The Hit List

Chapter 9

"Close your eyes." He says, placing the gun carefully onto the counter. He lifted his hands, showing me nothing within his grip.

"I just need you to trust me, even though I don't know how you could." A shrug lifted his shoulders, a casualty somehow still radiating through him.

He remained so nonchalant. Handling himself with caution. Making me feel like I would never weasel my way into his psyche. A place I craved entrance to. It was similar to the gifted program in grade school. A test others seemed able to pass easier than me. My small body sitting at a desk, an arm covering the paper from the judgemental eyes of peers.

His eyes are wide, surrounded by long eyelashes. They're big, I'd describe them as doe-like if he didn't give off such a predatory aura. They're a simplistic color, neither bright nor dark. Just dim. They move constantly, even when focused on me. His eyebrows move around a lot as well, as though they were connected straight to his brain, which also seems constantly moving. 

"What?" I ask.

"Just close them. It shouldn't be a tough direction to follow." He responds, cracking his knuckles once more. Craving the gun to return to his empty hands. "Close. Your. Eyes. Eaven." 

With his pointer finger moving along the white granite, his right-hand reaches across to rest on the counter. Easing frequently in and out of the weapon's direction.

As much as my brain fought, my instincts craved knowledge. Needing to know where this wooded road would lead. 

Even with my eyes closed I'm not sure how much I'll tell him. Staring at the black of my eyelids, trying to wrap my head around the endlessness of the darkness I am seeing. "Now speak. Say anything you want to right now. I don't care if you ramble on. Speak gibberish for all I care. I need to hear your real voice. The kind you only use when you're on your own. Abandon the horrors of judgment with every syllable."

The words I'm about to say to this stranger are things that some people I've known for more than ten years have never heard. It's unclear to me how I would tell them, even after all this time. "Eaven." My name jerks me to attention, and my eyes instinctively open.

He stands closer to me now, two steps ahead of his gun still sitting on the counter. He's leaned down, still standing, but now eye-level with my sitting frame. "I just want answers. That's all I want from you. I'm not here for money, I'm not here to harm you, I just need those answers." 

His hand continues to scrunch into his pants. His eyebrows wrinkle his otherwise smooth forehead. Age avoiding him like a woman would on a nighttime sidewalk. He has shaggy hair, the light of my kitchen hitting it in a way that brings attention to it. His eyes show the intelligence and partial cruelty of a CEO. His sleeves are pulled up, bunching just above his elbows. 

I tried to imagine him with a family, cradling a niece or nephew against his chest. The impossibility of envisioning him partying with pals the night before a wedding. He looked sterile, like he should smell like a hospital; sickening and anxiety-inducing. "You want answers?" I questioned, my back straightening up against the short stool.

"Fine. I'm dying. I have a rare incurable disease. I don't want it to take me out, so I thought I'd take it into my own hands."

He turned his back to me, his shoulders shaking a bit as he lifted his hand to his mouth.

I could hear laughter release from between his fingers.

"Medical history Eaven. You haven't seen a doctor since you were 18." He turned back to me, his fingers gravitating to his eyes. Squeezing them shut slightly.

"Yes. That is true." I responded idiotically. "What are you doing?" He asked, a breath escaping from his stomach. "Nothing." My hands were clasped in my lap.

The last person who should know the ins and outs of my mind is him. "Eaven. What are you doing?" He repeated, returning to my level.

His eyes were serious, forcing my own to follow them in motion.

"I told you. Nothing." A sliver of skin dangling from the side of my middle finger was plucked at by my thumb.

"Oh, fuck." I felt my skin burn as I saw a red dot travel down my finger. "You have to find a new stress reliever. Fidgeting like that always leads to pain in the end." He reached into his bag, pulling his first-aid kit back out. Opening it to grab a box of bandages, handing me a medium-sized one.

I recalled an alternative method of relieving tension and regretted not having had the opportunity to down a few glasses of inexpensive wine. I'm craving that comforting queasy feeling in my gut. "Are those my bandaids?" I asked, tearing the stickiness off of the thin paper.

"Thought I'd get more use out of them. Hope you don't mind. I usually ask before taking, but you were somewhat preoccupied, sleeping off a concussion, as one does."

I wrapped the nude sticker around my finger, pressing it against my mouth to rid the rest of the blood from my skin. The copper taste was one that I was all too familiar with, especially after today.

It brought back memories of gym class when we were made to run a track continuously until we achieved the ideal level of physical fitness.

In the locker room, I would change, feeling like pennies were rising from my chest and into my mouth while my throat burned. No matter how much I had spit into the grass the taste never left me. I had always hated those days, hated the idea of running from nothing. My legs on fire, sweat sticking my bangs to my forehead. Sitting in a math class, pretending like I wasn't aware of the blood pooling beneath my cheeks.

I would give anything now to run away. To hear one single whistle blow through the air, permission granted for me to start my run to nowhere.