Killing Freedom

by Ryan Casey

  Nothing was going to happen. He’d be okay. It was all just a big misunderstanding. There was a way out of this.

  The next thing he felt was something brushing against the eyelashes of his right eye. He flinched, opening his eyes automatically as Brian’s index finger and thumb struggled to get a grip of his eyelid, his clumsy thumb prodding the white of his eye carelessly in the process.

  ‘Please,’ Jared begged. Tears streamed down his cheeks and into his mouth as Brian stretched the eyelid out like it was made of rubber. The more Jared tried to shake his head free of the grip around his neck and the clamping of his eyelid, the more Brian’s chunky thumb plunged towards Jared’s bulging pupil.

  Brian’s own bloodshot eyes met Jared’s. Sweat streamed from his forehead. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘But… my son. They—I’m sorry.’

  ‘They’re going to kill you anyway now, don’t you understand?’ Jared said, lowering his voice. ‘Brian, you—you’re going to get killed, and I’m going to get killed and there’s nothing we can do about it. I was sent to kill you. Please, Brian. Get out of here. Just get—’

  The next thing he felt was the coldness of the metal scissors wedged underneath his eyelid.

  Then, in a solitary moment of calmness and control, Brian snipped.

  Jared let out a cry as his eyes clamped themselves shut. A substance thicker and warmer than tears blurred his vision, the dim light of the room still visible even though he had his eyes shut. When he blinked, the pain seared through his head as a loose flap of skin dangled down from his eye.

  Brian exhaled deeply, trying to remain distant. ‘Keep still, it’s—it’s almost done.’

  Frank laughed and clapped his hands in the background, dropping the video camera to his side in disbelief. ‘You fucking animal,’ he said. ‘Your dad’s a fucking animal, kid.’

  ‘Please…’ Jared’s head spun, his vision growing blurry. He heard another snip, almost as if this event were detached from him, happening elsewhere, but more thick blood ran down his face, collecting at the bottom of his chin.

  Brian pulled the loose flap of skin from Jared’s face as it peeled away from his eye and threw it towards the other side of the room, dropping the scissors to the floor and rushing backwards. He scrubbed his hair with his bloody hands as Jared moaned. The light. He tried and tried to squeeze his eyes shut but the light, so bright and so searing, burned into the back of his skull.

  ‘I’ve—I’ve done it,’ Brian said. ‘Now let me go, please. Let my kid go.’ He walked over towards Carl as Frank pushed him back, standing tall.

  Frank looked into Brian’s eyes, the camera still recording by his side. ‘I’m sorry, man. I like you. You just get it. You get that shit happens. I like that.’

  ‘Just let me—let my son go, please. I’ll do anything.’ Brian fell to his knees, sobbing, and rubbed his fingers against Frank’s foot.

  Frank shook his head and looked over at Jared, winking with his right eyelid.

  ‘Please…’ Jared whimpered, as the burning pain spread from his eye through to the back of his neck.

  ‘You brought this on yourself, Jared,’ Frank said. ‘If you’d just done what Raymond asked, things wouldn’t have had to get so messy.’ He sighed audibly before turning to the man holding Carl’s shoulders. ‘Adam: do it.’

  There was a bang and a crack at the other side of the room. Blood splattered against the wall.

  Carl’s body fell towards the floor.

  Brian’s eyes widened and his mouth screamed out as he threw himself over towards his son.

  Frank pulled out a gun.

  One, two, three shots, and it was done.

  Frank clicked the video camera off as the men he was with turned Brian’s body on to its side, dragging it next to his son’s. Frank reached down and sighed, folding both their arms across their chests. ‘Rest in peace,’ he said. ‘Sorry for the shit.’

  He closed their eyelids and then walked over to Jared. ‘Raymond has a message for you.’ He pulled his phone from his pocket. He didn’t look at Jared or even acknowledge him properly, and when he happened to glance in his direction, he looked at his clotting eyelid, smirking each time.

