Killing Freedom

by Ryan Casey

  Mustapha stood up and smacked Jared on the shoulder as the sun slipped further from view, a chill brushing its way through the village. ‘You’re going to have to explain what happened to the girl, though. To Cindy.’

  Jared felt the guilt gnawing inside him. ‘I’ll think of something.’

  Mustapha paused at the door. ‘Does she know what you do for a living?’

  Jared turned and shook his head.

  Mustapha’s eyes sunk. ‘Be careful, son. Just be very careful.’

  He disappeared inside, leaving Jared out on the balcony to watch the evening sun make its final descent.

  The following morning, Jared spoke to Cindy.

  His hands shook as he walked down the corridor towards her room. He undid his top button. He’d just have to be honest with her, tell it her as it was. Maybe that way, things could work. Maybe they could be free and happy and start a normal life themselves. It would take time, but it was plausible. He clenched his sweating hands and knocked on the door.

  ‘Yeah?’ Cindy called, as Jared turned the handle and walked inside.

  Her eyes diverted towards her stomach as he entered. He could tell she’d noticed his eyelid but was trying not to pay much attention to it. She tried to smile but couldn’t hold it. Her eyes looked red and her nails were bitten down.

  ‘Hi,’ Jared said. He slumped his hands into his pockets and then reached back up towards his face.

  ‘I’m guessing you aren’t called Richard?’ Cindy said.

  Jared’s stomach sank, and he shook his head. It felt good for that bubble of falsity to be burst from the off. It was one small step.

  ‘No, it’s not. It’s—it’s Jared. I’m very sorry I—’

  ‘Don’t,’ Cindy butted in. ‘Just—just don’t. I know what you were trying to do. I know you wanted the money, and you wanted to rob us, or whatever. But—but those men, the men Brian worked with, they—’ She closed her eyes and took a sharp breath through her nostrils. ‘Just be straight with me. Where’s Brian? And Carl? Why aren’t they here?’

  Jared’s throat wobbled as he stared back at Cindy. ‘I’m so—’

  ‘No, don’t. My Brian. My… my little Carl. Not him too. Please, please tell me no.’ Tears slipped down Cindy’s begging cheeks.

  Carl’s grip around the toy Ferrari, little fingers loosening and loosening and—

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Jared said, his cheeks heating up. ‘I tried. I tried to do everything, but there was nothing I could do.’

  Cindy curled her head into her hands. ‘Carl was such a good boy. He was like mine, you know?’ She turned over onto her side and began to pull herself from the bed. ‘I need to get out of here. I need to go to the police, and I need to get out of here. How do I get out of here?’

  Jared walked over to her and rested his hand on her shoulder. ‘You—you can’t do that. It’s dangerous. I—I’ll explain when you’ve rested.’

  Cindy pushed Jared’s arm away and fell crying into his chest. Her body felt alien as her hands wrapped around his back.

  Was he smiling?

  He cleared his throat and let go of her.

  ‘I just wish—I just wish—’ Cindy said, her words disappearing underneath her snivelling.

  The guilt bubbled inside Jared. He had to tell her. She needed to know who he was, what he was there to do. He couldn’t hold it in any longer.

  ‘Cindy, I… I don’t know how to say this, but it’s my fault. All of it, it’s my fault.’

  Cindy rolled over onto her side. ‘No, it’s nobody’s fault but Brian’s. His work—if he didn’t do what he did, we wouldn’t have gotten into this trouble. I knew I couldn’t trust that man he worked for. Oh, he must have gotten into some trouble at work, and—’

  ‘No, you don’t understand,’ Jared interrupted. ‘There’s… there’s more to it than that. Brian: I was… I was supposed to protect him. I failed.’

  Cindy pulled herself back into the bed, covering her face with her palms. ‘Just leave me alone,’ she said. She turned over to the grated window. ‘But please. Just tell me one thing. Are we safe now?’

  Jared thumbed the phone in his pocket as it vibrated, and he looked down towards the ground before closing his eyes and nodding. ‘We’re safe here, Cindy. But we have to stay here, just until we sort a few things out. The—the people who killed your family. They’re still out there, and they aren’t happy that you’ve gone missing. You’re not safe out there. Okay?’

