She stooped down to her bag and rifled through it for a minute. Finally seizing on the small item she was looking for, she shoved it in her pants pocket and yanked the bag’s drawstring closed.
Back out in the living room, she deposited the bag once again on the couch and followed the wonderful scent of baking chicken back into the kitchen.
III
The next hour was spent waiting for and then eating Alex’s meal, which Lita decided was indeed delicious. The conversation remained mostly superficial, including a great deal of Alex relating various interesting stories he’d heard from his brother. Lita stayed silent most of the time, as she could tell Alex liked to talk, and she didn’t mind listening. After finishing their food, they cleaned their plates and moved to the living room. Lita sat on the couch while Alex took up a spot on the floor across the coffee table from her, sitting cross-legged and talking more about his brother than she was sure Rain would have cared for.
Presently, Rain descended the staircase smoking a cigarette. Both looked up at him as he entered the living room.
“Rain!” Alex said enthusiastically. “I was just telling Lita that you once rode in an actual airplane!”
“Is that so?” Rain asked. Coming to the end of the couch, he glanced at Lita, then back to his brother. “Been telling a lot of stories?”
“Just little ones,” Alex said quietly, dropping his eyes.
“Don’t sweat it. He’s not spilling any of your dark secrets. Just running at the mouth while I look for his off switch.”
“Let me know if you find it,” Rain said, then plopped down in his chair and flicked some ash into the coffee table ashtray.
“Will do,” Lita said, then glanced to her watch again.
“Itching to get going?” Rain asked.
“Soon probably, but it’s definitely time for a drink.”
“What a surprise,” Rain said, and it looked for a moment like he might actually smirk.
Lita’s eyebrows shot up. “Was that a joke? Be careful, it can sting the first time.” Standing, she headed over to the bar. “I remember your poison—whiskey neat—but what about you, Alex?”
Alex looked caught off guard. “I don’t, I mean I’ve never…”
“You’ve never had a drink?” Lita asked, surprised. In Ayenee, legal drinking age meant being able to see over the bar. “Well, no time like the present, unless your brother takes issue with it.”
Alex looked to Rain questioningly, and he simply shrugged. “Okay, what should I have?”
“Vodka’s never steered me wrong.”
“Okay then, vodka it is.”
“You got it, kid.” With that, Lita began whipping up their beverages. She brought them over in short order, carefully balancing all three glasses as any tender would. She set down both of their drinks, then sank down onto the couch with her own clutched in two hands.
Rain nodded a thank you as he picked his up and took a strong drink off it. Lita did the same. Alex eyed his hesitantly for a moment before finally taking it up and tipping back, quaffing nearly a third of it in one gulp. He coughed hard, his face quickly turning red as he struggled to set the glass down without spilling it.
“Whoa, calm down there,” Lita said with a laugh. “You can’t drink it like that right away, you know. You gotta get used to it.”
“It burns,” Alex wheezed.
“Well, yeah. But trust me, the further down that glass you get, the smoother it’ll be.”
Alex swallowed hard and nodded, then tried again, this time taking a small sip. He still winced, but said in a hoarse voice, “That’s not so bad.” Lita chuckled, and even Rain smiled a bit.
The three of them enjoyed their drinks in relaxed silence for a time. Rain and Lita put theirs away quickly while Alex sipped at his in an effort to keep up. With a quarter of it still remaining, he set down his glass and looked to Lita. “How much does it take to get drunk?”
She shrugged. “Depends on how used to it you are. For you, probably not much. For me, more than I’d care to say. And Rain over here, well this poor bastard can’t even get there. Why do you ask?”
“’Cause I feel kinda…” Alex began, then fell over on his side, his face hitting the rug as blackness encircled his mind.
“Alex?” Rain bolted from his chair to his brother’s side and gave him a good shake. “Alex, wake up.” Snatching up the boy’s glass, he smelled it, then his gaze shot to Lita. “What did you do?”
Lita’s face had become stern, cold. “What I needed to.”
“You slipped us something?” Rain asked, his voice rising. “What the hell are you trying to pull? Drugs don’t work on—” As he moved to stand, he faltered and grabbed the coffee table for support. His vision began to swim.
Lita rose quickly and climbed over the back of the couch, putting some space between her and Rain. “The kind of drugs you get from the right Gifted will do the trick on anyone.”
Rain tried once more to stand, but stumbled again, grasping the arm of his chair. “Why…why did you…”
“I’m sorry, Rain. It’s nothing personal. I need a car, but this is better than getting you or your brother killed. I’ll try to leave it somewhere safe in Chicane…or maybe Maple City, I haven’t decided yet. I’m sure you’ll find it if you look hard enough.”
“You’re not taking my c…” Rain began, then toppled over, falling limp to the floor between the coffee table and his chair.
Grabbing her bag, Lita moved in quick strides across the living room and back down the hall to the bathroom. Inside, she dropped her bag and stripped her shirt off, which she replaced with a black turtleneck. She also produced from the bag a silencer, which she screwed onto her firearm before slipping it back into her pants, and a large military knife that she tucked into her boot. Hoisting the bag onto her shoulder, she was about to leave the bathroom when she paused at the mirror.
