"Darwin, when the hell are you gonna be back home?" his brother's tone is harsh, but he sounds concerned. Darwin is lying down in his Pontiac Bonneville and he's in an abandoned gas station, wielding goggles over his eyes and a toothpick sticking out of the corner of his mouth.
He grunts, lifting the hem of his sleeveless shirt up to expose his stomach to the breeze that blows in through the open window at his side.
"You know, Lester, you sound just like my non-existent mother," he replies.
There's an audible sigh and a brief moment of silent.
"Well, I hope it's soon because I can't sleep well at night knowin' that you've been out there fer a month. Shit, Jim got all banged up from his last hit and he's eager ta get back out there. Jeeves is more interested in stayin' home, thank God," Lester updates him.
Darwin exhales, lifting the goggles from his eyes to reveal their color. They're cobalt blue, almost supernatural in appearance.
"I know you want me back home, but I got two more hits to complete," he looks in his rear-view mirror at his trunk. "I'm in the middle of one now."
Lester sighs again, exasperated.
"Well, goddammit, why didn't ya tell me? I don't wanna interrupt you while yer on the job," Lester starts. "Just text me a little more often than never an' I'll get off yer back."
Darwin exits his car and he walks to his trunk. He unlocks it and lifts the hood to reveal a man with a gag over his mouth. His hands tied behind his back.
He grabs the front of the man's shirt and he leans him up and then he yanks him out of the trunk. The man falls on the ground and a cloud of dirt rises around him. He tries to wiggle away, but Darwin presses the sole of his combat boot against the bloody wound on the man's side.
It causes him to wince, so he decides to stay put.
"Fine, I can do that," Darwin agrees.
He narrows his eyes at the cliff and then he begins to roll the man closer to it with his foot.
"You take care out there, bro," and then Lester ends the call.
Darwin pockets his cell phone, and he finally reaches the edge of the cliff. The man desperately tries to squirm in the opposite direction.
The man under Darwin's heel is Danny Briggs, and his crime is that he was abusing his wife. Having had enough, she summoned one of the Tremors. She didn't care which one would help her because she knew that any of the four brothers would be able to get the job done and no one will be able to trace the crime back to her. They were professionals and their particular sets of skills made them popular for anyone that hungered for revenge.
They're brothers, they're blood and they're killers.
Lester wields a compound bow and a shotgun, and one weapon relies on precision while the other doesn't. He's capable of using both to their full effect, and when he's not vanquishing his victims in the field, he brings his target back home and he situates them in the large shed on the side of their two-story farmhouse to torture them. Tattooed from his elbows to the tips of his fingers are human bones, and each bone is anatomically accurate and in the right place. He's precise and he's exceptional at what he does, when he has to do it.
Jeeves wields a chainsaw, a couple of firearms and a war hammer. The second youngest—but the tallest of the brothers—is a behemoth. He stands at 6'6," and the scent of blood drives him insane. Blood to him is what the color red is to a bull. He's known to bite his victims to death and he kills people with his bare hands as well.
Jim wields whatever weapon he pleases, but he prefers firearm because they're quick and effective. He prefers knives; too, because they're personal, and it allows him to be close to his victims as he kills them. And like Jeeves, the blood flowing through his veins is the blood of a berserker: a southern psychopath that enjoys murder.
Darwin wields duel-machetes, a grease gun and stalk hand grenades. He's the oldest brother, the leader, and he's known to disarm his victims and subdue his targets by using their pressure points to overpower them. He's not known for his mercy and his compassion.
The leader reaches down, and he tugs the gag out of Danny's mouth to let him talk.
"Please, don't do this! I have a wife," he pleads.
Darwin smirks, applying a little more pressure to Danny's side to lean him closer to the edge. Danny squeezes his eyes shut when he feels the cold air against his back.
"I know you have a wife, Danny, because she's the one that hired me," Darwin reveals. "Oh, yeah, she was tired of bein' your punchin' bag, so she decided to do somethin' about it."
The look on Danny's face says it all.
Darwin scratches his stubbly cheek, looking off into the distance and then his cell phone rings.
