The Target

Chapter Four

Joanna

"Dad?!" I am in a breath-taking forest. It's raining and I love raining. My father is standing there, on the other side of the river. I want to run to him, scream, cry, touch him, feel his heat and safety while i am in his hug as he always hugged me after a bad day. However, I can't. He also can't hear me, I guess?

"Dad!" I called out. He is standing there smiling but, is he seeing me? He is leaving! "Dad, please. Take me with you! Don't leave me here again alone. Please, dad, please." I started crying, but it worked he is looking back at me now.
"I am sorry sweetie, I can't." He said feeling pained and sad. I know it! He also wants to take me too! Please, dad. Do it! Please...
"Why dad? Please don't go, don't leave me again dad. I miss you." I keep sobbing.
"You are not done yet, my baby girl. You still have your promise to keep, Joanna. You have to stand strong, Joanna Markel." He said, with sympathy. He is not shouting it this time.
"But dad, I can't. I no longer can. I am tired, dad."
"I am sorry, baby girl. You have to." He said and smiled at me for the last time, turned around and started walking the other way around.
"No, dad. No! Don't leave me! Dad!!"

"Dad!" That one I was screaming it that time at the top of my lungs. I opened my eyes to find that disappointment again. It's a nightmare again, my father died. Every time I wake up to that same fact that makes me lose my father every time I wake up from a nightmare. How can it be so real like this.  I took a cup of water from the nightstand beside me, drank water. That anger, that grief. I am tired of it. I was so angry that I didn't realize the broken cup in my hand and the blood all over my sheets. The door got opened, great! I waked up Nimma too and with that broken glass and the blood, the investigation and therapy advise won't stop until my next shift at the hospital. I got up and marched towards the bathroom without talking.

"Oh my god! Joan, you okay?" Nimma walked behind me to the bathroom. Sometimes I feel angry at myself that I can't tell her. That she accepted me without knowing the truth. I feel like it's not my right to be here, to make her in danger, or at least wake her up every night by my screams and now with blood on my sheets and wounder hand. Although she actually opened me her house knowing that I am hiding things and she said that it's no problem to her, still the feeling of guilt,maybe, doesn't go away.
"I am fine, Nimma. Nothing to worry about." I answered in a dull voice, I meant it to be comforting but I am not comforted myself. I took needed material to take out the glass and bandage my hand from the cabin and started taking out the glass pieces. With every piece of glass a feeling of sting brings my body back to life, my soul back to life. Nimma stood there leaning to the door frame, watching me carefully as a child, with wide eyes. Finally, while bandaging my hand she brokes the silence, the student is done with the lesson of bandaging, I guess.
"Joanna, your face expression didn't ever change. Don't you feel?" She was watching me not my hands.
"I enjoy it, Nimma." I secured the bandage and turned around to face her and she is looking like scared, maybe? Worried? Anyway, she needs more. "I mean that with every pain I feel it's like it makes me alive, like I am still alive I can feel and interact. Just got used to the pain a little more than usual. that's why most of things became painless to me or less painful." I said but then I looked at my wounded hand and remembered the nightmare."Except one thing." I said and walked back to my bed to change the sheets and escape Nimma. But no use, she followed me and stood there with crossed arms over her chest waiting for me.
"What?" I asked in the most innocent way I can. She waited there for sometime then asked "are you okay, Joanna?" I rolled my eyes and flashed her and smile "I am okay, Nimma." Then went back to changing the sheets. However, Nimma doesn't give up! She caught my arm and let go of the sheets from my hands.
"Let go of the sheets now. Sit down, please." She is in a really serious mood, mixed with worry and sadness. I did as she said and now I am also worried, for her.
"Joanna, look. You are my only family. My best friend, everything. I don't want to lose you-"
"Who said so ! I am here! Look! And I will never leave you alone." I tired to be in a happy-hippie mood as much as I can to make things better but seems that it didn't work, the same look is on her face.
"Joanna, don't! Just don't!" She is now getting angry, she stood up and started pacing the room.
"What did I do?" I asked.
"This!" She is shouting now."All of this! Acting as if nothing is there, as if you are not in pain and that everything is alright with you! Because it's not and I know it! I am not stupid, Joanna. Joanna I might have known your father in personal but I know enough to be worried on you! To know that you are in danger!" She stopped for a while and now stood in front of me, sat on the ground and held my hand, calmed down and looked into my eyes. "Look, I have never asked about hat happened and I will not ask until you feel like telling me by yourself. Just know that I will not allow losing you. I found you late, cousin. Before I was afraid being in this home alone, every night I would wake up and check the locks and get back to sleep or sit on the breakfast table alone looking at the food, remembering how that house used to be full of movement, family tenderness and drink my cold coffee. When you came home I finally found that moment again. someone to cry on her shoulder, someone to laugh with her, fight with. I was all alone before you Joanna and I will not allow that to happen again. Please Joanna, don't leave me. You are my older sister that I never had." Her words left me speechless, I didn't know to say. All I could do was pulling her into a hug. A tight one. "Don't worry, crazy. I will not leave you. You can't get rid of me that easily young lady. Besides, seriously if I left you I will miss those cookies of yours, to be honest." That's when I found a light hit on my back. We both laughed and she whispered "I love you, cousin." Me too."
"Okay, enough after mid-night emotions." I said breaking from the hug and Nimma is laughing. I looked at her with guilt. I hope I could have the chance to tell her everything before it's to late. Before she really loses me to a bullet, I might have survived last night's one but I don't think life will be by my side for so long. Especially, if my guess at that guy is wrong but if I was wrong he would have killed me on the spot, right? He was an interesting guy, He looked dark but his heart didn't, his eyes didn't show that. They say that eyes are the mirror of heart. What I saw in that mirror's reflection was a wounded heart, not a dead one. I snapped back to reality with my phone ringing. When I look around for it. I find that Nimma has already thrown the sheets in the laundry basket. I look first for my phone on my nightstand then my office. It's a message from an unknown number.
"Meet me by your father's grave now." It's already 2 A.M. in the morning, but maybe he is the guy. Whatever it is, they seem that they have already reached me. "Stay strong, Joanna Markle." rings in my ears. I grape a jeans and a t-shirt, I change in lightening speed.
"Where are you going?!" I get my car keys and my phone and start running down stairs.
"I'll be back before sunrise!" I shout back. Hopefully if he didn't decide to kill me first. I open my car door and check the drawer from my gun, just in case. I will not let him take my soul before knowing taking my father's killer or at least know a reason to put down the fire in me, end those nightmares and let my father rest in peace.

