Sorry if it gets too wordy. I like being very descriptive. As the chapters progress, it shouldn't be unnecessarily wordy anymore.
Disclaimer: I don't own South of Nowhere or the characters.
Twenty minutes later, she arrived at her gated complex, punched in the code and watched as the gate slowly opened. She drove around to her unit, unlocked the padlock on her garage door, and lifted it up quickly and loudly. After maneuvering her bike inside, she slammed the door shut and headed up the stairs.
Her apartment remained completely murky, aside from the occasional lightning in the dark, melancholy sky. It was a very simple setting—a single wooden table in the dining room with four chairs, a small kitchen, the adjacent living room with a small brown couch and coffee table holding a simple plant, a 13" television with its broken antennas sticking out, a small corridor that led to her bedroom with a single full bed and bath.
She walked into the apartment, shut the door, and locked all three locks. Letting out a sigh of relief, she immediately placed her helmet on the table, creating water rings on the dark wood. Droplets slowly fell from her coat as she draped it onto the adjacent chair. Walking to the coffee table, she pulled out her lighter and lit two candles. She then made her way to the bedroom, changed into a black tank and sweats, pulled out her cigarettes, and placed her cell phone on the nightstand. She reached underneath her bed frame to make sure her gun was still there. She abruptly pulled out the SP10 and slammed it on the nightstand.
Taking a cigarette out with her thin, cold lips, she drew her lighter and flung it open. It was silent, aside from the pouring of the rain. Lighting her cigarette seemed to be louder than anything else at the moment. She slammed the lighter shut and took a long puff, leaning against her bedpost and picking up the gun with her cigarette still between her fingers. She checked to make sure that the clip was full.
Suddenly, there was a loud buzz at the door. She quickly jerked her head to the corridor and put her cigarette back in her mouth while she stuffed the gun in her back pocket. Walking through the corridor to the front door, the lightning split the sky and thunder roared. She went up to her green speaker box and pressed the button as she took the cigarette from her lips.
"What?"
"Unlock the gate for me, will you?" A voice responded.
"Who is it?"
"Simon." He said. She paused.
"It's early."
"Open the gate, Ash." The voice said sternly.
"What the fuck?" She said in frustration and let out an impatient sigh. "Are you secure?"
"Of course." The voice responded matter-of-factly. She then pressed the second button. The gate slowly squeaked opened. A large black Lincoln Navigator slowly drove in with a low hum.
Ashley went to the kitchen and poured herself a drink. She unlocked all three of her locks and went to sit down on the couch. She then put out the cigarette in the ashtray on the coffee table. Ashley took a deep breath, leaned back into the couch, and sipped her drink. There was a loud knock on the door.
"It's open." She said in a low voice. The door slowly creaked open. A tall blonde man in a suit peaked in. He entered and slowly shut the door behind him. He then dropped his briefcase and placed his coat on the rack. His shadow danced across the wall from the flickering flames of the living room candles. Ashley took a sip of her drink as her eyes glared at him, her wet hair partly hiding her eyes.
"Sorry to be here so early, Ash."
"Why didn't you use my alias at the gate?"
"Why are you so paranoid?" The man picked up his briefcase, turned and walked to the dining room table. He pulled the chair up opposite from Ashley and took a seat. "I'm worried about you."
"It's kinda early for an evaluation or debriefing." She paused. "What do you want?"
"Before we brief you on another mission, I need to address you with my concerns." He paused. "HQ analysts evaluated your performance tonight… gave you a 73 percent because of that delay."
"I had no visual and HQ wasn't being very clear with their sources. What was I supposed to do? Your inside man didn't relay the info quick enough." She sighed. "You should be worrying more about who you assign to be on the inside."
"That'll be taken care of. Right now, we're here to talk about you. Your performance has been on a gradual decline. It's not like you to hesitate like that… not like you to mess up. You aced your training years ago. You excelled as the best we had for the past three years. Tell me what's wrong." He set the briefcase beside him. Ashley took a deep breath. She got up and peaked out the window, watching the rain trickle down.
"Don't try to psychoanalyze me. I'm just tired Abe." She rubbed her fingers through her damp hair.
"Tired?" Abe's eyes shifted as she turned to him. "Coming from you, that's just an excuse. You study the files weeks in advance, given that in this particular mission we hadn't identified the target yet. But that was no excuse for the long delay. You get plenty of rest and high stipends. If you ask me, we're being a bit too generous with you." Abe brought his leg up over his right one.
"If you wanted better, you shouldn't have picked me. Maybe you should find yourself someone better and finally release me then. See if you'll find anyone half as good as me."
"Calm down." Abe said softly, but sternly. "Careful what you say Ashley. Last time I checked, you were still number 2 on the list. You think you're the best and you think you're irreplaceable." He smirked. "And if you even think about leaving the company without fulfilling your contract…"
"You'll what?" Ashley threw her chin in the air.
