Page 6 of Night Blind

“Thank you. Now, let’s finish up Chapter 2,” he said, opening the book, collecting the bookmark, and trying to focus on the page. Once he finished the story, he would find a quiet place to lick his wounds, possibly cry, and pray for all the wrongs he’d ever done in his life. “Chapter 2: Focus.”

****

Naomi, resting peacefully in her room, left him alone with his thoughts. He’d learned an important bit of information. If Helen couldn’t have children, training her to rescue them could backfire or make her far more emotional than she needed to be. The position of tracker in recovering lost children would be out of the range for an assignment although he would teach her the basics to cover the skillset.

The job of femme fatale, like Mrs. Hump who needed to be replaced, was still open, but Helen’s experience with The Collector meant she would shrink from the touch of a man. The Southeast crew still needed a cleaner, who also hadn’t been replaced since losing Wrong Way. He’d seen Wrong Way cut up and dissolve a body into one of those barrels in the back of her van. It took him months to recover mentally from witnessing such a task. Although he hunted for his meat, seeing blood didn’t bother him as much, especially since his handle was based on him watching a person bleed out nice and slow but cutting them up like a side of beef, freaked him out.

Tomorrow, they would hunt to see how she did with blood.

Blood was always a telltale sign of a good Technician. A tech who didn’t balk at the sight of it, especially if the blood was by their hand, was a red flag. However, a tech who vomitedwhen they saw large amounts was also not a person who needed a weapon in hand.

“A retrieval agent, maybe? No blood, no weapons, no cleaning, just get the materials and return it to the owner,” he said, aloud, ending his night. “Good night, Cherry; come home to me in one piece.”

****

Wendell Edward Langdon Pierce, street name Welp, was a nasty piece of work, a low-level street pharmacist by trade who had leveled up during the pandemic to home deliveries, which morphed into home invasions. A prison sentence of five years working in the hospital wing introduced the welp of a man to a new business venture, tissue harvesting. For inmates with no relatives to claim the bodies, Pierce had found a means to work out deals with the funeral homes who collected to remains.

Upon his release, the adventurous entrepreneur turned from reselling the tissue of the deceased to creating his own supply chain. Once he hit the radar of The Company and was notified to cease and desist, for a moment, Pierce had backed down. It would have been a win-win situation, but being the man that he was, Welp found a new source of materials. He began targeting parents with sick children and large medical bills who could not afford to pay for burial services. He formed a small company that donated bodies for scientific experiments, which Wendell used as a cover to continue his business of preying upon the less fortunate for profit.

Tonight, his time was up. On a rooftop in downtown Indianapolis, Cherry sat with her high-powered rifle, complete with muzzle and flash suppressor, aimed at the doorway. Wendell stepped into the night, flanked by two goons and a woman who appeared to have given up on life. Through the scope of her rifle, Cherry could see the dried tears on thewoman’s cheeks. The woman was shaking her head no as the goons attempted to pressure her into the back seat of the vehicle.

Cherry inhaled deeply, holding the breath, her finger on the trigger, and then she pulled. A red splotch hit the white brick of the hotel entry, and Wendell stood for a second then dropped. By the time his body fully crumpled to the floor, Cherry’s weapon was slung across her back, and she was down the fire escape. Her vehicle was parked in the back of a dark alley, and she opened the door, sliding in the weapon and silently re-engaging the alarm. Screams were heard as feet ran left and right away from Wendell’s body.

With the collar of her shirt up, the dress coat she wore cinched at the waist, and the nice boots she liked to wear when doing jobs in the city, she made her way to the scene. Like others, she wanted to see and worked her way through the crowd. In the confusion, Cherry called out, “Has anyone called 9-1-1?”

Goon Number One shook his head no as Cherry took out her phone. She aimed it at Wendell’s body, snapping a photo without a flash. Next, she hit the zero on the phone to call the operator, who answered immediately.

“I’d like to report a shooting on Lexington and Fifth,” she said to the operator. “It looks like a head wound.”

The operator responded, “Dispatching emergency services.”

“Thank you,” Cherry said, sending the image and terminating the call. “An ambulance is on the way.”

Stepping back from the crowd, her hand slipped into the woman’s who was with the three men. She pulled at her arm, taking her away from the crowd. In Cherry’s pocket were a few loose bills that she shoved in the woman’s hand. “Run now, and don’t look back.”

The woman accepted the money and took off down the street. Cherry slowly made her way down the alley and into her truck. With the headlights off, she backed out of the alley and onto a side street. Headlights on, she made her way to I-65 Southbound toward Louisville. At this time in the wee hours, she could be home in less than an hour and a half, resting peacefully next to her hunk of a husband. She sent him a text with an ETA.

In silence, she drove, lost in her thoughts knowing, that if things were to change, she couldn’t continue this as a profession. The money was good, but at times, it felt dirty. Her soul felt dirty. She was losing her taste for the work.

An hour and forty minutes later, she pulled her vehicle into the garage at the rear of the home. Her weapon in hand, the alarm disengaged, Cherry entered the home she shared with Slow and her daughter. In the bathroom, a bath had been drawn with a glass of wine beside the tub on a small table he’d purchased just to hold her goblet. She stripped down and soaked away the ick of ending the existence of Wendell Edward Langdon Pierce.

Thirty minutes later, in jammies, she slid into the bed next to her husband who stirred a little. Cherry snuggled up to him, wanting the ugly image in her mind to be gone and replaced with a new one. His large hand caressed her mid-section silently filling it with a son he’d name Luke. She offered a small kiss on his chest.

“How was the evening with Naomi; any issues?”

“Yes, she wanted to talk to me about her vagina and the possibilities of stuff coming out of it,” he whispered, snuggling closer. “I’m not okay. Hold me.”

Cherry chuckled, turning to face him. She wrapped her arms around his waist, her face in his chest. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” he told her.

“Michael, tomorrow, would you like to talk about my vagina?”

“Only if the conversation centers around its relationship with my penis and the stuff coming out of it,” he chuckled again. “Now, go to sleep.”

That night, she slept. In the past, it had taken days to come down from a job. Michael Isaac Neary was good for her. He was good for Bunny. He was also good for Helen. She needed to be better for him.

He deserved that from them all.

---