CHAPTER 24
My eyes landed on the lifeless body next to the car. With shaking knees I got off his lap and out of the car. Oh my god… I brushed my fingers through my hair, trying to get myself of the rapid thoughts of how everything had just gone to hell. I looked at dUKE with my eyes wide and saw a playful smirk on his face as he shrugged his shoulders.
"Are you mental?" I watched as he swirled the gun around his index finger. "You can’t just go shooting people!" I bent down to check the pulse of a guy who looked just barely older than Duke himself. His eyes were widely open and he had a shocked expression all over his face. I couldn’t believe what had he just done. The guy wasn’t a police officer, he was just some mere mortal dressed in some ripped jeans and some worn off t-shirt. His arm was wrapped around a shotgun and he didn’t have any shoes. Jesus Christ. This was not how things were done; this was not how I managed things. The blood was soaking through his light shirt and for the first time in a very long time I caught fear sneaking up on me. What did this mean? He wasn’t an assassin; they didn’t go down as easily. I believed this guy was just protecting the territory we were about to trespass.
"Did I pass the test?" He had a playful ring to his voice. What? I was incredulous. How could he ask me something like that? He had just shot a mere civilian; his name was going to be on the list. This was not part of the training I had prepared for him. For god sake, I had intended to bring him here to shoot some cans not real living human beings. This was my fault; I was going to take the blame for this.
Somewhere behind us tires were heard making inertia with the country road when stopping. What now? I stood up slowly, not really knowing how to get out of this mess. Elle Morrison always had a plan, six plans at least and now I had none. Had somebody heard the gunfire? No, it couldn’t be, we were too far from the civilization and the nearest house was the cottage just a yard ahead of us.
Bright lights had blinded my vision. They shone upon the dead body and I could see how scared the man really had been.
"Hey, is everything fine there?" A familiar deep voice shouted. Even tho the lights were blinding me, I could tell it was Trent. Why the hell was he here? And what the hell was I supposed to answer him? His best buddy just shot an innocent, that wouldn’t sound too flattering in the court, neither would it be too appealing on his record to the assassins association.
"We’re just dandy, Shads!" Duke shouted and carried his toned body outside the black Mustang. He pushed the gun in my hands and went for the source of the bright light. He practically left my mouth hanging open when he stepped on the dead body so carelessly. For pity sake, he could’ve been someone’s brother!
Still shocked by this situation, I sat down in the car with my eyes fixed on the gun I held. For a second I thought of shooting myself, this had been a mistake of a lifetime. To train a person to kill someone? To make him kill an innocent? How had this happened? I heard muffled murmurs and I started questioning why or how had Trent gotten here so fast? Everything was in deep blur. I tilted my head back taking a deep breath, but somehow my lunges didn’t want to cooperate and the breath turned out somewhat shallow and painful. Never in my life had I regretted something but then again- never before had I been a witness to something as despising as an innocent’s death. Never in my life had I seen such a terrified face and such fast end of one.
"Come on, Morrison, buckle up…" Duke got in the driver’s seat. What? I arched my eyebrow towards him. How could he be this irrelevant to what had he just done? He had killed a person, his first victim. How could he not care? I fucking cared! My chest ached knowing there may be people waiting for their son to come home, a son who hadn’t done anything wrong, just happened to be in the wrong place in the wrong time. "Give me the keys…" Suddenly he was disgusting to me. That arrogant smirk of his. What was wrong with him? I shook my head weakly. He sighed lowering his extended hand, just then I saw his hand begging me for the keys. "Don’t make this difficult." Something about his voice was just… wrong.
"Babe, she’s not going to cooperate, I’d say we tie the bitch…" A shrill voice came from outside the car.
"Be quiet, Michelle…" He yelled, his browns not ever leaving my dumbfounded face. Michelle? My thumb reached for the safety lock on the gun. I was not taking any chances. He had just shot the gun. Once. I had two more bullets. I was willing to drive them in someone’s flesh. In particular someone’s. "Morrison, give me the damn keys." I just glared at him. Who did he think he was speaking to? "I don’t want to hurt you."
"Duke, what the fuck are you doing there?" Trent. Even he had double crossed me. Oh that double crosser scumbag. And for a moment I thought he cared, how naïve of my side. "We don’t have all night! Get that boney ass of hers handcuffed so we can leave!"