She stared into it for a moment, sharp green eyes staring back at her as she began tapping into that old cold emptiness she used to be able to conjure on a whim. She took a deep breath, nodded to her wide-eyed reflection, and said, “Time to work.”
Back in the living room, she went to Rain’s coat by the door and fished through the pockets until she heard the jingling of car keys. Clenching them in her fist, she paused long enough to pay the unconscious brothers one last glance before slipping outside and closing the door behind her.
SECOND INTERLUDE
Dost thou regret thy path this day?
We each sometimes lose our way
To-day the rains of lessons fall
That morrow’s seeds may grow tall
Eight years had left a trail of blood behind her that kept gold in her pocket and food on her plate.
The young woman stood atop the hill, near the tree line, gazing out over the clearing below. It was a cool, late summer night, the kind that reminded her autumn was just around the corner, waiting like a harbinger of dead, white snow. The ground still radiated warmth from the sunny day earlier on, but the air carried a gentle, swirling breeze that picked up the ends of her wavy blonde hair, tickling her chin and dancing it in front of her eyes.
Without breaking her stare at the cottage that sat in the middle of that clearing, she gathered her hair into a ponytail and tied it up with a piece of string. “Is it almost time?”
He glanced down at his wristwatch. “Five more minutes.”
She suddenly turned to him. “Christ, can’t we just go now? I really don’t see why we have to stick to such a strict schedule.”
The man shrugged. “You know what he taught us. If you plan everything perfectly, down to the last minute and bullet, no job can go wrong.”
“Yeah, sure, like there’s any difference. They’re just as dead whether we wait another five minutes or not.” She sighed in exasperation. “I don’t even see why we work for him anymore.”
“Come again?” he asked.
Double-checking her handgun as she spoke, she said, “You heard me. He d
oesn’t do shit aside from setting up the jobs. We could do that ourselves and save the cut he takes.”
“We don’t have his connections.”
“Pff. Like it’s hard to find someone willing to pay for a killing in Ayenee.”
“Look, let’s just get this job done, and we can talk about it over dinner. My treat.”
“You’re not getting into my pants.”
“Never hurts to try.”
“Let’s get moving. Take the east side around back, there’s fewer windows. Give me five before cleanup.”
“See you on the other side, Killer.”
“Don’t call me that.”
As they parted ways, she looked towards him once more, that familiar icy cold settling into her emerald eyes. She watched him move along the tree line, staying low and out of the moonlight while he went around the side of the clearing and headed towards the back of the small house.
It wasn’t much of a little dwelling. Just a single-story log cottage with a small door and a square window to each side. A tall stone smokestack rose up from one side of it, presently streaming out a thin billow of grey smoke that curled up towards the night sky. Inside, she knew, were two women, soon to be deceased. Anything beyond that—whom to point her gun at—she had no need to be informed of.
She had seen enough over the years that the setting didn’t matter anymore. She’d done it in all sorts of places, to all manner of people. Gun smugglers holed up in rat-infested apartments. Drug runners partying in crowded downtown taverns where electric lights flickered and women danced nude on stages. Even an important chairman on the Silver City council. That one had paid quite well.
She had been doing it so long now, it was all she knew anymore. Pull the trigger, take the gold, and live for a couple of weeks to a couple of months, depending on how good the job was.
In the first years after her departure from her hateful uncle, she spent more of her time training than actually performing jobs. Her employer had all but raised her from that point. No, not raised. That wasn’t the right word. He had made her. Made her into what she was.
She would spend hours loading and unloading magazines, disassembling and reassembling weapons, until her fingers shook and bled. She would fire round after round into targets until her hearing disappeared for days at a time. He would send her into crowded stores to steal an item, only to leave her to get beaten as a lesson if she was caught. Within two years she ascended from bait and cleanup to the rank of his most skilled hitter, even better than his protégé who had brought her on in the first place—much to her good friend’s chagrin.
But she had never cared for authority, and she was quickly reaching a point where she believed herself to no longer need her employer, teacher though he had been.
She pushed those thoughts away and brought her mind sharply back to the present job as she approached the front door. Sidestepping it, she pulled her firearm close to her chest and listened for sound of movement inside, trying to place the occupants. She heard no voices, but she knew the layout of the house from the file she’d been given for the job. The kitchen was just inside the front door, and one of the residents was in there.
She removed one steady hand from her firearm and wrapped it around the doorknob, turning it slowly, silently. It rotated fully without any effort; the door was unlocked. She took in a deep breath, held it, and swung around, stepping inside before pushing the door shut behind her.
The woman inside was at the oven, back facing the door. She turned around, hearing someone come in, and the two of them locked eyes for a moment. Then the woman’s mouth turned into a round shape, beginning to form a word that began with the letter W.
In the years to follow, she would sometimes catch herself wondering what that woman would have said.
“Who are you?” Likely.
“What are you doing here?” Distinct possibility.
“Would you like some fresh-baked bread?” Sure, why not.
Whatever the words were, they were cut short by the eerie hollow sound of a bullet rocketing through a silencer before it dashed across the room and drove straight into the woman’s sinus cavity.
