointing to the mechanisms, Van leans over the box and twists the ring about. “When you have the box on the end of it against their necks, you press a trigger on the side, here, and administer the serum.”

  “Okay. What all is in the serum?”

  “It’s a form of testosterone that targets the amygdala, along with adrenaline and a few other additives that I really don’t have time to get into.” Walking past me to the car, Van turns around and waves me to follow her. “Ludley and the others plan on coming back tonight and should be back a few hours after the men have been arrested. Are you sure that Oswald is onboard with all this?”

  “Of course,” I tell her. Oswald is completely onboard with getting the corruption out of Frieden’s government. He just doesn’t know the full plan of how we are going to do that.

  “Okay.” She sits in the driver’s seat of the car and looks to me through the windshield. “I will see you later tonight.”

  June

  The cab driver scans my code and unlocks the door. I have never had a driver that locks me in before I pay, and I never want to have one again.

  As I get out of the cab, I have to slowly retrieve each suit coat from the hanger provided in the car but end up almost getting my arm ripped off by the man as he begins to drive away.

  “Hey!” I shout at the driver as he slams on his breaks. “Excuse me, but I still have to get my coats out.”

  He turns around and looks to me with an evil expression but quickly turns back to face the front and mumbles something to himself. I scoff at his rudeness and finish unhooking the jackets when I am once again startled, this time by a shadow.

  “Oh, I am sorry, dear,” Tom says to me as his security guards surround us. “I came out to help you bring these in.” He places one of his hands over the pile of jackets in my arms, in their bags, and on their hangers. “Please, allow me.”

  Returning his smile, I allow him to take the jackets; and we all walk into the capitol building together. He and I, surrounded by his guards, seem cut off to the world. I almost feel bad for what he is about to witness.

  This man has always been a gentleman and never done anything that I can recall to earn such
horrible friends like his advisors. I only hope that what is about to happen helps bring him a better and much safer life, maybe somewhere lower in the political kingdom, somewhere where he isn’t as much in the spotlight. The more time I have spent with him, the more I have realized he really only wanted to make a difference. He doesn’t care who gets the credit.

  When we make it up to one of the capitol building’s lounge rooms, all the guards leave the two of us alone. Tom sets the suit jackets down, laying them on the back of a couch, and looks to me with another shy smile, the same one he generally gives me when we are alone.

  “Would you care for some tea?” he asks me.

  Taking a seat on the couch, I look back to him. “I would love some, thank you.”

  Tom heads over to the wall and presses a button, paging someone down in the kitchen, I do believe. “Excuse me, but would you please bring the tea cart up to the guest lounge room?”

  We wait a moment before a voice buzzes back, “Of course, Chancellor Oswald. It will be up in a moment.”

  “Thank you very much, dear,” he says to the buzzer. When he finally takes his finger off the buzzer, he comes and joins me on the couch. “So how are you doing, June?”

  I look back to him. “I am good. How about you?”

  He raises one eyebrow to me and crosses his legs. “You know, I ask you this because I actually care, right? Not because I am just trying to make small talk.”

  I look down to my folded hands and twiddle my thumbs. “I know, but I am doing good.”

  Tom leans forward to try to get our eyes to meet. “Are you sure? You seem a little on edge.”

  Looking back to him, I shrug. “I really am fine. I may just seem on edge because of that cab driver.”

  “Ah.” He leans back onto the couch as a knock on the door interrupts us. “I saw him drive away while you were trying to retrieve the coats.” Tom rises to his feet and heads to the door, opening it and taking the cart from a woman. “Thank you so much. Have a great day.” He hands her some cash and waves her goodbye. After a moment, he straightens up and smiles into the hallway. “Oh, hello.”