32

32

KADE

Each day has been like an episode of a horror movie, and I’m the main character.

Unnecessary deaths. Receiving and giving excruciating pain. Unwanted and forced sex. Drugs that could kill injected into my veins. Being in a damn coma for two weeks after they found me near dead next to my mangled car.

I have scars on my ribs, the back of my head, a permanent dent on my forearm, and just to add to the mix of bullshit, no one knows where I am. My family thinks I’m working on a project for my studies – a message Bernadette sent to my mother before she had my phone destroyed.

Nearly a year – but it feels like a fucking lifetime of having my freedom stripped from me. I’ve been tethered to Bernadette since I was nineteen, but at least then I was given days, sometimes weeks of a break – now that’s gone.

Staring into the mirror of the hotel bathroom, I fist my hands, wanting nothing more than to smash the glass and slice into an artery or toss myself off the top of a building. I’m exhausted, both mentally and physically.

I wet my lips, eyes dropping to the brand I wear – a deep scar from the corner of my mouth, down my chin and throat, stopping right where my heart is. It’s becoming less purple every day, though it’s still a bit itchy. I can still feel the sharp knife cutting my skin, the scream trapped in my lungs that I couldn’t let out.

Another one of Bernadette’s stupid games. I had to choose between hurting Base or doing that to myself, so obviously I chose the latter. It’s ugly – annoyingly noticeable. I keep my hood up and my eyes down so people don’t stare at me when I walk past them. I started doing that after a Russian lady asked me to cover up so I’d stop scaring her child.

She’s dead now.

My rage got the better of me and I snuck out of my hotel, hunted her down, slit her throat and tossed her in a river. Her remains were found, and it hit the news before Bernadette could fix it. I found out she was abusive to her five-year-old son, so I guess I did him a favour.

To try to stay in the real world, I’ve snuck a few clients’ phones while they slept. Checked social media – mainly. Luciella is back home and waiting for her final semester to begin. Safe. Constantly posting quotes – now and again trying to reach out to Base by posting stuff about him.

I have no idea what Stacey is doing, since she deleted all of her accounts and disappeared. She’s probably, hopefully, partying and living her life as she should have been before meeting me. I hope she’s happy, dancing, full of life and love and music.

Fuck, I miss her.

Bernadette kept me to herself for a month, but when people started offering her more money, she gave in and sold me to her clients again. The delusional cunt stopped me from offing myself a few months ago, saying with me gone, there would be nothing standing between her and my family. So, yeah. I’m still here. Breathing. But not fucking willingly.

A knock on the door has my shoulders tensing. “You fly out in an hour,” the high-pitched voice says. “Come back to bed for a bit.”

I close my eyes.

A contract came in earlier for us to take out a family – husband, wife, little ten-month-old girl and their live-in babysitter, and I’ve been trying everything to avoid it. I even manipulated and seduced Bernie this morning to try to get her to drop the mission, but she caught on and sent me to her daughter’s room instead.

The daughter I’m being forced to marry.

If I could cut my dick off, I would. But Bernadette would still find a way to fuck with me.

I hunt for my shorts in the dark, sneaking around as quietly as possible when I see Cassie’s fallen back to sleep. If I wake her, I might strangle her to death.

So. Fucking. Tempting.

After I get dressed and make my way to the door, she sits up and holds the blanket to her chest. “When will you be back?”

“I don’t know,” I reply, almost robotically.

“I’m going to get them to stop using you for work. If we’re going to get married, then I don’t want you in other people’s beds.” She’s said this before, but so far Bernadette refuses to agree. Not that it matters.

“I’m not fucking marrying you.”

“You are. Mother will see to it that you do.” She juts out her bottom lip, letting the duvet slide down over her tits. “Don’t miss me too much.”

Images of me slitting her throat infiltrate my mind. The sounds of her choking on her own blood would be so sweet. Before I can make it happen, I grab my bag and slam the door behind me on the way out.

On the plane, Base sits beside me, his pupils fully blown as his leg bounces beside me. “You good?” I ask, my voice quiet enough that only he can hear me.

“Great,” he replies, closing his eyes and letting his head drop back. “Just fucking great.”

I trace my finger up and down the scar on my throat, zoning out. My fingers tremble. The shakes have been getting worse, and my mind goes fuzzy a lot. Sometimes, I black out.

That void swirls in and swallows me fucking whole, and I have no idea what happens when it does. It’s kind of my escape. What better place could it be than nowhere?

By the time we reach the property, we’re the second wave. I step over a body on the lawn, blood puddling from the head, and another to my left as I make my way up the footpath with my gun focused on the front door.

I take a deep inhale, closing my eyes. Hold it. Hold it some more, then let it out slowly. “Entering the building now.”

Everyone gets into position. No one wants to be here, but they’re all willing to kill men, women and children to protect their families. No matter how much they vomit afterward, hate themselves, beg for forgiveness from their God and even self-harm, they always pull through with the contracts.

Lights flicker as I push open the door, which is hanging off its hinges. It drops to the ground with a loud bang.

I wait for a second, listening for a cry or the soft whimper of a little girl, and silently beg that no one is here. I won’t kill them. I refuse to. I’ll try to help them escape before the rest can complete the contract.

But going by the mess of the place, the chance of them having survived is low. There are bullet casings everywhere. Why did they send us if the job was already done?