  Cindy sniffed into her pillow. He’d gotten so close. He’d been so close to telling her everything; about how he was hired to kill them, about how ‘those people’ were his people. He could’ve told her.

  But maybe he didn’t have to.

  He’d seen the glint in her eye. The slight twitch of a smile on her mouth.

  And his smile, staring back at him in the mirror.

  Maybe they could be free, together. Was that such a sick thought?

  His eyes glanced downward, and he saw his sister’s name across the screen of his phone. He looked down at it then back up over towards Cindy’s sniffling body.

  ‘Things… they’ll be okay,’ Jared said. ‘I’ll find a way to get you back home somehow, but for now, we need to lay low for a few days.’ He turned towards the door and held his breath.

  He couldn’t get the image of his smiling face out of his head as he opened his sister’s text.

  Chapter Seventeen

  ‘Got away,’ the text read. ‘Call me ASAP. Don’t know how long I’ve got.’

  Except he did try to call her, multiple times, and he couldn’t get through. Straight to answerphone. Maybe she’d been intercepted by Raymond? Maybe he’d not been as injured as he looked, and he’d got up and sorted her out as she tried to escape. Maybe he’d seen where she’d gone, followed her, and finished her off. Or maybe he’d had people waiting outside, watching and waiting for her to escape, just in case.

  Stupid. He shouldn’t have just left her to die like that. She needed to be okay.

  Jared stormed down the corridor towards the reception area. He’d go back to the city and find her. Maybe someone had seen her, or perhaps Raymond could communicate with him for the time being. They weren’t on the best terms, but they could work things out.

  He turned the corner into reception and his body froze.

  Faith stood opposite him, rubbing her arms. Her clothes were dirty, specks of oil dabbed across her skin. She tried to smile.

  Jared bolted towards her and grabbed her, his muscles melting as she fell forward into his grip.

  He wasn’t sure how long they were standing there in silence but when he opened his eyes he saw Mustapha looking on at them with tilted eyebrows. He knew what he was thinking: they couldn’t stay here. Bringing Cindy along—lying to her about just how involved he was in Brian and Carl’s deaths—that was enough. But now Faith was here. There were too many of them. Everything was getting too complicated.

  Faith and Jared made their way into the dining area, where Mustapha poured them a glass of water each and ushered them onto a dusty table in the corner. The hum of crickets soundtracked the room. There was a coldness about the place—an unvisited feeling. Jared looked around the echoey room and wondered when Mustapha had last been able to provide meals for the community. His lodge and café used to attract all sorts of people, but now it seemed only to be people desperate for medical attention that paid him visits.

  ‘How did you make it back?’ Jared asked.

  Faith stubbed the end of one of Mustapha’s cigarettes into the glass ash tray and washed the taste away with a gulp of water. ‘When I got out of the window I just ran. I wasn’t sure where to go because… well, I think someone was watching me. But I wasn’t sure.’ She paused and rubbed her fingers against her temple. ‘I hid in a little alleyway and just let it all sink in. I was just too scared to do anything. Then I remembered seeing the bike that you came on, and I knew then that only one person would have a bike that ugly.’

  Mustapha gr
itted his teeth and cursed under his breath as he stepped out of the room.

  ‘So then I waited around the truck place and managed to hitch a ride with a Portuguese man. Few close calls when he came to look in the back but… well, I’m here now. That’s the main thing.’

  ‘Did he…’

  Faith’s eyelids twitched. ‘No, Jared. No he didn’t.’

  Jared sighed and rubbed his eyes.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘We can’t stay here, Faith. We have to move on. Start afresh. I can’t put Uncle at risk again, not after what he went through last time. He’s only just about got things back on track. Got people trusting him again. I can’t risk tearing that all away from him.’

  Faith reached out for Jared’s hands, which were still stained in the crevices with blood and wear and tear. ‘Just have a little f—’

  ‘Don’t,’ Jared laughed. Her name had forever been used as a catchphrase, which was ironic considering how little faith she actually had. Born prematurely, underweight, she fought against the odds to even be here. ‘Faith,’ Mother had said. ‘We call her Faith because she is my little angel and she will bring good luck.’

