Page 6 of Brought to Light
Who the fuck cared about his name? “Why was he trying to kill you? You know what, fuck that,” I said. He was just standing there in my grip, pliant and passive, and it was pissing me the fuck off. And a rapidly dying body lay on the ground two feet from us. It was plain fucking luck no one had come down the street yet. Quiet as it was, we were in the middle of town. “We’re finishing this somewhere else.”
I flipped my gun around and tucked it into my jacket pocket, with my hand still wrapped around the grip, my finger loosely alongside the trigger guard, and my thumb over the safety. I wouldn’t be able to shoot John by accident, but I could draw my weapon or even fire through the jacket in half a second. Sketchy, knifey, and probably dead might have friends. Or competitors. For all I knew, the client had opened the job up for a bidding war.
Another narrow alley ran behind the building I’d been pressed up against, lined with a couple of battered trash bins and a heap of rotting plywood. I dragged John along it at double-time, mentally mapping out where to go next. The logical thing would be to get out of town, somewhere deserted, and leave John’s body buried in the sand where it wouldn’t turn up for a while. Or better yet, weight him down and drop him in the ocean, maybe off a small cliff where the water was deeper.
John stumbled along next to me, somehow managing to be light and graceful in his movements even when they were jerky and uncoordinated. How the fuck that worked, I didn’t know.
“What’s your name?” I demanded.
I didn’t expect an answer. “Linden,” he said after a beat, and it startled me enough that my head swiveled so I could stare him down.
“Linden.”
He glared at me in turn, looking more stubborn than I’d thought a face that unnaturally pretty could be. “Yes. I’m not lying.” He let out a little huff of a laugh.
“Hell of a name to make up, anyway,” I muttered. Wasn’t a linden a type of tree? Whatever. I didn’t know a damn thing about trees, except that they made good things to hide behind when someone shot at you.
Speaking of which. We’d reached the other end of the alley. I pressed John—Linden—up against the wall, trying to ignore the warm give of his body against mine. Talk about stuck between a rock and hard place, the poor little fucker. A dirty brick wall on one side, and the man sent to kill him on the other.
I peered out around the corner. One way led back to the downtown area. A guy walking his dog crossed the street at the intersection. Fuck. He was heading the way we’d come from. He’d stumble over the no-name assassin in about thirty seconds. In the other direction, a car was coming, a plain blue Volvo station wagon with a wild-haired hippie dude at the wheel. Hopefully he was fully baked and wouldn’t even remember us, but either way, I didn’t have a choice.
I slid my hand down Linden’s arm and grasped his wrist, turning my arm so that it might kind of seem like we were holding hands if you weren’t looking too closely. “Casual,” I hissed at him, and sauntered around the corner and down the street.
The Volvo passed us without pausing. I started to move a little faster, counting down in my head. The guy with the dog…we were less than a block away when I heard barking and a shout of alarm, right on schedule.
I sped up again, tugging Linden along, knowing he could keep up, what with how long his legs were. They were longer than mine, even though he wasn’t quite as tall. Long, and slim, in those stupid fucking skinny jeans.
He did keep up, striding beside me without even trying to get away.
And why would he, right? I’d rescued him. He was a naïve kid. I’d killed the guy trying to hurt him.
Except that no one could be aware they were being hunted and not be suspicious of a guy with a gun who turned up out of nowhere, right? How was he not terrified?
I glanced at him sidelong. I could see the whites of his eyes, framed by ridiculously long blond lashes. His lips were parted, and his breath came in shallow little gasps.
All right, he was terrified. But he wasn’t trying to get away. Maybe he had a lot more brains than I’d given him credit for, and instead of taking me at someThank God this dangerous man turned up to save meface value, he’d already worked out that I had my gun pointed at him, and he had no chance. He could scream and try to bolt, and I’d shoot him and run. Or he could go with me and hope to get an opportunity later on, or maybe talk me out of it.
That wasn’t fucking happening. I’d repeat that to myself as many times as necessary, because right then the thought of blood soaking that fine silky hair and staining it crimson made me sick to my stomach.
At the end of the small row of buildings along the street, town became country again and the street we’d been on turned into a rural road. It led inland, winding through a lot of scrubby trees. No time to cross over to the ocean side of town. We had to get out. More distant shouts echoed behind us. The dog walker had attracted some attention, apparently.
I pulled Linden across the road, trotted up a small hill, and then put on a burst of speed, sliding down toward a creek lined by tall trees with branches stretching out as if they wanted to grab us with leaves as their reaching fingers. The leaves rustled, too, a low susurrus that sounded like a chorus of whispering voices.
They didn’t sound friendly. Fuck. Where the hell had that thought come from? I hadn’t been myself all evening, not since that hot chocolate. Jesus fucking Christ, had he slipped something into it? But I could worry about that later.
I skidded to a stop on the muddy bank of the creek and flung Linden up against one of the trees, taking a couple of quick steps back as he sprawled against the trunk. It was gloomy as hell under the trees, what with the lack of moonlight to begin with, but I could still make him out, his face and body almost…glowing? The fuck. He really had drugged me. But if he had, he wasn’t happy about the results, because his pale face looked ashen gray, and his lips were white.
“Don’t fucking move.”
I pulled the gun and thumbed off the safety, slipping my finger around the trigger, pointing it right at his midsection. Linden nodded jerkily, his fingers curling against the tree behind him.
Warning Jesse had to be next now that I had a hand free, because in a situation like this, minutes were the difference between life and death. He had a plan for this, I knew that; I just didn’t know exactly what that plan was, a safety precaution to make sure I couldn’t be tortured or drugged into betraying him. I pulled my phone out of my pocket with my left hand, opened a new message and—hesitated. Was this worth throwing away everything we’d built up, worth forcing Jesse to abandon his life completely?
Yeah, yeah it was. The presence of another hitman on the scene meant we were truly fucked. The client didn’t trust us, and wanted to tie up loose ends. We were dead men if we didn’t run, even if I finished the job—and we might be dead men anyway if we did run.
Forgot to check the oven, I typed quickly.Turn it off.
Next I’d need to tear the phone apart and make sure it couldn’t be traced, but…what the fuck was that sound? The whispering had risen in both volume and intensity, and the leaves…the leaves were shaking. There wasn’t any wind. And the leaves writhed like snakes over our heads.