Before I can figure it out, one of the guys behind me radios in asking if the targets have been eliminated. A second later, a voice tells us that the babysitter is still alive. We’ve to keep an eye out for a short woman with dark hair.

They’ll be hiding – hopefully somewhere hard to find.

I hope not to see blood as I gesture to the other men with me to continue, hearing the crunch of glass beneath heavy boots, the inhale and exhale of breaths through the earpiece, the ruffle of uniforms as we turn left and make our way down the narrow corridor to the garage.

I inch to the left and glance into the washroom. A pink blanket sits unwashed along with clothes, and a line of bibs and frilly white coat are drying on a rack.

I swallow a lump. “Clear.”

Using the muzzle of the gun, I push open the main doorway to the garage, searching my surroundings, twisting left and right and leading the group behind me. An SUV is parked, the tyres all slashed, windows smashed, and the baby-on-board sticker lies on the ground.

“Clear,” I say again, shifting past the guys as I take point position again.

Glass crunches under my boots as I take careful steps into the apartment. The torch from my gun shines around the floor and walls, as I inspect shattered furniture and torn sofas. I listen, trying to hear any voices or other signs of life. But the place is silent. I gesture for the guards to keep following me.

There are bullet holes all over the place – TV screens smashed, the coffee table and ornaments obliterated.

I step into the kitchen, keeping my aim raised. “Clear.”

I make my way to a narrow hall, gesturing for Base to follow me while the rest of the men continue searching the ground floor. We open the door to the basement, and he shines his torch. “There’s a bedroom down there.”

I take two steps at a time until I reach the bottom, lowering my gun and turning on the light. “Are you hiding in here? I’m not going to hurt you.”

Silence.

I examine the shelves, my eyes scanning the piles upon piles of books, then pull out all the drawers I can see. Some are empty.

Our radios buzz. “We have floorboards pulled up in one of the bedrooms on the ground floor. Some blood too. Bullet shells everywhere.”

Base being Base, he tosses down his gun and sits on the bed, lying back and closing his eyes. “I have a headache.”

I roll my eyes and head over to the walk-in closet, which has been ransacked. I duck under the bed, look into the bathroom and pull aside the shower curtain, chewing my lip as I stand in the middle of the room again.

A shift beside me as Base jumps off the king-sized bed and grabs a picture frame from the cabinet next to it. He whips off his helmet and pulls away his earpiece before shoving the image in front of my face.

It takes a second to process what I’m looking at, and I lift a shaking hand to take it from him. I don’t blink as I stare at a picture of me and Stacey in bed. The first ever photo she took of us, when she accidentally fell asleep in my arms. I rub my thumb over her face, a smile tugging at the corner of my mouth.

Base snaps at me with his fingers. “Why is there a picture of you and Stacey in this house?” Then he frowns. “Wait, were we to kill Stacey? Who’s the family? The kid?”

My wide eyes lift to my friend as the realisation sinks in, and I stop breathing.

The photo frame slips from my grip as I run, feeling like I’m going to pass out as I sprint up the stairs, stopping when I see a busted-up family photo canvas in the living room.

Barry, Lisa and their baby. Stacey was the live-in babysitter.

Barry got her out of the UK.

“Do we have any information on the family?”

One of the guys shrugs. “I think they were eliminated.”

My blood runs cold. “No.”

Base appears, grabbing my helmet to make me look at him. “Keep it together,” he grits. “We have a target to hunt.”

“There’s a lot of blood in the baby room,” someone says to my left. “Looks like there was a fucking massacre in there.”

I shove one of the guards aside as I make my way up to the first floor, stopping when I reach the last bedroom. Eva is written on the door, and there are Disney characters painted everywhere.

As soon as I push the door open, my burning gaze lands on the pictures on the dresser, all decorated with blood. Barry, Lisa and Eva. And another one is Stacey with Eva on her shoulder, both grinning for the camera.

“Fuck, man. There’s so much blood,” Base says, his helmet dropping on the ground beside me.

I’m already on my fucking knees. They killed Barry? Fucking Barry? His wife and daughter?

Where the fuck is Stacey?

I lean forward on my hands, lowering my head, attempting to count to three. To figure out how to fill my lungs, to stop the pressure on my head and behind my eyes.

Base rests a hand on my shoulder, making me flinch as my eyes burn. “Breathe, man. We’ll find her. Did you know the people she was living here with?”

“Yeah. Barry. He was my… friend. They can’t be dead.” I press a button on my radio, pushing my voice out as I try to focus. “Do we have confirmation if the other three targets were eliminated?”

“The only information we have is that the babysitter is still alive.”

Base squeezes my shoulder. “I’m sorry, man. We… we can still find Stacey.”

I’m shaking by the time Base helps me to my feet. He doesn’t speak as I pull the picture of Stacey and Eva from the frame and fold it into my pocket, checking that the pistol in my leg harness is loaded.

I feel every fibre within me darken, my emotions void except pure rage as I walk past Base, shouldering into some of the men as I exit the building with nothing but murder on my mind. Base chases after me, and I get into the car and start the engine.

The passenger door opens and closes. “Where are we going? The mission isn’t done yet. She’ll punish us if we leave.”

My eye twitches as I speed through the streets, nearly crashing numerous times but not giving a fuck. “Fuck the mission.”