by Caleb Meeks
“What happened to you, Judas?” He said, sprinting to my side.
I was starting to give into the weakness my body had been trying to communicate to me. Even though I had taken heavier beatings before, something about this one hit me harder. It was hard to focus on putting a sentence together, but I managed…kind of. “He…he sent a crew to my house.”
He reached me, and immediately braced me under the arm, and around the waist. “This is a lot of blood. What did they do?”
“Most of it isn’t mine.” I pushed out.
He looked at me, relieved. “That’s my boy.” We hobbled into the room I used as my office. He laid me down on the desk in the room. Nothing was on it, so it made for a comfortable place to finally rest. He put his hands on my shoulders, and looked me right in the eyes, trying to make sure I was focused on him. “Is there anything that needs immediate attention? A gunshot, anything like that?”
“No, I’m okay.” I said, some clarity coming back to my mind now that I was laying down.
“Okay.” He moved swiftly, grabbing everything he needed. “Can you give me a rundown of everything that happened to you?”
“Yeah. My hand got pretty badly shredded, I took a hit to the face, and some hard kicks to the chest and ribs. Other than that, I think I’m okay. I think most of it is just muscle fatigue.”
He walked over and looked at my hand. “Good grief, what did you do? Stick your hand in a blender?”
“I slammed a glass jar in a guy’s face.”
“Ouch. I can’t imagine the other guy’s face. It doesn’t look too serious, though.” He set my hand down to check out the rest of my body. I was aware of the pain, but the level of adrenaline was doing a fair job of keeping my mind off it. “I’m going to check and make sure your sternum, or any ribs, aren’t cracked. Let me know if something really hurts.” I nodded. He started pushing around on my chest and sides. While it hurt, nothing hurt like a broken bone. Eventually though, he pushed on my sternum, and I inhaled sharply, causing me to twitch. He pulled his hands back off me. “That hurt?”
“Yeah.” I nodded.
He put his hand back on me and pushed on another spot. I inhaled again. “Hurt again?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, well, the good news is that it’s not as bad as it could be. You cracked your sternum, but it’s minor. Shouldn’t cause much of a problem. I’d tell you that limiting movement would be wise, but even I know that isn’t possible right now. Another kick and it would have been a lot worse.”
“Guess I’m lucky then.”
“Yeah, you could say that.” He said, smiling. “Okay, I’m going to get some of this blood off you. While I do that, just start from the beginning and tell me exactly what happened to you.” I nodded, and he grabbed some rags, dampening them in the sink in the room.
“I don’t even know where to start. I guess it all started when I woke up in the middle of the night and heard footsteps in the hallway. I rolled out of the bed, and then rolled under it. They didn’t exactly give me much time to prepare. A guy with a thick Russian accent walked in, telling someone over his intercom that I wasn’t around. I made it through the house after he left and found six men on the property. After that, I made my way through them. Most of them were easy. Messy, but easy. I didn’t call you because I left my phone in the kitchen, and I couldn’t get to it. I did everything with a knife. A gun would have been too loud, given the circumstances. The second to last man noticed me before I could get to him, so I slammed a glass jar into his face, then slit his throat once I had the chance. The last guy was in the back of the house, and he was the crew leader. He didn’t have a gun, or even armor. He’s the one who throttled me around. Once I dealt with him, I called you. Now we’re here.”
“Not to push for more details, how do you know it was him that sent them?”
“The leader of the pack’s opening line was that an old friend said hi. There’s only one way that could be taken.”
“How did they even know where you were? Not even I know where you live.”
“I don’t know. I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out how it’s all possible. All I know is that this is infinitely more serious than I thought it was.”
He had just about cleaned the thick layer of crusted blood from my skin. It was still stained red, though. Only a long shower would be able to clean it off completely. “I know you don’t like me getting sappy on you, but I’m glad you’re ok.” I smiled. It felt odd to smile out of genuine appreciation. It wasn’t something I could say I’d done in a long time. “I’m going to leave you here for a minute. I’ll be right back. Don’t try to get up, just stay resting. I just have to go get something out of my car.”
