Hello & welcome to my new AU.
I hope you will all enjoy reading this as much as I have enjoyed writing it.
Thanks to all the regulars & kelly2727 for their awesomeness in 2013, it sure was a fun year & I can only expect 2014 to be even better!
Welcome to the newbies! Hope you enjoy the ride.
Chapter 1- Hide & Seek.
This line of work required...a special set of skills as well as a strong stomach and a good handle on your temper. Without either of those attributes, you were doomed to fail or turn soft and then there would simply be no point to any of this.
Today however, the latter of those attributes was failing him as he stared down at a man in front of him on his knees, a weak whimper audible as the man tried to breathe through his fear.
"Why are you doing this?" The woman at the back of the room asked in a voice that shook as badly as her tied up hands did as she cowered in the corner. If only she knew that she was a pawn in this game, maybe then she would have had a different reaction; one other than the scared one she was lost in.
The questions were always the same, Why, How, Who sent you. And then inevitably came the Whatever they're paying you, I'll pay you more. Okay, most of the time, but not all the time, because sometimes they had it wrong. Sometimes his target was an innocent and they were able to escape with their lives although most of the time they didn't live long after that anyway.
If they did survive, then they were considered one of the luck few.
"Ask Billy-Bob here that question" he droned but kept his eyes fixed on the balding head in front of him, his eyes and mouth the only visible skin shown through the ski-mask he was wearing as he instilled fear from behind a mask of darkness.
Bending down, he rested his elbows on his knees and used the edge of his guns barrel to lift Billy-Bob's chin up so that he would look him in the eye. "Or should we ask the real you, Marty?" He asked with a pointed stare.
His targets face clouded in unbridled fear as his mouth drew in a ragged whimper. The woman in the corner began crying again, her already smudged eyeliner making her tears turn black as they rolled down her cheeks.
"Just don't hurt me, I'll pay you" Marty stammered out in a voice so weak that for a split second he felt sorry for his target. But that second was gone as soon as it arrived. These guys were all the same, their sentences revolving mostly around themselves. He said I. He didn't say her, or us, or ask for her to be given her freedom. Selfish SOB. And the offer of money, well that just confirmed their suspicions, and this was going to end badly because of that fact.
"Pay me? How could you pay me Marty? Do you even know what I cost?".
A shake of the head answered his question. Still holding the gun under Marty's chin, he spoke again.
"Marty you sell tires at the corner store down the street. What makes you think that your life can be paid for by selling tires?". He used a sharp tone, one that would tell Marty that he wasn't playing games.
"I have money..." Marty trailed off when the woman started crying heavily again. She pulled it together and then the screaming started.
That was always the same in these cases too, and it drove him insane. They always screamed, and they always cried and it was always the same thing; What have you done, and Why and How could you? The name calling was also always the same terms; You son of a bitch, and Bastard rated up there at the top with high usage. Occasionally there was a You Shit-head and once a woman called her husband a Fu...er, but those were virtually the only exceptions.
Swooping his gun over Marty's shoulder and pointing it at the woman made her mouth shut up, her eyes widening in fear now that she was the centre of his attention. She didn't want to be in the limelight right now, nor did she want to be the centre of his attention so she just closed her mouth and started sniveling instead.
"You have money" he echoed turning back to Marty.
"Yeah, a hundred grand. It's yours now, just let me walk out of here". Marty used his last bargaining chip. The one that he was here to get confirmation on.
"And where did a guy like you, get money like that Marty? Did you sell your story or did you agree to back out of testifying?". His questions made Marty's face drain of color and his eyes narrow. He knew what this was about now, the final key had turned the lock that would unleash a flurry of secrets.
"Oh God, it's you".
He smiled but didn't remove the ski-mask even though Marty had nailed his identity spot on.
"So, which is it Marty?"
"I uh..." Marty's face clouded over in shame and he had his answer.
"You agreed to throw your testimony?".
Marty nodded and he sighed. Why was it always the same reaction with these guys?
"And you think Cyrus will keep his end of the deal once you have done that? You think you'll live long enough to spend that money?".
"I...".
Tilting the gun to the left, then the right got Marty to keep quiet.
"They told me you'd come. They warned me that nothing would stop you" Marty closed his eyes as though he wanted to welcome death right here, right now knowing that a bullet to the head would be quicker than what Cyrus would do to him.
Standing up, slowly he waved at the woman but she shook her head. She didn't want to follow or go anywhere with him. That meant that even though Marty had betrayed her, she was staying with him.
"Last chance" he said and tried to convince her to get out while she still had the chance, but she wouldn't bite so he left her sitting there cowering in the corner as she tried to hide her face behind her knees.
He shrugged, if she wanted to stay then that was her problem. He couldn't help someone that didn't want to be helped.
Taking a slow step back, he began retreating from the room.
The motel that Marty and the woman were holed up in had scarcely furnished rooms, this one holding a two seater couch, a double bed and a raggedy looking table with one of those huge old big box like TV sets on it.
He stopped and looked at them both, the smell of fear clouding the room so densely that it made the air thick and hardly breathable.
He took one last step back and then stopped to kick over the trashcan that he had poured benzene into earlier. The liquid seeped out, but most of it evaporated before it even soaked into the carpet. That's why he used it, it was close enough to the real thing so that his targets would forever live with the reminder of this freshly burned into their mind. Benzene was flammable, but it was also a liquid that combusted and burned up really rapidly, the fireball it caused would be just enough to scare his targets into submission or back onto a straight and narrow path.
