The house looked exactly like every other house on the block, just like the warehouse had been exactly like all the other warehouses. He wasn't sure why it felt different; after all, a building was a building, and just as functional no matter what shape it came in.
It felt different all the same.
He heard a high-pitched shriek as he knocked on the door. He turned with his hand on his gun, ready to strike at whatever danger had just approached, but a cacophony of giggles stopped him in his tracks. The shriek was from a young child, who was fending off a group of bigger kids. All of them were armed with large, brightly-colored weapons that didn't seem to have real bullets. A gun that shot water? A water gun? He'd never heard of such a thing.
The door opened behind him, and a low voice grunted. "You cleaned up."
"Yeah." He watched the occupant of the house watch him. The man was obese, sweaty, and filthy, and his dark eyes gleamed with cruelty and intelligence.
"Whatever. The boss had to take off for a while, but we've got a little show we can watch before we get down to business."
He followed the brutish man into the house, but he glanced over his shoulder at the children before shutting the door. A boy with dark hair had switched sides to fight alongside the little girl, and though her hair was much lighter they seemed to look alike. A strange feeling rose in his chest, but he tamped it down and closed the door. "What's this show, then?"
The other man grunted once more as he narrowed his eyes at a computer screen. "Well, I guess it isn't quite ready to start yet. We'll have to go over tomorrow's plans first."
"Tomorrow? What's happening tomorrow? Am I going to find out how I know Chin Ho Kelly?"
The man rolled his eyes and thrust a large pair of headphones into his hands. "Put these on."
"Why?" he asked, but his hands were already following orders. The headphones were loose, and he found himself having to clamp his hands over his ears to keep them on.
There was a strange popping noise, and then static. As his mind began to drift, he thought he heard words underneath the static. Pop. Static and words. Pop. Static and words. Pop. Pop.
When he took off the headphones and opened his eyes, the large man was watching a game of soccer disinterestedly. "So, Grunts, tomorrow."
With another grunt, the man turned and raised his eyebrows. "Excuse me?" When he didn't respond, Grunts sighed and shook his head. "Of all the…whatever. Chin Ho Kelly."
"Yeah, that cop I shot today. What about him?" Even as the words rolled off his tongue, his mind sought for the answer to the question. Wasn't there something else about Chin Ho Kelly? Didn't he…didn't…
Obviously there wasn't, or he would remember.
The grunt became a hoarse giggle. "Sounds about right. Well, we'll get to him later on. For now, how about we look at our plan for tomorrow." Abandoning the soccer match, Grunts stood up and stumped into another room. He blithely followed behind, his mind still distracted by some thought that wasn't there.
It was a bedroom of sorts, but every surface save the bed and part of the floor was covered in photographs. His head spun as he took all of them in.
A large, dark man who was often inside a yellow food truck.
A Hawaiian woman who sometimes wore a badge and sometimes surfed.
A woman who sometimes wore a lab coat and sometimes sat with Chin Ho Kelly, who was also featured in some photos.
A blond man who usually wore yet another badge and a tie.
A young girl with dark pigtails who wore a school uniform more often than not.
A young blonde woman with bags under her eyes.
A bald man with a weathered face and a hardened body.
A woman with dark hair and dark eyes who often wore camouflage.
As quickly as the dizziness set in, a memory of static erased it. He blinked and looked to Grunts. "What's all this?"
"Potential targets. You'll notice that some of the people aren't in as many photos. That blonde girly, for example, she's not as big a target. That doctor, she ain't either, and that bald guy's no longer an issue." Grunts gestured to a large board in the middle of one wall, which featured close-ups of each face. "That's why he's got a big X through him."
"But he doesn't," he pointed out. The brutish man grunted and turned to the board, only to grunt again. "Is he still an issue, then?"
"That's weird…I could have sworn…" They stood in silence for a few seconds before Grunts took the red marker hanging from the board and crossed out the bald man's face. "Definitely not an issue. We should have crossed out the little thing, too, but the boss changed his mind and told you to go kill Sang Min."
"Right, that was her. And that blond man, and that lady cop, they were both there too, weren't they? Along with Chin Ho Kelly." He looked to his suddenly-nervous companion, but when he didn't say anything more Grunts relaxed.
"Exactly. They're all connected to each other in some way or another. You gonna be okay killing the girl? Because that'll have to happen sometime."
His stomach twisted a little bit at that. "I'm not a child killer."