I drive as fast as I can until I reach the graveyard. I take my gun, get down of the car and tuck it in my jeans. I lock the car and start marching slowly to my father's grave. I stop as I see his grave stone, I touch it and wait for a couple of seconds before I feel him walking from behind, the same confident, counted steps as in the party.
"I knew you weren't an idiot" I smiled kind of proud, I turn around to find him standing there with hands behind his back. He is standing in confidence, but I can feel the inverse, he still doesn't know if he made the right move, to be honest, me neither. I get a step closer until I can see better view of his eyes, the same look, the same look I remember but this time it deeper, worried.
"Aren't you afraid that I would shoot you?" He asked in a cold steady voice. My smile went wider, I knew it! I knew he is also after revenge.
"No, because you would shoot me 2 minutes ago but look" I wave my hands in the air "we are still talking with no guns even." That's when I notice his eyes on my wounded hand. I put my hands back into my pockets and his eyes travel back to me again fast. That's when I walk back to my father's gravestone, I put my good hand on it and stand facing him.
"How much do you know about me?" I asked him. If he knew my father's grave place that only few know about then, he know enough I guess.
"I know about your father." He said gesturing to the grave with his head.
"A lot know about my father. Details please?" I kind more ordered than asked. He looked at me for a second before answering.
"I know that he used to work with the medical mafia." He answered. Here we go!
"Hum, someone made there homework. Good work! Go on, please." I gestured to him to continue.
"He got killed due to a disagreement." He answered, kind of shaken than before.
"Well, not exactly. Maybe one day I would tell you this in details. Still, I don't quite understand" I now walked again to be inches from him. "Why did you meet again now? Why didn't you pull the trigger?" I asked looking at his eyes hungry and getting as curious as ever about the story behind these black clothes and what broke his heart.
"As you said I am not an idiot. Just like you I am after my own revenge too."