“Yes, sir.” I said and watched him walk out of the room.
Chapter Seventeen.
“Sir?” The shivering guard stood at the large man’s office entrance. Shivering out of fear, not out of temperature. The door was open, but he knew not to enter without an invitation. He could see the man, though. The man that everyone talked about. He had worked for him for a few months but had never directly interacted with him before. Seeing such a legend before him set both awe and terror deep into the guard’s body. He was just as everyone talked about. Very formally dressed, with a black button up shirt, and black slacks that were tailored just for his body. His hair was slicked back, without a single strand out of place. His space was perfectly organized and pristine. He was a vision of power, and he knew it. At the utterance of the guard’s words, the man waived him in, not looking up from the papers in front of him.
The guard stepped into the room, slowly, almost like the floor was a puzzle. If he stepped improperly, he’d be dead. Eventually, he made it to the center of the room, just before the desk he was sitting at. Slowly, the man’s head rose from the stack of papers. His eyes practically sparkled, but simultaneously struck fear into the guard’s mind. It was an odd sensation, but he couldn’t look away from his eyes. “What can I do for you?” He said, breaking the guard’s gaze, and refocusing him to what he came to do. The tone he spoke with shocked the guard. It was pleasant, like a friendly boss, or a coworker. Not the demeanor he was most commonly noted with. It both settled and stirred the guard’s nerves.
“Sorry to bother you, sir.” The guard managed to stumble out. He was a large man. Traditionally, he was the kind of guy you’d assume to exude confidence. This situation ripped that traditional opinion to shreds. He was practically shaking. “I have news about the crew.”
The man smiled, his teeth on display perfectly. Even the man’s teeth captivated the guard. They were completely symmetrical. Bright white. “And?” He said, simply.
The guard snapped out of his fascination again. “They were unsuccessful. All six were eviscerated. It looks like a there was a fight, but he was nowhere to be found.”
The man’s face lost some of its original charm. It was almost like a screen got pulled back. The guard started to see the version of him that he had imagined. “Well, that’s interesting, though, not entirely unexpected. I guess it really is true when they say that if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.”
“I’m sorry, sir.” The guard said, still intoxicated by the man’s captivatingly bothersome atmosphere.
The man slapped the smile back on his face. “Well, I guess we’ll just have to try something else, right?”
The guard nodded, feeling back at ease again. His mood’s dependency on the man’s demeanor bothered him, but he couldn’t seem to shake it. “Right, sir.”
“Thank you for telling me, soldier. Guess it’s time to start figuring out what’s next.” The charming devil even threw in a light-hearted chuckle. It put a big smile on the guard’s face.
“Anything else I can do for you, sir?’ He asked, fully willing to do whatever the man asked of him.
“No, I think I’m good for now.”
“Alright.” The guard smiled, turned around, and walked towards the door.
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“Wait just one second, there may actually be something you can do for me.” The man’s voice echoed through the room.
The guard flipped around, excited by the prospect of helping him in whatever way it was. He practically turned into a pathetic puppy, awaiting instructions from his master. “What can I do for you, sir?”
The man got up from his chair, and walked toward the guard. The guard’s face brightened from the attention. He walked right up the guard, so they were standing eye to eye. “You’ve been a very loyal employee to me, and for that, I thank you.”
“Oh, it is my pleasure, sir.” The guard said, trying to hide the overflowing joy he felt from the compliment.
“However.” The guard’s face dropped, and his heart sank. He looked the man in the eyes with a new veil, or without the previous veil. You decide. He couldn’t tell if the man’s eyes had actually changed, or if he was just finally seeing the darkness they actually held inside. It captivated him in a new way. Instead of the inability to look away out of sheer infatuation, he couldn’t look away, like a murder victim can’t look away from their killer. There was a darkness that settled inside him, and he couldn’t shake the feeling. “I can’t have my employees getting friendly with me. And unfortunately, you’re getting a little close.” The guard opened his mouth to speak, but he couldn’t get a word out. He watched, in complete paralysis, the man pull out a gun. He slowly raised the firearm so that the barrel was gently pressing into the underside of the guard’s jaw. “Thank you. You have served me well.” With that, he pulled the trigger. The man crumpled to the floor in front of him. “Very well.” He echoed. With a snap of his fingers, two men came in and pulled the lifeless body out of the room. Blood hadn’t even reached the floor by the time they removed him. “Now, what’s next.”
