Red String, Blue String

Chapter 1

A people pleaser, that's just what I am. Maybe that's the reason that I was about to kill someone just because my boss had told me to. And by killing, I mean I was standing outside my soon-to-be-victim's home. At 1am. And it was snowing. It was Thursday, my least favourite day of the week.

Break in, that's all I was presumed to do. When I finally got to the front door and had pulled out my bobby pin, I just couldn't do it. I placed it into the lock but couldn't get myself to turn it, my hands were trembling in the cold mid-January air. Snow was landing on my fingertips and on top of the doorknob. I still remember the shine of the gold door knob in the dead of night. Dead. That was what Theodore Bash was presumed to be.

* * *

    "Peterson!" I heard coming from my boss' office, Jay threw me a sympathetic look before I slowly stood up and walked towards his office. It was never good when he called you in there.

    "Sir?"

    "Hello, close the door will you?" He greeted me. I pushed the door closed with the heel of my foot and waited until he gestured for me to sit down, "I need something from you."

    "Of course sir, anything," I silently cursed myself at the thought that I was being that enthusiastic. "It's just your boss asking you to do something", I had to remind myself.

    "I just found out that my wife, you know her right?" I nod, "well, she cheated on me."

    "Oh sir, I'm so sorry," I said with a faint smile.

    "Well, I need to deal with the man in question," he said to me as he stapled a stack of papers, as if this was a normal statement. I was confused, what did he mean by "deal with him?"

    "Yeah?"

    "Yes, I think you can help me, here's his address," he states as he scribbles it on to a yellow sticky note. I grab the little piece of paper with hesitation, what did I need it for?

    "And this is for?"

    "Well, you are going to go there and kill him," he said, matter of factly.

    "Sorry sir, I think I misheard, what was that?" I asked, even though I knew full well that I heard him correctly.

    "It really is no big deal Luna," he said as he reached over to touch my arm. He never called me Luna.

* * *

    I had been working in the security sector for only a year at this point. Newly twenty three years old and in many ways still the scared child hiding in her closet. I had a gun but had never used it outside of the shooting range. But now my boss was the reason I let go of all my morals, the reason I had gotten to the point where I could commit murder. I wished I could have declined, but he knew too much.

    My hands stopped shaking enough to finally unlock the door and twist the knob to pull it open. I slowly closed it behind me and rubbed my hands together to warm them up. I had spent almost a half hour just lingering outside his home. I made the haste decision to remove my shoes, they were covered in snow and would trek my footprints through the house. I pulled out a small collection of tissues from my pocket and laid them out for my boots, then I climbed up the basement stairs as slowly and as quietly as I could.

    Theordore, his name really sounded so fancy, his friends probably called him "Theo", not that I'd ever need that knowledge. Well, Theodore had an alarm system, but my boss had the capacity to turn them off. It was greenside security after all, my workplace. Once I got out of the basement, I could see his front door and I turned to the right to see his living room. I slowly made my way into the room, checking my surroundings every few seconds. I heard the tiniest creek and almost jumped out of my own skin. To many people's dismay, I'm no murderer.

    I realized the creek had been my own foot hitting a loose floorboard, I walked forward and found my way into his kitchen. The aluminum grey fridge seemed so out of place compared to the sleek white cabinetry and the marble island. The staircase came directly off of the kitchen and I placed my foot with as much control as possible on that first step, I remembered how I would try to skip as many steps as I could at my childhood best friend's house but ending up falling into a pit of giggles. Nothing like that was allowed at my own home.

    When I got upstairs, all of the doors were cracked except for one, which I assumed was his bedroom. No one would just leave their bedroom door open, at least I wouldn't. I took some deep breaths, three big in, three small out. Now I was remembering Sandra, my childhood therapist, our meetings on Thursdays after school. Oh right, Theodore's presumed death day was also a Thursday.

    I kept telling myself I wasn't a killer, as if hypocrisy, or was it irony, would help. I was there for a reason, I, Luna Peterson, was there for a reason. And not because I was my boss' pawn. I was more than just that, I was the whole game.

    Rationalizing what I was about to do was not going to make it any better or really any worse, It was what it was. I guess you become a murderer once you make the decision to take someone's life. All I had to do now was pull the trigger.