"Ah, I got a phone call. Excuse me for a moment," he pulls his cell phone out of his pocket and all of a sudden, he pushes Danny over the cliff and then he turns, pressing the phone to his ear.
"Good, you're callin' me on the phone we provided for you," Darwin turns his head, listening to Danny's scream, as it gets softer and softer.
"Yes… Yes, I am," Danny's wife pauses. "You said it would be done by now, so is it?"
Darwin presses his phone against his chest to hear for Danny again and he can't hear him anymore. He smirks, returning the phone to his ear.
"It is. You're a free woman, Ms. Briggs, and if you follow everythin' accordin' to plan, you'll be just fine," Darwin explains.
He can hear her sniffling, and he makes his way back to his car.
"Thank you," she murmurs.
Darwin shuts the hood of his trunk, gets back into his car and he starts it.
"You're welcome," and then he drives off after he hangs up.
It's a lazy morning in Las Vegas, and Darwin reaches down to combs his hand through the wrappers on the passenger's seat next to him. He finds a stale peanut butter cracker and he stares at it, wondering how long it's been there.
He shrugs his shoulders, popping it into his mouth as he makes a left turn.
Knowing that he needs some real food, Darwin drives to the closet restaurant he knows and where the workers know him, too: Tiffany's Café.
After parking his car, he enters the establishment and he nods to the man behind the counter. Darwin slides into a booth near the window, and a waitress hands him a menu and pours him a cold glass of water.
Outside, a redheaded woman walks by his window and she stops near the front door. She pulls her curly hair into a ponytail and she lowers the backpack from her shoulder to reach into one of its pockets. She begins to unravel a few dollar bills and she counts the coins.
Darwin continues to observe her as she enters the café.
Once the woman situates herself on a stool, he lowers his gaze back down to the menu as the man behind the counter approaches her, pad and pen in his hand.
"What will you have, sweets?" he asks.
The woman continues to stare at the menu and she places her money down on the counter.
"What can I get for three dollars and seventy-two cents?" she whispers, embarrassed to talk any louder. "I don't have anything else."
Darwin looks over at the woman again, strangely intrigued.
The waitress saunters over to Darwin's table and scribbles his order down. She takes his menu away and he rubs his hands together, listening.
"Everything on our menu is four dollars or more, but we can give you toast and a cup of coffee or glass of water," he clarifies.
The woman seizes the offer, and she pushes the money to his edge of the counter.
Darwin looks at the condition of the woman. She's wearing hiking boots, shorts and a shirt. He leans a little to the left to see a map and small book about trails tucked into the pocket of her backpack. He pegs her for the type that probably abandoned her life in search for the meaning of it and all she probably found was a pile of bear shit in the woods.
Amazed, he shakes his head and as the woman looks around the café, she sees Darwin looking at her. He doesn't look away.
Her eyes widen and she turns to face the kitchen again, going completely still.
"Monster with a side of fries?" the waitress approaches Darwin with his meal.
"That was fast," he nods his head and leans back to let her place the plate down on the table along with a white foam container.
"It's not that busy today, thank the Lord," his waitress sighs. "Well, if you need anything else, don't be afraid to ask."
The waitress leaves to greet the next person that sits herself down at the other side of the café.
Darwin cuts his large burger down the middle and he places one half into the open container and then he dumps half of his fries into the container, too.
He begins to eat what's left on his plate, watching the woman chew on her toast as if he were watching a character from a television show.
What is she going to do next?
Unimpressed by the toast and annoyed by her condition, the woman shoulders her backpack and she heads to the bathroom.
Darwin continues to eat his meal and he's finished by the time she reemerges. She's dressed in clean clothes and he can smell the perfume that she dabbed on. It smells earthy. When she returns to her things, she folds the last piece of toast in a napkin and she tucks it into her backpack and then she heads out the door.
Darwin follows her with his eyes and he places a twenty-dollar bill on the counter, grabs the container of food and then he leaves the café, too.
He stands on the sidewalk, looking around. He spots her walking down the block and he follows her, making sure that she doesn't see him. Darwin is good at that.
