by D. Humphries
Discreetly, Connor holstered his weapon. “What’s your name, kid?” For the first time, he noticed the echo in the garage. His voice sounded garbled and disconnected from his sense of self. It sounded weak.
“None of your business.” The kidnapper trudged along, dragging Olivia as he went.
How could he be this stupid? Connor thought. Everything played out better than he could have imagined. Slowly, careful not to make a sound and unbeknownst to the killer, he redrew his weapon.
“I don’t hear sirens. Where are the sirens?”
“Don’t move!” said Connor.
The kidnapper felt the shift of energy in the room.
He flinched and hesitated. He still clutched his own firearm but refused to raise it. Instead, he shifted Olivia to obscure most of his body. Only his head poked out from behind her own and his legs tangled in a mess amidst hers.
“You’ll hit her a hundred times over before you hit me.” Now he began to raise his weapon, slowly. “I’m going to count to five. If you don’t drop your weapon, her brain goes splat. You see, I don’t think you have any friends out there. And I don’t think you’re going to let Warren go. So this is your reward for disobeying me.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m the one wearing the badge.”
“That’s what you all say! You lord it over us like you’re Gods, like everything is up to you! It’s not!”
“Is that what makes it okay to kill cops? Because you can’t get your way all the time? Because there are rules that you—that all of us—have to follow?”
“Give anyone power and they’ll turn sour. Every last one of them. It doesn’t matter how good or noble you pretend to be. You’re all headed for the same place.” He raised the gun all the way to Olivia’s head. “Five.”
“Drop the weapon.”
“Four.”
“I’m not asking again.”
“Three.”
The shot wasn’t in anybody’s best interests. Chances were, Connor would miss. Chances were, he’d hit Olivia fatally. But if he didn’t take action, she’d die anyway. He had nothing to lose and everything to gain.
“Two.”
But the more he contemplated the situation, the more apparent it became that he couldn’t be the one to pull the trigger. After everything that transpired, all the anger and lust for revenge, he couldn’t give people like Warren and his friend any justification for their behaviors.
“One.”
He wouldn’t be that cop.
“Time’s up.”
He didn’t hear the gunshot or even see the muzzle flare—his eyes had closed during that brief moment of anticipation. All he heard of the event was the sound of blood splattering against the wall and floor. And then, the sound of a body collapsing to the cold floor.
Chapter 10
Olivia screamed out and crawled back against the wall of the garage. Officers rushed toward them from a lower floor to surround the kidnapper whose body laid there unmoving. It appeared the tactical team’s sniper was a sharpshooter and rarely missed his target.
“Olivia?” Connor’s voice was scarcely a whisper.
Ignoring the blood pooling beneath Warren’s friend and the officers relaying information via radio, he went straight for his new partner to throw his arms around her. “I’m so glad you’re safe.”
All she could do was cry and tremble and whisper. Even in the big city she’d come from, she’d never been so close to death. The event shook her like none other had.
“Come on, we’re getting out of here.” He lifted her onto her feet and pushed past the crowd into the daylight.
* * *
Outside the glass window, the sun was just beginning its dive beneath the horizon. Customers had been regularly filing out of the coffee shop. They doubtless had other obligations to attend to. Coffee just happened to be a pit stop between two more important destinations.
For Olivia and Connor, that coffee shop was the first bit of peace either of them had all day.
Connor raised his near-empty cup and swirled the remains. He watched the coffee spiral intently. It seemed so simple, the way it followed its course without question. Not long ago, he had been the same way. “I can’t say it enough,” he sighed. “I screwed up.”
“Look at me.” Olivia took Connor’s chin between her thumb and index fingers and lifted it. “Everything doesn’t have to end in violence.”
Connor scoffed. “Even after what happened, you can still say that?”
“After what happened, I’m proud of you for trying to find another way.”
“Someone had to shoot him.”
Olivia frowned. He was right and she knew it. No matter what happened, there was no scenario where the kidnapper would have walked away unscathed.
“What was his story anyway?”
“Army buddies.” Connor sipped the last of his coffee. “Ironic they both turned out the way they did after serving their country.”
