Haunted by the Past (Original)

Chapter 28

"What the hell, Dani?" Eli shook his head and gripped the steering wheel tight, still struggling to comprehend my devil-may-care attitude. "You do understand the entire point of this exercise, right? To make sure you don't die!"

"No, I believe it's to make sure Triple-6 isn't the one to kill me," I clarified. "So long as he's not the one to do the deed."

"Are you fucking serious!? You want to die? Well shit, Dani, why waste any more time? Let me pull over right now!" he snapped.

"Really? You'll do it?" I faked a bubbly voice while calling his bluff.

"Fuck no!" he said exasperated. "Come on, Dani. Don't... don't be like that."

"Be like what?" I narrowed my eyes.

"Ugh!" he groaned loudly. "You know what I mean! Don't give up! Don't try to look for an easy road out of all of this! Don't try to 'stick it to the man' by getting yourself killed! If you don't want to put the fight in for yourself, do it for your parents, for your brother... hell, do it for me, ok? We- we'd all miss you."

Instead of responding, I turned away and watched the trees as they went past through the passenger door window.

"Please, Dani," Eli pleaded. "I'm begging you – fight – fight to live."

"Even if that means bowing down to yakuza thugs?" I arched an eyebrow as I turned back to him.

"You have no idea how many people Naito's had killed! How many people disappeared without a trace! How many lives he destroyed!" he defended.

"And I suppose you would know best?" I glared.

Eli leaned back in the driver's seat of our new, silver Ford Focus. Well, more like pre-owned, and whoever pre-owned it must've stored their gym bag in the car because it reeked of stale sweat. At least that's the story I came up with because I didn't want to consider any alternative uses for the car. The smell pervaded the car even though we had the windows half down while traveling sev- I mean a safe fifty-five miles per hour - just as the speed limit recommended, and not a mile over.

Exasperated, Eli responded softly, "This isn't about me right now."

"No? But you helped him, didn't you?" I narrowed my eyes.

Eli slammed the palm of his hand on the steering wheel, "Dani! Don't change the subject!"

"How many, Eli? How many lives have you fucked with?" I sneered.

"Oh come on, Dani!" he exclaimed. "Fine, we're doing this now. For the record, I wasn't directly responsible for any of them! My role was only to adjust the digital evidence."

"Because that's so much better," I rolled my eyes. "You knew it was happening!"

"But I didn't know all of the details! I couldn't tell you where the trafficked women and children ended up! I couldn't tell you where the dead bodies were dumped!" he defended.

"How?" I bit my lip trying to hold all my emotion in. "How could you turn a blind eye to it?"

"I wasn't- I wasn't always involved. I started at the bottom on the small, insignificant stuff. Breaking into one government or corporate database, committing espionage or sabotage, attacking our enemies and defending against their cyber attacks," he explained with regret. "As I continued to prove myself, they gave me additional responsibilities."

"You didn't think when the first trafficking case was handed to you that maybe it was time to quit?" I questioned.

Eli paused for a moment, "You don't quit, Dani. Either you leave in a body bag, or you become too old to be of any use to them."