▪
I laid there, replaying everything that had just happened. Six men had come to my house and tried to kill me. While plenty of people have tried to kill me before, this was the closest to home it had ever been. The man’s words, “An old friend says hi,” kept repeating over and over in my ears, each time with more and more intensity. It was a terrifying, deafening loop, impossible to shut out. I thought the demons in my head were bad, but this was worse. This was real.
It seemed like it had been a long time since Dominic had left. He was just going to his car, right? I tried to quiet the nervous curiosity in my mind. With everything that had been happening, I lied to myself that I was just overreacting about everything. The truth was that my life had been preparing me for this, I just didn’t want to believe it.
Eventually, he came back into the room. The door cracked open, and I jerked out of fear. Every muscle in my body recoiled, which reminded me of the pain I was in. “Hey, sorry to startle you.” He said. Apparently, my jerk reaction was visible. “It took me longer than I thought it would to find what I needed.”
I relaxed some. My whole brain was still on high alert, but something about Dominic’s presence comforted me. It had for a long time, which explains why I always kept him around, even when he drove me insane. At this point, I couldn’t imagine what I would do without him.
“You look like you took a bath in blood, Judas.” I gave him a look of mental exhaustion. “Yeah, sorry. Probably not the best time for sarcasm.” I let out a pained chuckle, another thing I hadn’t done in a long time, though I couldn’t tell if it was out of exhaustion or humor. “What’s your plan?”
“My plan?” I said, for once confused by the word.
“Yeah,” he said, surer of my abilities than me, “you always have a plan.” He started a second round of trying to get the blood off me, starting with my hand. It had stopped bleeding by now, but it was hard to tell because of the blood that had dried around it.
“I don’t think a plan will get us out of this one. I can’t say I’ve got a plan, cause I don’t. I don’t know what I’m doing anymore, Dom.”
“Like it’s not in your hands anymore?”
I stopped and thought about that for a second and couldn’t come up with an argument. “What’s that mean?”
“I don’t know, maybe it’s in somebody else’s hands now.” He said, cryptically as ever.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Dom, but I don’t have the brain to even ask you about it right now.”
He smiled, now pulling glass shards out of my destroyed hand. “You will. Soon. But that’s not the point. What’s important right now is that you get as much rest as possible. I can handle everything going on with you right now. You should try and just relax. We can talk about the important details once you have your strength back up.”
I nodded. I didn’t want to give into the part of me that was begging for some rest, but given the circumstances, I didn’t know when I would have my next opportunity. I closed my eyes and focused on things other than the burning in my hand. Eventually I must have nodded off.
Some indeterminable amount of time later, my eyes slipped open. I was foggy, but I quickly came to my normal senses. Dominic was nowhere in the room. My attention shifted to my hand, which had been stitched and bandaged. I could feel the bandage wrapping around my hand. It didn’t ache near as much as it did before I nodded off.
Slowly, I sat up, and swung my legs over the edge of the desk. “Dominic?” I said, almost unintentionally. It was obvious he wasn’t in the room. It struck me as odd that none of the guards in my facility had stopped in yet, but I tried to push the thought from my mind. Everything at this point concerned me, but I shrugged it off that they were probably just not there. I could barely even trust my own sanity, and it was an unsettling feeling. I’d always been the one I could lean back on, and now I wasn’t even sure if I could trust myself.
I stood up, ignoring the subtle burn from my muscles. Resting had relaxed them significantly, but they could have used another few hours of rest. Walking past the mirror in the room, I noticed the dried blood and stains were mostly washed off. Once I realized that, I also realized the itchiness that accompanied the dried blood was also gone. It was a relief, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that seemed to follow me everywhere. It was a feeling of complete and total loneliness, and it was heavy. I carry a heavy darkness with me everywhere I go, but I’ve mostly learned to ignore that. This was different.