As he walks, people make an effort to cross the street to avoid him and the women that do pass by clutch their purses a little harder. He looks like a criminal, and that's because he is one.
He's an asshole, too, but he doesn't enjoying seeing innocent people down on their luck. He knows nothing about this woman, or whether she's a good or bad person, but if he can be kind to someone, he will be. Plus, he's curious about her life's story.
The woman enters Bob Baskin Park, which has taken them a little over half an hour to reach, and she sits down on a bench. A few pigeons and doves begin to peck around her.
Darwin holds the container in his hand, watching her from a distance again.
She's bent over for some reason and as he comes a little closer, he sees that she's feeding the birds her last piece of toast. That oddly touches him and he's suddenly glad that he took half an hour out of his day to follow a stranger to the park.
The birds scatter when he approaches her and he sits on the bench across of her, and he stares at the woman. She stares back at him, visibly tense.
"I saw you in the café and I couldn't help but notice that you could only afford a few scrawny slices of toast," he begins. "Here, take this."
Darwin holds out the container to her, and she looks at it.
"Why?" she asks.
Regardless, she takes the container and Darwin leans back against the bench.
"I haven't figured that out yet, but I will," he rubs his fingers together.
The woman places the container down on her lap and she opens it. The smell of bacon and cheese and beef and French fries rises to her nostrils, and the aroma makes her eyes water. She begins to eat, savoring the taste that's bursting in her mouth.
"So, where did you come from? It looks like you've come a long way," he nods to her worn down boots and dirt stained socks.
The woman bashfully ducks her head down when she realizes how she must look. She reaches down to find a napkin in her backpack and Darwin reaches in his back pocket, pulling out a handkerchief. He hands it to her and she shyly takes it.
"Thank you," she wipes her mouth. "I was living in Michigan, and I decided to quit my job, leave my apartment and give the rest of my belongings to Good Will and then I embarked on a hike across the states. I rode buses when my feet bled, slept in cheap motels, lived off of river water and fountains in parks, and granola bars, and…"
She goes quiet, chewing on the tip of a French fry until it gets soggy. The last few months of her life have been excruciatingly tough on her.
"And it was a mistake," Darwin ends her sentence.
The woman places the French fry down and she keeps her gaze adverted.
"What are you gonna do now?" he wonders.
That question makes her feel nauseous and there's something final about it, even without its answer. She stares at the meal in her lap, and it dawns on her that this will probably be the last good meal that she'll ever eat.
"I don't know," she breathes.
Darwin studies her and he tilts his head to the side, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
He stands up from the bench and he hooks his thumb on his left pocket and then he looks in the direction of where they both came from.
"I'll…" he hesitates to continue. "I need someone to help me with somethin' and since it seems like you're free, you can assist me. And I'll pay you, of course."
The woman slowly lifts her eyes to him and she blinks.
"You're not a pimp or a recruiter for a sex ring, are you?" she asks, worried.
Darwin smirks and he traces his lower lip with his thumb.
"No, I can't say that I am," he answers.
She doesn't have anything to lose, really, so she slowly stands from the bench and she hangs her backpack on her shoulder again.
"Okay, I'll go with you," she follows Darwin as he leads her out of the park.
They make it back to his car, and he opens the passenger's side door and he leans in to clean up the wrappers on the seat. He stuffs the garbage into a plastic bag and he tosses the bag into the trash bin on the sidewalk.
The woman sits inside of his car and she looks around, noticing how strange its interior is. It smells like smoke and some kind of oil that she can't identify.
Darwin gets in and slams the door shut. He puts his key into the ignition, and he looks at her before he starts the engine.
He holds his hand out to her.
"I'm Darwin," he introduces himself.
The woman slips her pale and slender hand against his callous and rough palm.
"I'm Red," she smiles.
He firmly shakes her hand and he places his hand back on the steering wheel as his other hand turns to start the car. 'Let Me Out' by Electric Mary screams through his speakers and Red immediately covers her ears with her hands.
"Shit, sorry about that," he softens the music.
Darwin reverses his car and he drives off down the road.
