(2013) Shooter (10 page)

One hot tear rolled down my cheek, and I watched the helpless stranger ahead of me.

"
I can't just kill someone." I was on the very verge of a hysterical crying fit, my self-control hanging by a thread.

Kendall snapped his fingers, and two of the black-suited figures sauntered over and grabbed Julia and dragged her away from me. He snapped again, and the last figure, the female, came over and shuffled to a stop right behind me.

I heard a barely discernible 'click', and chilled metal pressed against the nape of my neck.

I froze.

Another click, farther off, and my eyes danced over to Julia, who stood with another gun against her temple.

She looked closer to hysteria than I was, and silently mouthed just one word.

"
Please."

I glanced away. My palms were sweating, and my hands were shaking. I felt as though I would vomit. Or scream.

Either way.

The gun on my neck pressed harder. And I suppose when someone's going to blow your brains out; you have a sort of moment of clarity.

It's shoot or be shot, and I'm responsible for Julia, as well.

I wish Constance were here. She would know what to do.

Granted, though, now I admit that Con would probably have been just as scared as I was.

My moment of perfect clarity ended with one final thought.

If I do this, there is no going back.

My hand slowly… oh, so slowly, inched upward until the gun barrel was parallel to the stranger's forehead. It jittered and jumped with my shaking hand. I fought back tears.

Try as I might, I couldn't aim that weapon.

The man's frantic muttering got louder, his eyes wide with terror.

He was looking at his death, in the form of a short, skinny, frightened fifteen-year-old girl.

He shook his head insistently; his intended words clear to me. "Don't kill me!" he called in my mind.

My mental answer was simple. "I have to."

Kendall's hand closed in an iron grip around my wrist, holding it steady. He spoke in a calm, patient voice. "Now all you have to do is pull the trigger. And you can go home."

The stranger stopped his muttering, and now just stared at me with blank, glassed over eyes. Tears flowed freely down my face unchecked.

"
Just squeeze. Then it's all over."

I willed my finger to move.

It happened so fast.

The gun went off with a roaring retort; the stranger's head snapped back, surprise etched all over his features. Kendall's grip released from my wrist.

I dropped the gun to the ground, and it clattered, the sound ringing in my mind.

I saw the stranger's body and behind him, the sprayed evidence of the bullet that had killed him. After that, I couldn't look anymore.

I turned away and dropped to my knees; my legs turned to jelly and I couldn't hold myself up. My hands covered my mouth; holding in the scream that threatened to force it's way out. I'd hunched over and sobbed for over a minute before a pair of hands dragged me up to my feet.

My hands fell to my side and I met Kendall's eyes. He was grinning.

The recollection ended as quickly as it had come on, and I returned to Kendall's office, in the armchair.

He was wearing a considerably different expression now. Rueful.

"It was never right to put a gun in a child's hand and force them to kill."

No shit, Sherlock.

"And though it will never make up for what I've done, I'm sorry, Graecia."

I only had one question, and it had been one I wanted the answer to for a long time. It took me a moment to find my voice.

"Why me? Why Julia?"

Kendall took e deep breath and smiled a little sadly at me.

"Who better than a ward of the state, someone with no known relatives, aside from your sister, and you are the exception in that; and someone intelligent, competent, and right at the perfect age to be molded? That's why you were… chosen."

"How would you even know…?"

"I have personal access to psychological evaluations and social worker's reports." Kendall answered smoothly.

That made sense. I didn't ask how Kendall got a hold of items like that, as he could get anything he really wanted, no questions asked. "What about Daisuke?"

"Same situation." He sighed. "Though he was younger, only thirteen. Julia was fourteen, I think."

Daisuke was my age, making Julia the youngest of us.

He continued. "You three were the only ones with the nerve to do it."

"I was too much of a coward to die." I spat, suddenly disgusted with myself.

"Then it was the instinct to survive."

"How many of us were there?" I asked, my throat suddenly dry.

"Twelve. Nine of them… didn't make the cut." Kendall looked away from me. "I think that's the only regret that I have in my life."

I shuddered, feeling the gun barrel on the back of my neck again, like a phantom limb.