  Frank clicked the phone and Raymond’s voice buzzed through the white noise on the other end of the receiver. ‘Jared: if you’re listening to this, then it’s because you’ve not done what you were told. You know I’m an understanding man. You know I’m a forgiving man, but if someone crosses the line or shows themselves to be disloyal, they have to be punished. You know this. I’ve told my boys not to go rough on you, but bad behaviour requires discipline. You get that, don’t you? Bring the money back to me. I want you to deliver it to me tomorrow. If you think otherwise, then I suggest you think about what’s just happened. I suggest you think about that sister of yours and how much you want her to make a speedy recovery.’

  Then a pause.

  ‘Don’t let me down again, Jared. You’re special to me. You mean something… everything, to me. I’ll cook for you tomorrow. We’ll get you cleaned up. We can work through your mistake, Jared. We can build on it. See you soon. Bring me that money.’

  Then the voice buzzed out. Silence in the room.

  Frank rose back to his feet, slipping the phone inside his pocket. He picked the scissors up and feinted towards Jared’s other eye, smirking and laughing, before slipping them into Jared’s fingers, his hands still bound behind his back.

  ‘You can cut yourself out. Consider this a gift.’ He rose and walked towards the door, stepping over Carl and Brian’s static bodies as the other men left the room and looked down at Cindy’s corpse. He ran a finger down the blood-covered wall. ‘I’ll let you clean this up. It is your mess after all, right?’

  Jared’s eyes were fixed on their bodies. He couldn’t speak.

  ‘I’ll be seeing you around,’ Frank said. ‘Let’s make sure you keep hold of that other eyelid and you take that money you know about to Raymond, right? Right. Sure you will.’

  He slammed the study door and disappeared out into the night.

  The toy Ferrari rested on its back beside Carl’s motionless hand.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Despite the scissors lying in his hand, he couldn’t bring himself to move.

  He sat there as the blood began to clot around his eye. The pain receded—or at least it felt that way. He wasn’t sure.

  Her body. His body.

  The Ferrari.

  Jared winced as he slipped the scissors around the wire tied around his chapped wrists. There was nothing else he could do. He’d clear them up, take the money back to Raymond, and then he’d work things out from there. On to the next job. ‘Pull your socks up,’ he’d tell him.

  Snipping at the restraint wrapped around his wrists, he pulled his arms free and brought them up in front of his face. He dragged his aching body to his feet, stumbling as his head went light and dizzy, the entire right side of his face on fire with the pain from his eye. The distant buzz of the occasional car passing by echoed through into the house.

  The wall near Brian and Carl was painted with blood.

  Taking a deep breath and being careful not to look at the bodies, he wrapped his arms around the child, lifting him onto his shoulder. Warm liquid seeped onto his shirt.

  Just like Burma. No, this was worse than Burma. He should never have gotten involved or gotten too close.

  Jared pulled the study door open and looked down at Cindy lying on the floor, hand resting on her stomach. Such a waste of two lives.

  He placed Carl’s body onto the sofa and went back for Brian’s, stepping carefully over Cindy as he did. The weight of Brian’s body pressed down on his spine as he lay him next to Carl, covering them both with the brown blanket. He’d have to get rid of them somehow, or maybe he’d just make it look like a robbery gone wrong, something like that. Maybe throw them into the van and dump them—but there was too much mess. He’d have to speak to Raymond.

  Raymond. He didn’t want t
o see him again, not so soon. He’d be so disappointed with him. It was his fault that this had happened. Raymond would make sure he didn’t forget this, because that’s how he worked.

  ‘You learn from your mistakes,’ he’d tell him.

  Jared walked over towards Cindy and lifted her onto his shoulder. As he did, he swore he heard something. Probably just the door, something outside. As he lifted her, he heard a splutter from beside him.

  No, was she…?

  His knees turned to jelly, and he fell to the floor, placing Cindy back down with his shaking hands. She couldn’t be. She couldn’t—

  She started to shake her head and splutter up blood. Was this real? She… she had been shot.

  She let out a wince, her eyes still closed.