As they make their way down the street, Red chews on her lower lip and she eyes the radio. She reaches out to touch the knob, and with reflexes like a cat, Darwin grabs her wrist.
His body reacts before his mind does.
"What are you doin'?" he returns his eyes to the road and his hand to the steering wheel.
Red hugs her hand to her chest, rubbing her wrist.
"I was… I was about to ask if I can listen to the radio," she nervously stutters.
He glances at her from the corner of his eye and he inclines his head.
Receiving permission, Red switches the settings and she searches for what she wants and then she finds it. 'This Too Shall Pass' by Danny Schmidt starts to play on NPR.
They come to an intersection and a stoplight, and Darwin shifts in his seat, not used to listening to this kind of music. It's strange, but there's something endearing about it.
He's used to singers roaring their lyrics at him, not serenading him.
It's an interesting change, and strange enough, it's not a bad one.
Still on alert, Red reads every street sign that they pass and she leans closer to the door as if she believes that she can roll out and survive the damage it would do to her if she had to bail out.
Fifteen minutes later, Darwin pulls up to The Venetian hotel.
He gets out of his car and grabs a duffel bag from his backseat and then he opens Red's door. She looks around before she steps out to stand, expecting a van of men to pull up and abduct her, or something so terrible that she can't even imagine it yet.
"I'm gonna book us a room here and I'm gonna explain what I need you to do for me. I'll give you money to buy new clothes and whatever else you need to take care of yourself, and all you have to do is learn. Can you do that?" he gives a brief summary of what she should expect, and Red slowly nods her head.
She feels like she died somewhere on her journey and all of this is her journey to Heaven. Everything is changing so quickly, which causes her anxiety to slowly rise.
They walk to the front doors, and they step into the luxurious lobby.
There's a giant sculpture in the middle of the room of four, bare-breasted women carrying the weight of a golden world on their backs.
Darwin pulls out his wallet and he places his bag on the floor.
"Wait here while I book our room, and don't try to lift my bag, you won't be able to," he doesn't wait for her to respond and he goes to the desk to reserve a room.
A few more people fill the lobby and Red becomes more and more aware of her appearance. She feels underdressed and she feels too exposed. She feels like everyone is looking at her, so she lets her hair down and she tries to hide her face with her curls.
Darwin returns to her and he picks his bag up from the floor. He notices the way she darts her eyes around as if she's looking for an escape.
"Hey, you okay?" he touches her forearm and she flinches away from him.
Red looks around for the elevator and then she lowers her head on the verge of a full-blown panic attack. She tries to remain calm as she speaks.
"Can we get to our room, please?" her voice trembles.
Darwin touches her lower back and he leads her away.
Once they step inside of the elevator, Red stands with her back against the corner and she almost tries to vanish into it. She doesn't speak on the ride up.
Finally, they reach the top floor, which is the penthouse, and Darwin unlocks their door.
Red enters first and Darwin follows, locking the door behind them. She stares at the large space, and she finds the panel of light switches against the wall and then she turns off the overhead lights. She softens more of the other lights, too, leaving only a few lamps on.
Darwin studies this, and he walks into the formal living room to turn its light down, too.
"This is the penthouse, the best room in the whole place, and it's ours for a few days," he speaks softly to her. "There's a Master bedroom and a Second bedroom, two bathrooms, too."
Red stays near the door and Darwin approaches her. She shies away from him.
"I don't belong here," she whispers.
Darwin doesn't know what's upsetting her, but he knows a panic attack when he sees one. He keeps his voice calm and cheerful. Well, as cheerful as a man like him can sound.
"Hell, I don't, either, but here we are. You have your own bedroom, and if you need a day to relax and unwind, you can do that. There ain't no rush," he tries to comfort her in the only way that he knows how. He lists only the positives, so she forgets the negatives.
And it works.
Red takes a deep breath and she apprehensively walks into the next room to look around, and she finds herself in the Second bedroom.
The Second bedroom has two windows that overlook Las Vegas, and there's a Queen size bed against the wall with a dresser across of it. There's also a small table and a couch, and a flat-screen television mounted on the wall. Everything is painted with shades of gold.