I slowly made my way to the door. It was shut, just as it was before. Grabbing the cold handle sent chills up my arm. It opened silently, and the sun was still shining down the hallway. There wasn’t a sound in the entire complex. With the exception of my breathing, there wasn’t a single sound. Not even a gust of wind, or anything. Completely silent.
I slowly slipped out of the room. There were two doors on the right of the hallway. I stopped at the first one and peeked inside it. Where there would normally be a few guards, there was no one. Not even a trace of a guard. It was like walking through a ghost town. A panicked sensation started rising in my chest, but I did my best to not give it any attention. It could very well have just been that the guards left. Given my silence and everything that has been going on, I wouldn’t even blame them for it.
I stepped out of that room and moved down to the next room. It was the same as the previous space. There was water on the floor, but aside from that, there wasn’t a trace of anyone being in there. The fear in my chest pushed harder to come to the surface, but I continued to suppress it.
I continued back down the hallway and entered the open breezeway. Dominic’s car and my car were still sitting there just like they were when I arrived. I walked over to the cars. His door was still open, and I decided to investigate the car, just in case it could have given me a clue as to where he was. It was like mine, minus the guns. A cross hung from the rearview mirror. Dominic and I didn’t often talk about personal topics, so I didn’t know if it had significance to him, or if it was just a decoration. Something inside me told me I should grab it though, so I shoved it in my pocket and quickly forgot about it. There was nothing else inside the car, so I moved to mine.
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My car was also unlocked. I guess I didn’t lock it when I got out to meet Dominic, but given the state I was in, it didn’t surprise me. All the guns inside the vehicle were gone, which tipped me off that something was going on. I left at least three guns inside the car, and I hadn’t touched them recently. The crew who came to my house could have removed them, but I don’t remember them having any of them. I shoved it to the back of my mind for now.
I walked away from the car, and towards the building on the opposite side of my office. It was just as disturbingly quiet as everything else was. There were clearly no other guards in here with me, and finding Dominic was becoming an even more important priority.
I walked around a corner, and into a large open space. It was often where my guards went to spend time together. While I never knew any of them personally, I knew them all very intimately, and I knew many of them had very tight bonds from working so closely all the time. Right in the middle of the room, which had been turned upside down, was a body. Not Dominic’s, but one of the guards. I slowly walked towards him, and upon closer inspection, I figured out it was the guard who came to tell me Randall was here to see me, back when this all started. He had stab wounds across his chest and was still bleeding from his mouth. He had just died, and clearly by someone with a vengeance.
“Did you hear that?” A voice from around the corner said. It was faint, but given the complete silence, I could distinctly hear it. It wasn’t Dominic’s voice, but I knew what it was. He’d already sent a second crew after me.
The panic that was rising in my chest earlier burst through the thin walls I had put around it, and adrenaline instantly flooded my bloodstream. Fortunately, the sleep I had managed to get had physically prepared me for another fight. This time, I didn’t care about silence. If they were going to know I was here, they were going to know I was here. If they were going to kill me, chances are they would have already done it. I didn’t have a gun, but it's usually easy to fix.
The footsteps were coming down the hallway, and by the sound of it, there were two of them. They were slowly making their way down the hallway. I positioned myself right beside the wall that they would be walking next to. I heard their feet slow as they came to the edge of the room, and that’s when I came around the corner. The shock on their faces was priceless. It’s always interesting how they train for moments like this, even hope for moments like this to happen, but then when they do, they freeze up. I didn’t, however. My good hand quickly collided with the guard on my left. He stumbled to the side, which snapped the other guard out of his paralysis. I threw a kick up to the guard’s face, and he stumbled backward. I jolted forward and pulled the pistol from the belt of the guard I hit first and chambered a round. I quickly put a bullet in both of them, and they hit the ground. It was probably the fastest I’d ever dropped two people, and it was purely instinct. I didn’t have any control over what I was doing, it just happened.