  If only her mother knew what she’d driven her to become.

  ‘Those people, Jared. In my flat. What do they want?’

  Jared stared at Faith. He didn’t like bringing her into things, but he didn’t really have a choice anymore. ‘They want something from me that I can’t give them.’

  Faith pulled the rucksack onto her lap. ‘Is it money?’

  Jared paused as she passed it over to him. ‘Sort of. But I just want things to work now. I’ve done some bad things, and I need to put them right.’

  ‘But the police,’ Faith said. ‘They’ll find those men. You’ll be in trouble.’

  ‘That depends what sort of a mood he’s in,’ Jared muttered.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. You should rest, anyway.’

  The door clicked as Mustapha stepped back into the room. ‘Does she know about the girl?’ he asked as he pulled a chair out and sat on it, reversed.

  Jared twitched his eyes at Faith and looked back towards the table.

  ‘Which girl? Jared?’

  Jared took a deep breath. ‘I was on a job. The one I told you about. And I couldn’t do it. But some bad stuff happened—her boyfriend, and her son. They didn’t make it.’

  Little fingers clenching the toy Ferrari for dear life.

  ‘But she was still alive. Her baby didn’t make it, but she was still alive. So I couldn’t leave her there. I had to save her. I had to give her some hope. I just—I had to do it.’

  ‘Does she know who you are?’ Faith asked.

  Jared shook his head, desperate not to meet eyes with his uncle.

  ‘He’s going to tell her when she’s back on her f—’

  ‘She thinks I have nothing to do with their deaths,’ Jared blurted out.

  Mustapha turned to face him. ‘Jared, don’t tell me you’ve gone and fucking lied to her.’

  ‘I needed to give her hope, Uncle. Something to believe in. I’ll tell her in time, I promise I will, but she doesn’t need that now. She needs some hope. If she goes running back, she’ll draw attention to herself and get herself killed. She’ll draw attention to all of us. We need this.’

  Mustapha tossed his empty glass of water to one side and rose from his chair. ‘We need this, or you need this?’ He rubbed his hands against his creased shirt. ‘You need to be very careful. What’s to stop her from deciding enough’s enough and calling the police? I’m worried about you. You’re getting too caught up in this girl.’

  ‘Maybe I care about her,’ Jared said. The words sounded childish, cliché. He’d heard it in films, many films. It didn’t transfer as well in reality.

  ‘No,’ Mustapha said, slamming his fist against the table. ‘You care about the idea of her. You care because she let you in, and you tasted normality. But you can’t have normality. You condemned yourself to everything but normality the day you decided you’d fucking kill people for a living.’

  ‘He’s right, brother,’ Faith said. ‘You need to get rid of her. Or you at least need to tell her. You can’t hide forever.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  Faith sighed and dabbed her little finger into the surface of her water. ‘Raymond will come looking, Jared. You know how it works. He always does.’

  They were interrupted by the creaking of the door at the other side of the room.

  Cindy stood there, holding her stomach. ‘Hi,’ she said, reluctantly.

  Faith turned her eyes towards the table and stood up, widening them at Jared in acknowledgement of who the girl was. ‘Hello,’ she said, walking towards Cindy. ‘I’m Jared’s sister, Faith. Nice to meet you.’ She shook Cindy’s hand, who still looked a little wide-eyed and baffled by the whole situation.

  Cindy asked Faith how she was doing after her hospital accident, which caused a moment’s tension, but Faith played along with it. She looked surprised that Jared had confided in Cindy. After a few courtesy questions, Mustapha and Faith left the room. Now was his opportunity.

  Cindy sat down opposite Jared and rubbed her hands together. She wasn’t sure where to look or what to say. Jared looked on, the tension in his chest growing.

  She finally spoke: ‘It’s not the first time I’ve lost a child.’

  Jared nodded. He couldn’t say anything to her. He couldn’t let himself.