She's about to place her backpack on the bed, but she decides to place it on the floor, instead. Red sits on the chair and she begins to remove her boots and then she peels her socks off her aching feet. Darwin leans against the doorframe, quietly watching her.
She moves her boots off to the side and she looks at him.
"I don't know how good I'll be at the job you want me to do, but I promise to do my best," she rubs the pad of her foot against the rich carpet.
Darwin slowly nods his head, wondering how he's going to tell her that he's an assassin and he wants her to remove the armor from his body when he comes back from his next hit. He doesn't really need anyone to do that for him because he's done it by himself for years, but giving her a reason sounded a lot better than the truth.
"You should take a hot bath to relax yourself," he suggests.
Red stares at him and this time, Darwin looks away.
"Thank you, Darwin," she's sincere and on the verge of crying because she's happy.
Darwin turns to leave her room and he grabs his bag on the way to his Master bedroom. He closes his bedroom door and he stands near the window, calling his house.
"You've reached Jim," his brother murmurs, drugged with painkillers.
"Hey there, smartass. Good to know you didn't die," Darwin smiles, even though Jim can't see it. "Are you the only one awake?"
There's the sound of a faint thud and then another, and then there's the muffled sound of a very pissed off Lester. His vocabulary is colorful, borderline hilarious.
"Jimmy Eugene Frankenstein Tremor, what the ever-livin' fuck are you doin' outta bed? Get off me, ya dick," Lester grabs Jim by his underarms, leaning his brother away from him.
Meanwhile, Darwin is softly thumping his forehead against the glass window as he listens to the sound of aggravation and shuffling feet.
Lester finally grabs hold of the phone and he ushers Jim back to his own bedroom. Once he has him settled back into bed, he heavily sighs and situates himself in a chair.
"Dar, this conversation better start off with you tellin' me that yer comin' home," he hopes.
There's a sigh and a pause and then there's disappointment.
"I met a woman," he let's that sink in.
Lester is silent this time as he remembers the last time Darwin brought home a woman. That relationship didn't go so well. Tanya Peltzer, that was her name. She was a sassy, blonde woman that nearly ruined Darwin's relationship with his brothers. She belittled Jeeves' intelligence, pretended that Jim didn't exist and she treated Lester like her maid whenever she was over.
"Yeah? She, uh, nice?" Lester rubs the back of his neck, concerned.
Darwin sits down on the edge of his bed, and he tries to mentally summarize Red's personality in his head and he slowly nods.
"She ain't like Tanya, if that's what you're askin'," there's a little edge to his tone. "Her name is Red, and I met her in a café. The only thing she had on her was a backpack that contained all of her belongin's. She abandoned her life to just wander and explore the states. And I… She was down to her last dollar, so I gave her half my meal and now we're kinda in a hotel."
The sigh that exits Lester's lips is louder this time.
"You tellin' me that yer shackin' up with a woman in some hotel and that's the reason you ain't back home with your brothers yet?" Lester grumbles.
"We're not shackin' up, asshole. We're at The Venetian, and it's this real ritzy place. We're stayin' in the Penthouse Suite and I'm stayin' in the Master bedroom, while she's in the Second bedroom," he rubs the bridge of his nose.
Lester hears the tension in his brother's voice, so he considers the way he's going to phrase his next question. It has to be asked, though.
"Is there a reason yer tellin' me all this?" his voice calm, non-judgmental.
Darwin stares at the buildings outside of his window, wondering how much people are awake right now. He thinks about Red and he likes her, but God, he just met her a few hours ago. He's not sure if he likes her for her strangeness and beauty or if it's because he hasn't been in the company of a woman in awhile.
"I told her that I'd hire her to help me. I thought I'd give her a purpose because I don't think she would have been so willin' to come with me if I just asked her. She don't know what I do for a livin', though, that I kill people," Darwin lies back on the bed and he rests the back of his hand on his forehead. "I don't know, man, but somethin' is tellin' me to keep her around. Fate, you know? It's been real good to us."
Jim, still high on his painkillers, picks at his stitches with his fingernails. Lester leans over and slaps his hand away from his side.