In Olivia’s mind, service wasn’t the end-all be-all for shaping patriotic citizens. She wondered whether or not they had a choice to enter the service, and how everything leading up to the present day shaped them into the people they were.
Warren seemed to have a bitter grudge against cops due to his father’s abuse. It was discovered that his friend had a similar background; not a cop for a father but a very abusive childhood.
Connor had such a rigid way of seeing things, she sometimes wondered how he managed to get by at all. It wasn’t all bad, though. Her lips lifted.
“What are you smiling at?” asked Connor
“It’s just, we’ve hardly gotten to know each other but I still feel like I know you so well.”
“Yeah well, you can’t get much closer than sharing a life-or-death situation.” Connor smiled.
It all came back to Olivia. The Connor she first met returned, the cheerful man who smiled at her when she first walked into his office.
He was trying to finally put the deaths of the two officers behind him. And maybe from all that sadness, something happy would rise to replace it.
“You’re smiling again. What are you thinking about?” asked Connor once again.
“You said we couldn’t get much closer than a life-or-death situation. I thought it was funny.”
“Yeah? What’s funny about it?”
“You’ll see.”
Olivia closed her eyes and leaned forward across the table…
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Prologue
THE ENFORCER
I’ve got to be grateful that I happened upon this opportunity. All the lamps shine down on the stage like the light of angels, illuminating those slender figures in front of the green screen. They’re all wrinkle-free and smiling, and their makeup only doubles the effect of their natural beauty.
None of the girls here are much older than twenty—some of them can’t even be that old—yet here I am, standing among them in all my near-thirty glory. I feel disgusting.
But this is good for me. How can I possibly be so concerned with my appearance for a makeup commercial? I have to look good by default. That’s how it works. Or maybe it doesn’t. I wouldn’t know. I’ve never done this before and the anxiety is eating at me.
Another of the models steps down from the stage smiling. She hugs her agent and hops over to a group of women her age. They laugh and giggle together, friends who have nowhere to go but up.
“Kayla!”
I jerk to attention. This is the moment. My cosmetologist smiles in my direction and nods her encouragement. At least there’s someone in my corner. But I suppose it doesn’t matter if I’m not there myself.
That’s it! Snap out of it. Come on.
“K
ayla!” the director calls again, this time with a snap of his fingers.
I hop onto the stage. The lights nearly blind me. I squint over at the director—who promptly informs me that I must avoid squinting whatever I do—and struggle to remember the one thing that mattered more than anything else: my lines.
A deep fog rushes into my mind. I search through the congestion for something, even just one word.
“The day comes whether I want it or not,” I stammer.
They can tell I’m not confident but no one says anything. The group of girls aren’t giggling at my performance and the director isn’t cringing. That much must be right, at least.
But the rest…I can’t remember the rest. “When I want it or not, I have to be ready.” No, that’s not right. I know that’s not right. And I repeated part of the last line. Someone’s bound to notice, they have to.
Lo and behold, the director drops his forehead into his palm. The cameraman begins fiddling with the massive device, and the girls all turn to face away. It doesn’t matter if they hide their faces or stifle the sound in their palms. I know what they’re laughing at.
“Kayla…” It’s the only word the director has said to me all day. And every time I hear it, my own name for Christ’s sake, it makes my blood boil. And now my cheeks grow flushed. Layers of makeup conceal it from the crowd, but I can feel the heat trapped there, threatening to burst out at any moment.
“I’m sorry.” Those two words come out clearer than anything I’ve said today. How pathetic. How can I be this bad?
I don’t bother explaining myself further or begging the director for a second chance. After all the strings Dad pulled to make this happen, it looks like I simply don’t have it in me anymore. Like aging, I suppose it’s something out of my control.
I’m out of the studio before anyone has time to reprimand me or dismiss me their self; and I’m out of the building just before the heat welling up in my cheeks forces its way though.
My eyes tremble and my vision blurs. This had always been my dream. After all those long night spent primping myself up, practicing in front of a mirror, I froze right when it mattered most. I failed.
And now I’m realizing what I mistake it was to leave the building the way I did. The bus I took to get here won’t be back around for another hour.