"You signed up. 30 years." He paused. "30 years and you get all the money and luxuries that you could ever want. I'd hate to transfer you out to another agency to get the number 1 agent to come to our division. Make Jack and myself proud execs."
"You've got some nerve! After all that I've given up for you and this company, you tell me it's not good enough!" Ashley clenched her fist tightly as she threw her glass at the wall. It shattered in a hundred tiny pieces.
"Now Ash… all I'm asking is for you to put a hundred percent back into it. You're the best we've got right now. You know you can do better than this." Abe paused. "If you keep getting these bad evaluations, we will have to find a replacement. We can't have you pulling down the overall rating of the program Jack and I have struggled to perfect." She turned sharply and looked out the window.
"You have no idea what I'm capable of." She took a deep breath as she shook her head. "I can't believe this shit I was dragged into."
"You never had it this good. You've got millions of dollars, which by the way, you should use to get yourself a better place than this dump. You've also got all the protection you need. Seems like a pretty easy life. You made the right choice to join us."
"You're wrong." She glared at him. "I had a better life before this… before you and Jack stole it all away from me. That's right. I was given a choice. You guys just took me and held a gun to my head until I stopped resisting. Before this, I had a family, a significant other, a future. I had a life."
"Right." Abe scoffed. "That's why we found you in the alley—crying, broken, and pitiful." Abe stood up. "Jack and I saved you that day. We saw something in you that nobody else could see. We saw such a fire, a great potential." He slowly walked up to her.
"I-I just don't know if I can do this anymore."
"Do what?"
"Diedrich had a kid, Abe." She looked down. "He had a family. And I play god and I took that away. I took it all away from them." She paused. "I do nothing but bring despair into people's lives day after day, mission after mission."
"So what now? You're pitying the bad guy?" Abe laughed. "You feel sorry for killing a man who had run hundreds of porn and drug rings to fund his very own, and might I add, one of the deadliest mafias in New York?"
"How many people have you killed Abe?"
"Hundreds, kid." He paused. "And I don't regret any one of them. You know why? Because it's not like I woke up each day and said to myself 'hmm, I think I'll kill some random stranger today.' Ash, these people are bad people. They belong in the dirt on which they built their dirty, blood-tainted empires." Ashley shook her head and sighed. "All I can say to you is you gotta keep up with it. You gotta get your head back on this. It's what you get paid to do."
"I need some time." She turned to walk away. "I just need to rest a bit, that's all."
"Ash," He grabbed her wrist. She turned towards him. "Look, I know it's a hard, cold, and lonely life. I know you've had a lot on your mind lately. I know you're sad about something else. So, business aside, what else could you possibly need?"
"Nothing Abe."
"Do you miss having a significant other?" His eyebrows furrowed as she tried to look away. "You know you can't go back to that life Ash. You breach contract, you'll be putting innocent people in danger. What kind of person would you be to risk your love ones just so you can pretend to have a normal life?"
"And this is a normal life?" She asked calmly, almost tearing. Abe stood in front of her.
"More than living out your lesbian fantasies." Within a fraction of a second, Ashley turned and slapped Abe with searing anger.
"Don't even fucking talk about stuff you don't know about!" She yelled. Abe stood unshaken after Ashley had lashed out. She breathed heavily as he glared right back into her eyes. "This isn't fair." Ashley calmed herself. "Then again, it never was fair to begin with, right?"
"Nobody said it was going to be." He stared into her eyes and smirked. "That's the sacrifice we make to bring balance to this world. We just have to accept it." He lowered his voice to match her quiet tone. He then slowly placed his hand behind her head and kissed her passionately. In the midst of their kiss, he heard a click. Abe opened his eyes and pulled back. Ashley had her gun to his chin.
"That… isn't love Abe. That's lust." She paused. "I don't need it anymore." Her teeth were clenched with disgust.
"You never denied it before. Why now?" He asked. "This is as normal of a life as I can give you."
"You should go… now." Abe turned and reached for his briefcase. He opened it and threw a black file on the coffee table, stamped with Confidential.
"That was your last mistake, Ash. You fuck up again, HQ won't hear it anymore. I've been covering your ass so many times, I doubt they'd listen to me make excuses for you any longer." Ashley put the gun back in her pocket and crossed her arms.
"When you go back, tell HQ to find another way to deliver my information. I don't want you coming here anymore." She glared at him with disgust. Abe took one look at her before he walked over, grabbed his coat, and opened the door.
"I'm only looking out for you." He paused. "If you need anything…"
"Not gonna happen." She interrupted.
"Sooner or later, you're gonna realize that I'm all you've got." He took a deep breath, turned and shut the door. She immediately walked to the door and locked the three locks. Ashley picked up another pack of cigarettes on the kitchen counter. She put one in her mouth and lit it with one of the candles sitting on the coffee table. She blew out both candles, took a long drag, and picked up the file.