"Stop that, goddammit," Lester's distracted for a moment, but he refocuses. "Well, you'd better get ta tellin' her the truth if you believe you can because if ya really like this woman, she really needs ta know about this part o' yer life. It's not somethin' you can hide forever."
Darwin, of course, already knows this. He closes his blue eyes, wondering how that conversation will go in his head. He recalls what happened downstairs in the lobby.
"I guess I'll tell her over breakfast tomorrow or somethin'. I told her that I'd tell her what I'd want her to do, but I guess this should come first," he mumbles.
Darwin and Lester move onto other topics, and around the corner, Red is bundled in her cotton robe and she's biting her lip.
She heard everything.
Red quietly closes and locks her bedroom door, and she turns to look at the room she's in.
Everything looks fancy and expensive. The only things that look out of place are her mud-covered shoes, her old backpack and clothes, and, well, her.
She tightens the robe around her and she pulls the sheets back on the bed and then she lies down. God, she's working for a killer. Darwin's a killer.
"Is he going to kill me?" she asks herself, too afraid to know the answer.
Suddenly, the sound of soft knocking makes her sit up in bed and she hugs the sheets against her.
"I'm…" she tries to look for an excuse not to unlock the door. "I'm naked!"
The soft knocking stops and there's a brief moment of silence.
"It's a shame that these doors have locks then," Darwin comments. "I just wanted to say goodnight. I'm hittin' the hay, so if you need anythin' or if you leave the penthouse for any reason, tell me first. And we can, uh, have breakfast tomorrow. We can talk about your job details and other things then."
Red squeezes her eyes shut, his simple comments suddenly seem hard to respond to.
"Oh… Okay. Thanks. Goodnight," she struggles to speak calmly.
On the other side of the door, Darwin slightly narrows his eyes in suspicion, but he leaves to head back to his room to get settled into bed.
A few hours later, in the middle of the night, Darwin opens his eyes when he hears a strange sound in the next room. He quietly gets off his bed and he reaches into his duffel bag for a gun. His fingertips roll the silencer onto his firearm and then he inches his way across the bedroom to locate the source of the sound.
Darwin comes closer to the sound and he flips the light switch, turning it on.
Red's backpack lands on the ground and something shatters inside of it. In her right hand is a plate from the dining table. She stares at Darwin, wide-eyed.
Darwin lowers his gun and he looks her over, confused more than angry.
"What the hell are you doin'?" he narrows his eyes at her.
Red darts her eyes at the front door like a corned animal looking at its only escape route. She tosses the plate at him, grabs her backpack off the floor and she makes a run for it.
Darwin smacks the plate away from him and it rolls onto the carpet in the next room and then it wobbles to a halt.
Near the front door, Red is about to reach for the handle when Darwin grabs the strap of her backpack and he roughly tugs it out of her arms. He drops it on the floor and he whips her around to face him. Red squeaks, covering her face to protect herself from the hit that she believes is coming.
Darwin is used to seeing this defensive pose by many people, both men and women, but this time it's different. He looks her over, watching the way she's shaking. She lost one of her shoes on the way to the door and she's wearing her old clothes.
He turns the safety back on and he tucks the barrel of his gun into the waistband of his jeans behind him. He slowly touches her wrist and Red tenses even more.
"Hey, I ain't gonna hurt you," he speaks softly.
Red shakes her head, refusing to believe him.
"Yes, you will. I heard what you said. You're a killer," she whispers behind her hands.
Darwin closes his eyes for a moment and he drops his hand back down to his side.
"Well, you didn't hear wrong," he admits that it's the truth. "I didn't want you to find out by eavesdroppin', which is rude, I might add, but I was gonna tell you over breakfast."
Red lowers her hands and she looks at him, eye to eye.
"I want to leave. I don't know what you had planned for me, but I won't help you kill innocent people," she keeps her hands against her chest in case he reacts violently.
Darwin runs his fingers through his messy hair and he takes a step back to give her more space.