"You will be, or you'll be dead. The boss is just waiting for the right moment, and that should actually be here soon." He pointed with the marker at the blond man and grunted. "See, this is your mission tomorrow morning. You'll be working with a friend of mine, and he's gonna lure this one into the warehouse. Your job is to make sure there's no one else around there and then to join up with my friend to coax some information out of him."
"Like what kind of information?"
Grunts grunted, but before he could speak his phone rang. He looked at the screen and smirked. "I was hoping for this. Yeah," he said into the phone. A tinny voice reached his ears, and Grunts' smirk broadened. "Right on that, boss. Oh, and it seemed to have actually worked this time. Good call on leaving the recording again. See you later." He put his phone in his pocket and giggled wheezily. "Showtime, my friend."
"Are we friends?" he asked in surprise as Grunts left the room of faces.
"It's a figure of speech!" the other man said loudly. He started to follow behind, but a photo caught his eye.
The dark-haired woman was sitting on a beach in casual clothes, her hair pulled away from her face. She was crying, her eyes swollen and red and her cheeks blotchy. The beach itself looked so familiar, but the sight of her crying was the opposite. He brushed her face with his thumb, smearing the glossy surface of the photo in an effort to wipe her tears away. His effort was ineffective, and the pained sensation in his chest made him realize that he knew her.
"Get out here!" Grunts shouted, and he jumped and started on his way. In the trip down the hall, he managed to convince himself that the beach was familiar only for looking like every other beach on the island, and that the woman could be one of thousands. By the time he joined Grunts by the latter's computer screen, he had forgotten the incident entirely. "Here goes nothing."
"What's going on, exactly?"
Grunts smirked. "The boss has connections all over the island. Since you failed to get rid of Kelly, he's making use of one of those connections. A nurse at the hospital owes him a favor, so she's going to help things along. We've got a front row seat, so the boss has proof whether or not it'll work."
Grunts' words made him feel sick, but he couldn't figure out quite why. The video they watched jumped up and down erratically, jostled by the mere act of its owner walking, and his stomach seemed to follow the motions. "Oh, Dr. Kelly, your husband's family wants a word in the lobby."
"Tell them they're getting ready to prep him for surgery," said a woman. Her eyes weren't visible, but her mouth was turned downwards.
"They're making a scene, honestly, and I don't think I or anyone else can calm them down unless you go out and give them an update. I'll watch him for now."
The doctor sighed. "Fine, but if they make another attempt to have me barred from the room I'll have them thrown from the hospital, in-laws or not."
The woman behind the camera chuckled, but the sound died from her throat as the camera turned to the man lying in the hospital bed. Chin Ho Kelly.
The cop was much paler than he had been upon his entrance into the alley. Dark circles had formed under his eyes, and though he was unconscious his face seemed to be screwed up in pain.
I did this.
The nurse touched his arm, murmured something inaudible, and then shuffled around the lines of his IV. A syringe came into view briefly, just long enough for a test plunge to spurt into the air, before dipping back down again.
Several seconds passed before the camera moved away from the IV. A muffled thud reached the camera's microphone, and the nurse turned back to the man's face as footsteps patted into the room. "Thanks for watching him, Polina."
"No problem, Malia. How'd it go?"
"By the time I got out to talk to them, they'd decided they didn't want to talk to me until after surgery." The near-constant series of beeps suddenly stopped, then started up again in an irregular pattern. "What?"
"Hey, what's happening?" the nurse asked. Grunts laughed as the camera caught the doctor's horrified expression and the now blaring heart monitor in one shot.
He didn't laugh. That doctor's eyes were panicked, and tearful, and his chest hurt again just looking at her.
The nurse with the camera had called her Dr. Kelly. He'd been responsible for almost killing this woman's husband, and now he was watching him die all over again.
Something about the situation made his stomach twist, and he barely made it to the nearby trashcan before his stomach evacuated its contents.
A/N: Aloha! I'm feeling a bit Hobbitish today, and since Hobbits do the whole reverse-gifting thing on their birthday...here's my birthday present to all of my lovely readers.
I should have the next chapter out on Tuesday. Honestly, this segment of the story is beginning to wind down, I think. Maybe two weeks and we'll be finished with it. Crazy, but true.
Mahalo for all your support, and know that I appreciate each and every one of you greatly. Thanks for making this whole writing thing worth it!