  Shit. He had to leave her. No—he had to kill her. Finish her off. That was the only option. If she survived, she could say she witnessed it, or she could know something and bring them all down.

  Fuck.

  Jared put his hand over her eyes, his skin tingling as she stopped coughing. He leaned into her chest; she was breathing slowly. There probably wasn’t a lot of life left in her lungs. He turned around to the study and ran in there, where the scissors lay on the floor. His gun was long gone, taken by Frank, so he’d have to think of another way. It was messy already, so maybe if he just got it done with and cleaned it all up in one.

  Deep breaths. Deep fucking breaths.

  Jared picked up the bloody scissors, his clumsy fingers struggling to get a proper grip. In the corner of his eye he saw something: the safe. The key still dangled from where Brian had left it.

  He stepped over and reached inside: fifty thousand dollars, still stuffed in there inside a brown envelope.

  Maybe he could take it for himself. $50k. Enough to live on, for a while. Enough to find a place and settle down and eat. They could get as far out as they could, hide in the outskirts. It wasn’t an ideal out there but it was something.

  No—stupid idea. It was suicide. And his sister—she wasn’t safe. Frank had said as much.

  Or maybe he could run away with his sister.

  He looked at the scissors in his hand and heard Cindy cough again in the other room.

  Fuck it.

  He grabbed the envelope and disappeared back into the lounge. Cindy still had her eyes shut as she lay on the floor. She needed a hospital, or she wouldn’t make it. He glanced over at the bodies on the sofa and shook his head: There was nothing he could do for them now. He’d get Cindy out, get her back to strength, then go from there. He could come back tomorrow morning—real early—to clean up, but right now he had a second chance.

  He picked Cindy up before glancing back at the mound on the sofa, hidden underneath the brown blanket. The perfect family. This had been a fantasy, but he didn’t have to keep on giving in. He could look after Cindy and protect her—she needed that right now. She just needed someone.

  As Jared walked over to the door, he caught a glimpse of his eye for the first time, the remains of his eyelid shaped like a jigsaw piece. It was a mess, but it didn’t matter. He could fix this.

  He thought he caught a glimpse of a smile staring back from his reflection.

  Jared rested a half-conscious Cindy into the passenger seat of the van. Her head bobbed from side to side as she winced and clutched at her stomach. Think, Jared, think. He reached into the back of the van, biting at his tongue. There had to be something back there: some medical kit, something temporary to relieve her pain. He pulled out a green first aid kit with a little white cross on top and reached into it.

  A small brown bottle of disinfectant, half-empty, a set of bandages and a sedative.

  He took a deep breath and bit the end of the sedative lid with his teeth before shoving it into Cindy’s arm. He’d trained as an anaesthetist in a past life. Now that was an easy job to deal with. Sneak a little bit of water into the solution and the bloke’s brains drowned—disappear off the radar before it went to court. Simple.

  Cindy flinched as Jared injected the sedative into her bloodstream, before exhaling and nodding off into a deep sleep. He needed her out of the way for now. He needed to think.

  He was distracted by the vibrating of his phone against the dashboard. He picked it up: Raymond. He’d deal with him later. He needed to get Cindy to a hospital or to somewhere safe. He didn’t have much time. He let the call run and go to voicemail, throwing it into the glove-box.

  He untangled the bandage in his hands, the material giving way, old and fatigued. The pitter-patter of blood trickled against his car seat. Quick, stay focused. Stay focused. He scrambled around in the first aid kit and pulled out the small bottle of alcohol. If he could just clean the wound, get it disinfected, maybe that would be a start. He glanced up at the hospital lights in the distance: he should just drop her off there, leave her to recover.

  But no. Raymond would find her. He’d make it worse. Right now, he had a chance.

  Taking a deep breath, he opened the cap on the bottle of disinfectant and trickled some of the pungent fluid onto Cindy’s gaping wound, being careful not to touch his eyelid wound with any of the alcohol. The pain throbbed around his skull, but he’d deal with that later. He needed to help her. He needed to get her someplace safe.