"I understand that you wanna leave, but I just want you to hear me out. We can sit down, have a talk, and if you still wanna leave after what I tell you, then I'll give you all the money that I was plannin' on givin' you and then you can leave," he cocks his eyebrow. "Deal?"
Red tries to find the truth in his eyes, but he's unreadable.
She walks around him and she goes into the dining room to take a seat at the table. What has she to lose? Darwin grabs her backpack from the floor and he follows her.
He sits at the head at the table, the same seat he takes back home, and he rubs his tired eyes.
Red doesn't look at him.
"I kill people, but I don't kill innocent people, Red," he starts. "I kill drug dealers, rapists, animal abusers, child molesters, cheaters and other people that do harm to others who really are innocent. They hire me and I track the guilty down, and I do my job. Sometimes, I do the job for free dependin' on how greatly my client suffered, or sometimes, I just hear about people that are doin' bad shit in my town and I decide to put an end to it without bein' asked."
Somewhere during his explanation, Red raises her eyes to look at him.
"So, you're basically a vigilante," she realizes and then she shakes her head. "But how can you be sure you're killing the 'right' people?"
Darwin stretches his legs out under the table, relaxing.
"Well, some folks get in touch with me and they give me all the details that I need to know," he pauses, squinting his right eye. "Most of the time, anyway, but I usually have to do the hard stuff. These people that I go after, some are easy to find and some are hard to find."
He taps his fingers on the table and then he nods to the door.
Darwin gets up from the table and Red hesitantly follows him, and she glances at her backpack on the table before she walks around the corner.
Once they're in his bedroom, he lifts his duffel bag off the floor and he places it on the bed. He reaches behind him, lowering his gun to his side. Red stares at it and then she looks at him.
"I create a file for every target and I stalk them. Whatever I find goes into their file, and when I'm certain that they truly are guilty, I find them."
He places the firearm on the bed and he takes out more guns from his duffel bag.
"Some of these people, like the drug dealers, are usually armed, so I have to get geared up," he talks as he lifts a Kevlar vest out of his bag. "I wear this and I wear elbow pads, knee pads and I rub fire-retardant gel on all the visible spaces because, well, sometimes my hits can be pretty explosive, so I wanna make sure to protect my skin."
He takes out two files and he opens one of them, dropping it down on the bed in front of Red. She sees a picture of a woman on the left side of the folder and on the right, a sheet that's full of notes. She turns the page to see black and white pictures of the woman standing in front of an open door, kissing someone, and there's another picture of her in the same shot, only she's glancing over her shoulder.
"You…" Red gulps. "You kill women, too?"
Darwin turns his eyes on her and he slowly nods his head.
"Sometimes, the crimes a woman can commit are worse than what a man can do," he explains.
Red reaches for the other folder and he slides it out of her reach.
"Trust me, you don't wanna see the pictures in that folder," Darwin warns her.
She retracts her hand, taking his word for it. Her eyes wander to the array of weapons that's on his bed and she slides her fingertips over the blades of his duel-machetes.
"So, you don't kill innocent people at all?" she doesn't look at him, almost mesmerized by the deadly instruments.
She can smell a soft hint of blood and something else. It's that oil smell again.
"Well, some people get in the way and if I have no other choice, then they'll become causalities of war. It's just the way it has to be," he tries to justify his actions.
Red moves her fingertips over the barrels of his guns and she rests her palm on his vest.
"I still don't know what you wanted me to do, Darwin. I can't kill people, even if they're guilty," she confesses.
Darwin comes around the bed and it makes Red straighten up. He grabs his vest and he holds it out to her. Cautiously, she takes it and she looks down at it, noticing that it isn't light as she expected it to be. It's around twenty-something pounds.
"I was hopin' that you could help me get into my armor and help me remove it whenever I come back to you. Once in awhile, someone can get lucky and hurt me, so I'm usually not fit to get outta it myself. I am, but it'd be faster if I had someone to help me," he nods at the vest. "I know you don't know where to start, so I'll teach you right now. Undo both side straps and then just sit it on my shoulders."
Red tilts the vest to the moonlight shining in through the window and she pulls the right strap loose and then she pulls the left strap loose. She rotates the vest, coming closer to Darwin.