Before the target had even hit the floor, the young woman knew that something was wrong.
This was no corrupt politician or weapons smuggler. This wasn’t the product of a grieving parent avenging a murdered child or a family feud over inheritance. She appeared to be nothing more than a simple, pretty homemaker. Her blood-spattered brown hair draped down over a white apron; her dead hands lay limp inside a pair of potholders. She was somebody’s wife. Somebody’s love. Somebody’s…
“Mommy?”
The woman’s eyes and weapon both shifted their aim across the room, landing upon a little girl who was no older than ten. But the girl was not looking at her. She was staring down at the lifeless form of her mother lying there in front of the oven.
The woman’s hands and eyes began to tremble, and as she lowered her weapon, she watched the little girl rush over and fall to her knees. She grabbed her mother’s shoulders and began to shake her desperately.
“Mommy? Mommy, wake up! Mommy?”
The woman took a step back and felt her rear hit the wall next to the front door. She was dimly aware that her head was shaking from side to side. This job was wrong, all wrong. Who would contract something like this? Who would bring harm to such a sweet, normal family? The type of family that cared for one another. The type of family that loved one another. The type of family that…
I never had.
The little girl looked up at her then, her small eyes streaming with tears. “Why? Why did you kill my mommy?”
The woman shook her head again, her mouth falling open. All of that icy, remorseless cold had fallen away from her now, and she was left with nothing. No explanation. No reasoning. She was lost. Everything she’d done in the last half of her life had suddenly stopped making sense. She was, in all honesty, as confused and hurt as the little girl was at that very moment.
“Why?” the little girl suddenly screamed at her, and in that second the woman saw a bitter hatred in the girl’s eyes that she knew all too well. It was the same way she’d looked at her uncle moments before ending his life.
“I…I don’t know…” the woman whispered, and for the first time in years she felt the cool wetness of tears streaming down her cheeks. With that sensation, the instinct to run kicked in, and she started fumbling behind her back, feeling for the doorknob, intent on turning around and bolting out of this place.
Then she heard the windows at the back of the house shatter and flames burst across the hallway outside the kitchen.
The girl screamed at the sight of the fire, instinctively covering her face with her arms and huddling against her mother’s corpse. When the woman saw that frightened response, her need to run fell away and a wholly new instinct took over. She had never felt it before, and wouldn’t be able to exactly place it until many years later. She would think back on this day and realize it was an instinct that the woman she’d just killed had felt every day. Protect the girl. The need was basic, overpowering, motherly.
The woman moved quickly, tucking her gun into the back of her belt and rushing over to the girl, stooping to grab her. “Come on, we have to get out of here!”
The girl screeched and swung her fists at the woman. “No! Get away from me!”
The woman recoiled, but then redoubled her efforts. “No, you need to come with me! We have to get you out of this house!”
“No! You killed her! You killed my mommy!” The girl was hysterical now, flailing wildly.
The woman looked around frantically. The fire was ravenously spreading through the house. It had already slipped along the wall of the kitchen to their left. In moments, it would engulf the front door and they would be trapped. She didn’t have time for this.
Looking back to the little girl, the woman suddenly grabbed her shoulders and shook her hard. “Look! Yes, I killed your mother, but I shouldn’t
have, and if I could take it back, I would! But it’s too late for that now! All I can do is save you! Now do you want me to help you, or do you want to burn up in this house?”
Snapping out of her hysteria, the girl looked up at the woman with gleaming wet eyes before taking in her fiery surroundings as if for the first time. She drew a shuddering breath and whispered, “Save me.”
“Come on, stay with me and stay low,” the woman said. The kitchen was rapidly filling with smoke, so much so that the door only a few feet away was already almost impossible to see. The two moved in a crouching walk towards where the woman believed it to be. Within a few steps, it came into view, but flames were licking dangerously close to both sides of it. The woman reached out and grabbed the doorknob, but took in a hissing breath and yanked her hand back immediately from the searing metal. She glanced down at the girl, who looked back at her unsympathetically. “Back up,” the woman warned as she rose to her feet. The girl complied, crawling back a ways.
Squinting through the smoke, the woman stared down the door and squared off her body. She took in a shallow breath and held it, then lunged forward, thrusting a boot out at the door. It connected right above the doorknob, and she heard the frame crack slightly, but the door didn’t budge.
She shook her head, let out her breath, and took in another small one. The smoke was getting thick, and her lungs and eyes were burning. Glaring at the door, she pictured it as her partner’s face, imagining what she was going to do to him for starting the cleanup early.
She felt the door give with a loud crack under her boot this time, and it swung open fully. But the oxygen had become so thin inside that the sudden rush of it from outdoors ignited, and a large burst of flame slammed into the woman, vaulting her over the girl and halfway across the kitchen.
Suddenly finding herself on her back and staring up at the ceiling, the woman could feel a tingling, burning sensation in her chest and face. She coughed, wheezing for breath that wasn’t there to take. Shaking, feeling dizziness threatening to take hold and swallow her down into this fiery place, she pushed herself up into a sitting position and squinted to search for the pale moonlight of the doorway, to catch sight of the little girl.
The Crimes of Orphans Page 11