  He rested his head back against his seat. He couldn’t do this: He wasn’t a professional. But then what else could he do? He turned round and looked in the back of his van: nothing but dust, scraps of paper and the envelope. $50,000. Enough.

  Unless, maybe, he could help.

  No. Not after what happened last time. Not after what he’d told him. ‘Never set foot near us again.’

  But this was urgent. Maybe he’d understand.

  ‘Can I see some ID, please?’

  The sound of the man’s voice shocked Jared, who stared into his mirror. It was a warden: short, quite fat and bald, the kind who spent his time on duty gorging his fat, greedy face on snacks and sugar-rich drinks.

  His eyes looked over at Cindy’s unconscious body and then back at Jared.

  That look. He knew something was wrong.

  ‘Sir, could you step out of the van, please,’ the warden started, his triple chin flapping with every word. He reached into his pocket.

  This couldn’t happen. He couldn’t let it happen. The burning made its way up Jared’s neck. Deep br—no.

  The glove-box opened and the knife fell into his hands magnetically and then it was in the side of the warden’s neck and the warden was on the asphalt.

  Deep breaths. One, Two, Three.

  Then the warden was in the back of the van, and Jared was driving, driving down the highway. His phone vibrated—Raymond again. He’d get back to him, just not now. There was only one person who could help him right now. Only one person he could trust.

  The city lights grew more distant as Jared drove and drove and drove.

  Chapter Fourteen

  It had been a while since he’d driven this far out of the city, at least on his own accord.

  Cindy’s eyes were still closed, her hand rested on the makeshift bandage around her stomach. He reached over to her neck; he hadn’t checked her for a while. In a horrifying moment, Jared pictured her heart stopping right there. Him, all alone, driving with two corpses.

  Someone would probably start asking about the warden soon, depending on whether he worked alone or not. If not, he might have a day or two. Hell, he might be one of those loners who only worked nights. He hoped so.

  And Faith. She was back in the city, going about her work as if nothing was different. Soon, she’d know. Maybe she’d find out on the morning news or see it on some late bulletin during her night shift. If Raymond got to her, she was in trouble. He had to go back for her. He had to get Cindy to where she was safe and then he had to get back to Faith.

  Cindy’s pulse was still present in her neck, beating lightly. He needed to get her to help and soon.

  Jared glanced towards his phone in the console next to the driver’s seat.
He didn’t want to begin to count the missed calls. He knew Raymond and what he was like when people ignored him. He tossed it back into the glove compartment as he sped down the open road.

  He took a left off the highway when he saw the white church. No other cars followed him. That was usually a good sign. He drove for a little longer, first through the town, and then towards the village. It looked the same as it always had: Whitewashed walls turning grey with fatigue and age, dirt tracks for roads. There wasn’t much to come here for. The rich whores and gangland leaders watched out over the village from a distance, but the village just got on with everyday life, content enough. There was no reason for anybody in the city to ever come here. Except Jared.

  Jared drove slowly through the main strip of the village, well aware of the hens and chickens that ran about, not to mention the abundance of stray dogs and cats. The market stall in the distance was empty, white sheets of paper floating around in the gentle breeze. It was hard to believe that such a place could be so vibrant and busy during the day yet practically a ghost-town in the evening. Jared drove past building after building, all whitewashed, all with black doors. The headlamps of his van were all he had to guide him, the village hiding from the world with its lack of street lamps.

  He pulled up outside a small, yellow-bricked building in slightly better condition than the rest of the buildings in the village. Ivy worked its way up the front, curling at the windows. Typical: he’d always been a proud man right from when he was young. He slapped his cheeks, widened his eyes, wincing from the pain that radiated from his right eye, and stepped out of the van before opening the other door and lifting Cindy over his shoulder. He took a final apprehensive look at his van: The body would be okay in there for now, wouldn’t it? CCTV would probably have it located soon. He’d have to ask Raymond to sort it out for him. That could wait.