He slightly raises his arms away from his sides, and she lowers the vest down on his shoulders and over his bare chest. She's close enough to count the stubble on his cheeks.
"Good. Now, one at a time, pull a strap against my side. I like it tight, and make sure it looks even to you. Nothin' worse that runnin' away from the scene of a crime and your vest suddenly comes loose on one side," he raises his chin.
Red places her hand against his right side and she pulls the strap to tighten it. It's flattened and she does the same to the other side.
Once she lowers her hands, Darwin tilts his head down to look at the placement of the vest. He moves his arms a little to see if it's tight enough.
"Nice job, and you see here? The bottom of the vest should be right near my navel," he pats his stomach. "And to take it off, you just undo one side and off it goes."
He yanks the strap away from his left side and he tilts his head, removing his vest.
Red chews on her bottom lip, still bothered by so many questions.
"So, you're going to pay me money just to help you take a vest on and off?" she knows there has to be more to this 'job.'
And there is.
"It's part of the job. Sometimes, I'll need help gettin' bandaged up, too," and Red looks like she's about to say something, so he continues. "I won't be makin' you do major surgeries on me like a lung transplant, but simple stuff like stitchin' a wound shut or even soakin' a gauze pad with rubbin' alcohol. In exchange, you'll always have food to eat, protection and money, and most of all, a warm place to stay."
Red looks at all of the weapons lying on his bed and the open folder with a picture of a woman that has long been dead, and she looks into Darwin's blue eyes again.
"Okay," she's certain. "I'll stay."
Darwin smirks, happy with the outcome of this conversation.
"Alright then," he drops his vest back on the bed.
"I'm sorry that I tried to steal stuff from the room and sneak out. I just heard what you said and I got scared. But now that you explained it to me, I understand," she sounds a little embarrassed.
Darwin shakes his head, moving to collect his things and he starts putting it back into his duffel bag. Red moves to his side to help him.
"I shouldn't have lied to you in the first place, but I didn't think you'd just come with me for no reason. I had to give you one," Darwin softly chuckles. "I'm sure you weren't expectin' that, but it's the truth. It's what I do for a livin' and I enjoy it. It's what my brothers do for a livin', too."
She glances at him and she passes Darwin his machetes.
"You have brothers?" she shouldn't be surprised, but she is.
"Yeah, I do. I have three brothers back home in South Lake Tahoe. Jim, Lester and Jeeves," he thinks about them and he shakes his head. "Goddamn, they drive me crazy, especially Jim. But he's more of a thorn in Lester's side than mine, so I'm fine with that."
Red repeats the names in her head. Jim. Lester. Jeeves.
She wonders what they look like and if they look like Darwin, and she wonders if they have his blue eyes. It's always the first thing she notices when she looks at him.
"Maybe you can tell me about them over breakfast tomorrow," she lightly hints.
Darwin zips up his bag and he carries it over to the chair by the window. He turns around to face her and he rubs his fingers together.
"I'm gonna trust you, Red, to go back to your bedroom and go to sleep. I'm gonna trust you to not make a second attempt to sneak out because I'll find out and I ain't gonna be too happy," he looks her over, tapping his fingers against his thigh. "Maybe I should have you sleep beside me."
Red blinks her eyes, not really sure how to answer that.
"I… You can trust me. I won't go anywhere and you haven't hurt me, so I have no reason to leave or to fear you," her voice is shaky.
Darwin rubs his forearm, eying her tiredly.
"You should fear me, Red. Everyone else does," it's a polite warning.
But instead of instilling fear, it makes Red visibly shiver and she quickly turns to head back to her own bedroom.
"Red," Darwin makes her pause in the doorway. "Were you really naked?"
A blush darkens her pale cheeks and she's suddenly glad that he asked her that when she has her back turned to him.
"No, I wasn't," Red glances over her shoulder and then she quickly retreats.
Darwin gets back into bed and he checks his cell phone. There are a few missed calls and a few unread text messages. His vision blurs when he tries to read the words, so he decides to return his phone to the nightstand and he pulls the sheets over his body.
He closes his eyes.