"You hear what they’re saying?" He shook his head slightly. His lips curved in a friendly smile. Friendly? Ha. I understood exactly what was going on here at the very moment when I heard Michelle. Trent had never planned a war with someone except me, he had never intended on allowing Michelle die, because goddammit she was working for him, so was Duke.
How stupid I was! Why else should a goddamn rockstar have the need to rent an apartment, when he could buy a whole apartment block? So this had been the plan all along. The little spectacle of theirs over the phone, Duke’s drunk ass in my weekend house, his urge to know the truth and later on make me a better person, everything was planned. His eyes lowered on the 9mm pistol in my hand. "You’re smart, Morrison, if you kill me now, you won’t gain anything. Shadows is just few feet away and so is my homicidal bitch of a girlfriend and when I say she’s homicidal, I’m not over exaggerating."
"I’m not going to kill anyone." I smiled even through the pain of being lied to. How could I’ve been that stupid? Of course, why else would Trent not be surprised in me accusing him in Ana’s death, ‘cause he fucking killed her and from now on, I was not going to believe any lie that came out of their mouths. I put the safety lock back on the gun. Through the years I had learned a couple of things and one of the most important ones was patience and timing. You had to be patient and need to have a precise timing in order to make a kill and even better get your revenge.
"Good girl." I pushed the keys in his palm and closed the door of my side. I thought Duke was my alibi; I needed him to be it when really he was just one of Trents’s guard dogs who were looking after yet another murderer. I had heard of something like this before. The employer hired another person from the crime sphere to look after an assassin. We were cursed, murderers cracked most of the time and gone either too homicidal or suicidal. But it was said that the employer placed a body guard only around those assassins who were extremely dangerous or insane. Flattering, because I had never considered myself dangerous only partly insane. After all, what kind of people had the guts to throw a dangerous and insane killer in the gutter? This clearly was a set up. "Don’t worry about the guy. He had been on the list for a long time."
"Why you?" My voice broke off. I was ashamed of how blind I had been. Why couldn’t I put the two and two together, why? "You were supposed to be normal… You were supposed to be my link to the reality…" I turned my head to the window because I felt something I hadn’t felt for at least fifteen years. I felt hot stinging in my eyes. A salty teardrop rolled down my cheek and I instantly brushed it away.
"I was…" He put the key in the ignition and turned it so the car roared up. The car started moving. "But you didn’t fucking listen to me… You think I didn’t know where were you going every goddamn night? You think I didn’t try to fight you?" He laughed darkly and I noticed we drove through a large metallic gate. The same one I thought was supposed to be locked. "I did everything that was in my goddamn power, Morrison." He made a sharp turn right and I hit my elbow against the door. That’s what you get for not buckling your seatbelts. "The time when your ankle was sprained and you told me you fell off a ladder… What exactly did you fall off?"
"I didn’t fall off…" I mouthed, suppressing my tears from breaking loose. "I jumped out of the second floor window with cops on my tail." I wasn’t supposed to tell him this. I knew this trip led to my end and mentioning cops ever being after me just worsened things, but then again, he already knew about the cops. They had banged on our door requesting for a check of all inhabitants, because there was a simple gas leak. Yeah.
"The scar on your left side… Tell me how exactly you got it." His eyes were fixed on the road and I really was left with my mouth open. Didn’t he know? He pursed his lips in a thin line. Or was this just a humble act to make me more at ease with the upcoming terror? No. I was not going to tell him, I was not going to make things more entertaining for him. "Three minutes until we arrive. You still have the chance to set things right. Tell me how the fuck did you get that goddamn scar."
"Set things right, Duke?" My voice echoed throughout the car in bitter laugh. "How could it set things right? Would you let me go? Would you take the fall for me?" He didn’t answer me, because I knew he wouldn’t do anything for me. I didn’t even know what was I being framed for this time, but I guess it was something big, because I was being sent to execution.
"No…" He mouthed, sighing heavily.
"And with that our conversation ends." I was broken and humiliated. My lips were quivering and I tried to hide them behind my teeth which were nervously nibbling on my lower lip. I sniffed from time to time and I knew he heard it. If I’d said I would have done things differently if I had the chance, I would be lying, I would’ve done everything exactly the same and it was the saddest thing out of this whole mess. Knowing there was no other path for me. I wondered what would they write on my gravestone. Of course if I had one.