What I've Done
The man stood there in the dark room, the gun in his hand ready to do what it was made for, to kill. I can't take this anymore, no matter how little I sleep, how many others I save, I'll never make it right. The man only slept for thirty minutes a day now, and divided his time between training, growing a garden for food, and learning all he could to help his crew. It's all meaningless; I ruined a whole country, for nothing. Painful memories came back once more through his head. He wanted to make his country better, and I made sure that never happened. The man checked his gun, just one bullet in the chamber, it was all he needed. He had never liked guns; they seemed too impersonal; if you took a life you should know you did it. Life wasn't something you should take from someone lightly, it had meaning, and the person you killed had meaning.
Eliot Spencer put the gun to his head then was tackled to the ground by a taller black man and smaller blond woman. "It's not worth it Eliot!" Alec Hardison screamed as the gun shot into the ceiling. Eliot was enraged, and wrestled over Hardison and got ready to pound his head in before he was tackled again by the blond woman, Parker. Parker was stronger and had been taught by Eliot, and soon had him in a triangle hold. "Eliot, it's us, calm down!" Parker yelled at him. She squeezed too tightly though, and Eliot was soon out cold. "Parker, he's out!" Hardison told her. The cat burglar unhooked her legs from Eliot's neck and said, "Oops."
Eliot woke up five minutes later tied to a chair. He struggled but within ten seconds he knew that he couldn't get out of this one. Hardison walked over and said, "Calm down man. We just need to talk, then we'll let you out." Parker came in and sadly said, "Eliot, just talk to us." Eliot, one of the toughest men they knew, started sobbing right there in front of him. He had been shot, cut, stabbed, beat up, you name it, Parker and Hardison had seen the man tied to the chair take it and shrug it off. Here he was, sobbing. Hardison and Parker got closer and said, "It's that, isn't it?" Eliot nodded then sobbed "You don't want to know, it's too horrible." "Eliot, you can't hold it in anymore," Hardison told him.
Eliot raised his head and said, "Just let me go. I won't kill myself." "Not until you tell us what you did," Hardison told him, in a tone he would never use had Eliot been on his feet. "Don't ask me that, please," Eliot begged, he didn't want to lose them as friends, he didn't want to die without at least one person he could call a friend. Parker put her hand on his shoulder and said, "Please." Eliot sighed then blinked away the tears.
"It was the first year I started working for Damien Moreau. At first he only had me kill the competition, gang members, corrupt cops and officials who thought they were more important than they actually were, but one day he came to me and said, 'It's time to prove you're my man, Spencer.' He told me about this little Middle Eastern country that he more or less owned, Krystanbul. Next thing I know I'm on my way there. My target was named Aaban Matar. It was just a name to me, I only found out who they were after I took them out. Moreau told me to make it look like a murder-suicide. I went in as they were celebrating Ramadan. There were eight of them, Matar's wife, three sons, daughter, his parents, and Matar himself.
"I shot them all one by one after knocking Matar out. They were all screaming; his sons tried to protect their family as I shot them all in the head. The last one before Matar was his daughter. She cried and prayed as I shot her in the head. Matar got up in time to scream all their names before I knocked him out again, put the gun in his hand, and then shot him with his own hand."
Eliot looked up and saw Parker and Hardison looking at him with wide eyes. Eliot swallowed; he had to tell them the whole truth. "Moreau looked at me all smug when I came back to report that it was a success and handed me a paper. It was in Arabic, the headline said, 'Corrupt Administrator Murders Family and Self on Most Holy Day!' Moreau told me, 'Ah, but he was the only honest administrator in that whole country. He stuck his neck out too far, and was becoming a thorn in my side. Now, no one will bother me in Krystanbul. It's amazing what can be done with enough money, isn't it, Spencer?'
"The year I left Moreau I checked up on Krystanbul. All the jackals and sons of bitches running it ran it into the ground, riots, looting; it was like looking at a miniature version of Armageddon. I had done that, I killed the one guy who could have stopped it," Eliot put his head down and his hair hid his face as he cried, but Parker and Hardison saw his tears fall on the floor. Parker untied him and Eliot sat there and kept on crying. Hardison walked over and hugged his friend, "Its okay Eliot, you didn't know." Eliot just kept on crying, then hugged Hardison back, sobbing, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Oh God, I'm sorry…" Parker hugged Eliot too, "We know Eliot, we know."