The Heart Stoppers

NO TAKE BACKSIES

"We've just got Fiery and Adeline left," I purse my lips as I set down my gun on the table and take off the leather gloves on my hands.

Zack and I hadn't been in a good place since he started using a gun. The first week after, I wasn't anywhere near sober. All I did was drink vodka and workout in the basement. Zack had apparently taken calls from both Buchanan and Freeman, leaving me notes about them on the basement door. I didn't even look at him the first week.

By the second week, I had mapped out my plan of taking out both Montareo and Dictor, our next two targets. I still had yet to leave the basement, so I communicated the plans with him the way we had been for the past week: I left them by the basement door. He had written me a note the next day saying he was on board.

On the third week, I left the sanctuary of the basement. I went upstairs, actually showered, made a real meal for myself other than protein shakes or liquor, and changed out of my basic yoga pants and tank top. It was obvious then that Zack had missed me being around: the living room and kitchen were trashed. He had left plates and glasses and food and laundry everywhere. I wasn't angry; I didn't get angry. Hell, I didn't even see the kid that day while I scrubbed the whole house. The only thing that let me know that he was still here and alone was the constant booms of the gun going off. That week, we coexisted peacefully, only speaking during meals that I had prepared, then going about our own business.

This week, the fourth week, we took out Montareo and Dictor. Both were easy targets; I kept Zack in the surveillance van outside the homes of the vindictive men, while I went in and did the dirty work. In four days, I had murdered over fifty men. Today, I had just finished off Dictor, who was a clean and easy target.

Zack doesn't respond to my comment, only continuing to type on the computer in front of him before shutting it off completely and picking up a research book entitled, "The Element Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures."

I stride to my room, stripping off the aerodynamic kevlar leather outfit and changing into a pair of sweats and an AFO SP t-shirt. I yank my hair out of its ponytail and sigh loudly. In a moment of weakness and nostalgia, I reach under the bed in my room and pull out the shoe box underneath it.

I hate myself as I set it on the bed and open it up. My hands grab at the first photo I see. A small, happy looking family stands in front of the London Eye. One tall father, a shorter mother, a teenage daughter, younger daughter, and toddler son. The middle daughter stands out exceedingly: bright red hair and a pasty white complexion compared to the others with dark chocolate hair and warmer skin. The tallest man, one with light brown hair and welcoming hazel eyes, has his hand on the shorter daughter's shoulder. The mother with auburn hair and green eyes, holds her youngest son, one who is smiling from ear to ear with tiny baby teeth. And the last daughter, who has a fleeting smile on her face, seems to stare right at me through the film.

Zack moves to put his hand up to my open door to knock, but I speak before his knuckles make the contact. "Her name was Holly. She was five years older than me, and I looked up to her almost as much as I looked up to Rocky."

I bite the inside of my cheek as I picture my five year old self going to the park with Holly and my mother. Holly always played with me, always included me, no matter how many times her friends begged her to join them. Harry came along not much later, and I played with him as she had done with me. And Holly went off on her own path when Harry became my new playmate. But she was still my cool older sister, and she still let me play board games with her after school when Harry would take his naps.

"What happened to her?" he leans against the door frame, his look somber.

I blink my eyes many time before answering, "She was taken... It was April. The twenty-ninth. I was ten, and I didn't really know what was happening. But there was this noise...this metallic vibrating noise. My parents never claimed to have heard it, but I know it was there, I know what I saw. I went out of my room and into Holly's. There was this light coming from under the door, blinding light for the middle of the night. I tried to open the door, but I couldn't. It was like there was something...something--blocking it. And then she screamed. Bloody murder scream had come from inside the room. So I tried the door again, and I burst in there as heroically as any scrawny ten year old could... And they were just standing there: standing around her bed, all five of them. They were ugly...and short--not tall like the Men are. They were my height, my ten year old height. And they had gray colored skin that almost seemed yellow with the bright light shining on them. Their eyes were ginormous, like the way you see on TV, and they were naked with their long fingers but short arms. And they have like bird legs; their knees were backwards... And all they did was turn around and look at me, not even giving me a chance to see Holly. I yelled, oh I yelled so loud. Almost screamed her name, and just like that, she was gone. And so were they."