The same thing that had happened to Julia and I had happened to Daisuke and nine others. The only difference was that the nine other kids hadn't made it. And the man responsible for that was right here in front of me, had been there for fourteen years.

Why wasn't I pissed off?

"Daisuke said that you recognized your assailant?" Kendall interrupted my thoughts.

"Yes." I answered very simply, not feeling like talking much.

"Who was it?"

"The guy I was supposed to do my next job with."

Kendall started. "Reno Carson?"

"I s'pose. I wasn't given any real information." I shrugged.

"Of course you weren't…" he looked past me, through the office door, obviously deep in thought. I didn't intrude on his mental stimulation time.

After a few moments, his cold eyes snapped back to me. "I don't like what I'm thinking."

"What are you thinking?" I asked apprehensively, knowing that I probably wouldn't like what he was thinking, either.

He took a deep breath. "Based on the fact that the perpetrator was the person that you had been assigned to work with next, tells me that there was a plot."

I'd already gathered that much myself. If there's a hit, there's always a plot.

"I believe that I was misled in who exactly the intended target in that hit was."

"Ah." My tired brain absorbed the meaning that was there and obvious the entire time.

"Meaning that you are the one marked for death, Graecia."

Thought so. That really sucks.

"So someone's put out a contract on me. I wonder who? And why?" I asked nobody in particular.

"Who, indeed?" Kendall mused to himself.

"I shook the first, but it's only a matter of time before I go missing and never turn up." I said in a flat monotone, not moving.

"You seem calm."

I smiled. I was calm, as there wasn't any reason to be upset. "The way I see it, I have three options, really. I can run, I can curl up and die, or I can go and find out who wants me dead and take care of the problem."

Kendall grinned at me, a rare expression. "What's it going to be?"

"Well, I've gone thirty years already, no sense in getting taken out now, is there?" a wry grin stretched over my battered face as I stretched my aching body and looked him right in the eye.

Kendall blinked. "Thir… well, that's right. Happy birthday, Graecia."

This was a novel moment. I'd caught Kendall off guard. Holy crap.

"Yeah, happy fucking birthday to me." I muttered crossly.

"Well, birthday or no birthday, I'll supply you with anything you might need."

Well, that's nice of him. "Thank you."

"And I'm going to tell you that I have no idea what's going on. But I think I can point you in the right direction."

A lead? That's awesome. "Which way?"

Kendall was writing something. When he finished, he handed it to me. "A colleague of mine. Talk to her, see what she knows."

I grimaced. "Is that who I'm thinking of?"

"I think so." Kendall actually smiled at me, a first. Well, this was just a night of firsts, eh?

"I'm not exactly her biggest fan." I grumbled.

Kendall chuckled to himself. "In all fairness, you've only met Sinclaire once, and I daresay that it wasn't in the most friendly of places."

"Even so?"

"So, where are we going?" Daisuke popped his head into the office and grinned toothily at me.

"
I
am going to see Sinclaire." I answered succinctly, turning to look at him.

"You mean,
we're
going." He corrected me.

"No… I don't." I glanced back at Kendall, who sat there, a curious expression on his face.

"Oh. I see how it is." Daisuke pouted at me.

I was confused, until Kendall saved me. "I presume that Daisuke is under the impression that he was going with you."

"Oh, no. I'm going to see Sinclaire." It wasn't that I didn't want him there, but if someone was gunning for me, then he would likely end up as collateral damage.

"I think it's a good idea for Daisuke to go with you, Graecia." Kendall commented, undermining any reasonable argument I might have had against it. I threw him a dirty look.

Daisuke came in, clapping his palms together with a loud smack. "Good."

When I looked back, he was smiling, and he winked at me. "Fine." I grumbled.

"Yay." Dai leaned against the chair I was sitting in towering over me. I looked up and stuck my tongue out at him. "That's mature, Grace."

"I know."

Kendall cut in, most likely saving me from a witty retort on Daisuke's part. "What do you need?"

I looked away from Daisuke and smiled. "Some cash. To get from A to B."

"Done."

"I believe that rifle's bigger than you are." Julia pointed out as we raided my closet for equipment.

I was hefting a sniper rifle boombox-style over my shoulder, a bag of ammunition in different calibers in the other hand. "It probably is." I commented lightly.