With a fluid motion he pulled out a brand new box of matches and then turned away from them as he watched the flame flicker and run up the wood as he struck it.
The woman screamed and raised her hands up to protect her face, but Marty just sat there on his knees as he watched the match drop down onto the carpet and set the benzene alight. A soft whoosh traveled through the room as the flames jumped to life.
Without looking over his shoulder he walked out the motel room and closed the door behind himself.
He took solid steps down the stairs until he reached the bottom floor where his hand tugged his phone out of his pocket and he hit speed dial two.
"Go".
"Targets compromised and terminated" he said before hanging up on the call and climbing into his truck.
Several blocks away ambulances and fire trucks whirled past, and he knew exactly where they were going.
Only thing was, they wouldn't find much once they doused the flames...
...
"Please, please,please" Andy sighed and dropped her head onto the top of the steering wheel.
This had gone from a blue Monday to a day straight out of hell.
She'd been late for work- again, because she'd had to change her shirt after getting chocolate milk dribbled down it. Then she in turn dumped coffee all over her boss' desk and ended up having him chew her head off due to her incompetence. But if he hadn't grabbed her ass, she wouldn't have messed his coffee, so it really was his own fault.
Now she was late leaving work because her car wouldn't start and she had to absolutely be home on time. Which by the way; did not look like it was going to happen.
A light rap against her window gave her a fright and she jumped. She was always on edge and always vigilant, but somehow she hadn't even seen him approach her car.
"Hi Chris" Andy waved and rolled her window down. She felt her cheeks flare with a light blush because she knew that he had seen her jump.
"Hey, you okay?".
"You startled me" she giggled out in a bid to hide how much he really had scared her. These days she scared too easily...
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. Car trouble?"
She nodded and tried not to show how annoyed she was with her piece of crap car.
"Pop the hood". Chris said and then walked around to the front of the car where she saw him wait for her to do just that.
Chris was really sweet, he was one of the few people she ever actually even spoke to at work. He was a few desks down the hallway, but he would find some way of coming passed her desk every few hours. He'd even bring her donuts back to work if he went out to lunch sometimes, he'd give her the three or four in the box. He'd always tell her to save some for later, but she always ended up taking them all home. She often wondered if he knew...
He'd started at the company a week after she had, and really; he was sort of the only friend she really had at this point in her life.
"Andy, the hood?" Chris knocked on the hood and she jumped again but focused on finding the lever to release it rather than letting him stand there waiting night.
"Sorry" she yelled for letting herself get swept away into her own thoughts.
After Chris tinkered around under the hood for a while, he yelled out "Start her up" and Andy turned the key, the ignition catching on the first turn and the engine rolling over and jumping to life. She let out a little squeal of delight and couldn't help but smile.
Chris closed the hood with a loud slam and then pressed against it to make sure it was latched in properly.
"Thank you! I owe you" Andy said when he appeared next to her window again.
"Don't worry about it". Chris lifted his hand and waved before turning and walking away.
Rolling up the window Andy took one last look at Chris before he disappeared from sight. He was such a nice guy. He'd asked her out a few times, but she'd always said no. She didn't want to complicate things, and besides she would only end up scaring his beautiful soul.
Shifting the car into gear, Andy pulled out of the parking lot and turned in the direction of home.
...
Opening the door a brown envelope on the floor caught his attention.
He stepped inside and closed the door before bending down to retrieve it with a growl.
Really, two assignments in two days? What were the chances of that?
He'd been in this game for years, done the same job for years, and he'd never had two assignments in two days.
He dropped the envelope onto the coffee table, then he strode to the bathroom and washed his hands and rinsed his face off. His clothes smelled like smoke, so he tugged his shirt off but kept the jeans on.
Next he found his way to the kitchen and opened the fridge to find nothing more than cold pizza and beer inside it, but it would do.
He knew that the beer would make his adrenaline linger a little longer but the cold pizza would make his stomach churn when the adrenaline wore off and he started crashing. Because he would crash- eventually.
Skipping the pizza he grabbed two beers and headed for the lounge where the envelope was waiting.
Sitting down he started his laptop up and then unscrewed the cap off the first beer and took a lengthy sip.
Once his passwords were entered he checked mails and then accessed his personal folder. Hitting delete he removed all the data he had on his last target since his job was done. It took another ten minutes to do a security wipe on the hard drive and remove all traces of the target from his life.
When the first beer was done, he set the empty bottle down next to the envelope and stared at it for a moment before picking it up and ripping open the seal. That was the thing about this, once you opened the envelope, you couldn't say no. It was like opening Pandora's Box, once you broke the seal you were in this so deep that the only way out was getting the job done.
He'd had the same handler for long enough to know that his rules about being in this game were kept.
He wasn't one that played by the rules, the only rules he had were rules that applied to other people, but never to himself.
The rules were simple; No woman. No children. That was it, that was all that governed him when it came to doing this.
Dumping the contents onto his laptop keyboard, he stilled for one moment before uttering one word "Fu..".
Staring up at him from an upside down position on his keyboard was a photograph capturing the face of a woman who had so much sadness in her eyes that he was automatically pissed off at whoever put it there.
****Thanks for reading, so that's chapter 1.
Hope you'll leave a thought or a bit of speculation?
Have an awesome day!
Jelly Bean Jenna©