  ‘Well, I accidentally got pregnant when I was sixteen. Lost the kid by choice. Still wasn’t nice, though, but I guess I’ve grown thicker skin.’

  Jared nodded again, biting at his lip.

  ‘I guess… well, you kind of have to have thick skin when you’re kidnapped, and nobody will tell you what’s going on.’

  Jared took a swig of his water and cleared his throat. ‘It’s just not safe for anyone to know where you are right now. You don’t have to trust me but… I guess I’m asking you to.’

  Cindy tilted her head in acknowledgement. ‘It’s just, you said about going home again… when can I leave?’

  The tension gnawed at Jared’s stomach as he cleared his throat and placed the cup back onto the table. ‘Soon,’ he said. ‘We’ve got to… we’ve got to go somewhere for a few days because it isn’t safe.’

  ‘What’s stopping me from just going home?’ Cindy asked. Her eyes suggested she was testing Jared. He knew what it looked like when someone was testing him. Flickering from left to right of the pupils. Left. Right. Left. Mouth twitch.

  ‘You could just go home, but it would be a risk. You won’t be safe. Those people I… Those people that killed Brian and Carl—they aren’t finished. We can’t risk exposing what happened. The people who did what they did to your family, they won’t give up until you’re dead, too. And the police, well, let’s just say they aren’t always to be trusted. We need to find a safe place.’

  Cindy sighed and curled her head up in her hands. ‘This can’t be real. This can’t actually be real, can it?’

  Jared shuffled back from the table. ‘It is. I’m sorry.’

  Cindy scoffed. ‘You’re not a man of many words are you, Jared?’

  Jared didn’t know what to say to this, so he just nodded again. ‘Get some more rest. If you’re feeling fit, I’ll take you to see the village later. Until then, get used to life here and ignore the insects and my uncle’s nasty tongue.’

  He stood up and stepped towards the door.

  ‘Thank you,’ Cindy said. ‘I… I appreciate what you’re doing. I just—I dunno. It just doesn’t seem real.’

  He smiled and shut the door behind her as the guilt welled up in his stomach.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Later that day, Jared took Cindy on a walk around the village. He needed some fresh air, and with them leaving the place the following day, it would be a good chance to put her at ease. Mustapha encouraged her to get on her feet too, to hasten her healing and aid he
r recovery. If this was going to work, she’d have to learn to trust him.

  And he’d tell her the whole truth about what happened. He’d tell her, eventually.

  After some resistance, Faith decided to join the pair on their planned venture away from Mustapha’s village. They had money, and they had security, away from the city and away from Raymond. He couldn’t make the money thing too obvious to Cindy, though. She thought he’d done all he could to get her out of that house. She thought he’d saved her life and that it was Brian’s job’s fault that he was dead.

  She needed to keep on believing that.

  She looked surprisingly chirpy as they walked back through the village, round by the busyness of the market stalls. They hadn’t spoken much, but that was absolutely fine. Jared looked over his shoulders as invisible eyes watched him through windows. Movement in the alleyways, glimmers of light dancing in his vision.

  Just paranoid. Just paranoid.

  ‘Why are they watching us?’ Cindy asked, looking over her shoulder.

  Jared paused. ‘I guess they just aren’t used to newcomers. Come on—we should probably head back soon anyway.’

  Cindy disregarded Jared’s comment and continued to walk forward, wincing slightly with every step. She looked suspicious of the people around her.

  Jared had lied to her. The people in the village knew who he was, or at least some of them did after the last incident he’d been involved in here. At least the ones who survived the last time he’d brought Raymond’s wrath upon the place. He didn’t like to think about the consequences too much.

  Mustapha’s scars and his wife’s ring were all he needed as a reminder.

  That’s why they couldn’t stay here for long. Eventually, Raymond would come looking.

  It was when the pair walked round the market stall that Jared spotted the man in the suit.

  Sunglasses hid his gaze. He was well built, his dark, spiky hair gelled up at the fringe. He stood out simply because nobody else was like him round here, dressed in their scruffy polo t-shirts and shorts. His suit, it was so clean, so fresh.