If everything had gone according to plan, I’d have been auditioning for at least another thirty minutes. The wait wouldn’t have been so long, but instead it seems that everything is going to hell.
Might as well start walking now. It’s only a few miles from here to my apartment, and I could use the fresh air to collect myself.
I start down the agency staircase and arrive on the sidewalk. The bus stop is to my right. Across the street is the stop for the return bus. I don’t bother waiting for the crossing light—there’s hardly any traffic anyway—and bolt across the street, then swing left down the sidewalk.
It’s painfully cold. Yet another circumstance I never accounted for. Having had every intention of taking the bus back, I decided against bringing a coat with me. My blouse is thin enough for my lingerie to be visible underneath. Didn’t even make it far enough in the audition to show it all off. But who am I kidding? It would have been another embarrassment. The other girls probably wore much more appealing garments beneath their tops.
And to make matters worse, there’s a nagging tapping that refuses to stop.
The streets are wet from the earlier rain, and the remnant water streaked across the glass windowpanes of the buildings to my right reflect all the colors of neon signs and lamp posts.
And behind me, I hear something other than that tapping. There’s a click with it now. The click of fingernails against glass.
My heart leaps.
Turning around would put my fears to rest. It would prove that I’m not being followed. But if I am, it’ll tell whoever’s stalking me that I know they’re there. There’s no telling how they’ll react to that.
I can’t help but thinking about the audition again, how I wouldn’t be walking home and wouldn’t be worried about stalkers if only I’d stayed. If only I’d remembered my lines.
Behind me, the tapping grows more frantic. I keep a close eye on every window I pass. I commit the length of each to memory, but it doesn’t do me any favors. It’s hard to gauge a correlation between the number of taps and the length of the windows.
A part of me still tries to placate me and convince me that this is all a figment of my imagination. I’m stressed. My head’s playing tricks on me. That’s all there is too it. But a lady walking home alone at night can’t afford to think that way.
Just ahead of the next building, the block comes to an end. If the tapping ends too, I’ll have my answer.
Humid sweat gathers at my collar. I step off the sidewalk onto the street, hurry across, and resume my regular pace.
For a while the tapping stops. I pass the glass pane of another storefront. The tapping continues.
Now I can’t ignore it any longer. I risk that fatal move. My head turns to the side in a feigned cough.
I raise my left hand appropriately and make an unconvincing noise. I jerk my head along with it to check the corner of my vision. Lo and behold, there they are. Heavy black cloak with the collar raised to cover their face. I speed up.
My heart knows now that I’m in danger. It drums against my chest.
“Don’t panic,” I tell myself, but the reasonable warning cannot sway my natural desire to break out into power walk mode.
So that’s exactly what I do. That’s exactly what I shouldn’t have done.
Three heavy footsteps fall against the ground behind me, each louder than the last. My assailant falls upon me with a delicate touch, wrangling me around so that I face them.
They wear a cloth hood over their face to keep their identity secret; although that should be the least of my worries, it’s all that I can think of when two slender hands wrap around my throat. My head gets fuzzy. Every sense distorts.
I feel my back slam against something hard—the brick wall of a building—and I gasp for air. The assailant grunts in high pitch and bears down harder.
The perfect end to my day.
What a joke. What a colossal joke it all is. What point is there in resisting anyway? I’ve got nothing waiting for me except on the other side of this certain death.
“You’re my world.” That voice is familiar, it rings in my head.
Now I’m desperate to escape. I clutch at the assailant’s arms, struggling to pry them free.
Those were Daddy’s last words to me before I left on this fool’s errand. If I have any reason to overcome this, it’s for him.
Though I’m unable to pull myself free from their grasp, I kick out at their leg. The heel of my shoe catches them perfectly and they stumble, loosening their grip enough for me to push forward, forcing us both into the road.
A bright light shines on us both, piercing through the darkness of the night, shattering along the raindrops, and letting out a loud honk before screeching to a halt.
But it’s already too late. I feel the impact and everything goes black.
About the Author
My Life in 8 Words:
“Make sure your beliefs are not self-limiting and make sure your limitations aren't self-imposed.”
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D. Humphries
Connor Cole and Olivia Hudson
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