The Debt Collectors War

Chapter 46

Ellie looked around, and listened. The night was still. They were out in the countryside. No-one was around.

“What are we doing with him?” Sameh said.

Ellie wasn’t sure herself.

Mark was looking at them, worried. Ellie couldn’t see very much of his expression, past the tape on his face, but it was enough to see he was worried.

“We should kill him,” Sameh said. “It’s safer. I’ll do it if you like.”

Mark made a noise. He started to panic. Sameh just prodded him with her foot and said, “Quiet,” to him, and then to Ellie, “Do you want to or should I?”

Ellie didn’t answer. She stood there thinking.

She didn’t try to stop Sameh talking like that, even though Mark could hear her, and even though it was cruel to let him hear. She hadn’t yet decided whether she would kill him, and if she didn’t, she wanted Sameh to be a nightmare he had for the rest of his life, so he did exactly as she told him next, and didn’t breathe a word of this to another soul.

If she didn’t kill him.

She wasn’t sure whether she should or not.

She thought about killing him. It might be better that way. It would certainly be simpler, tidying up loose ends. It was simpler, but it also might not be necessary. Not if Mark posed very little risk. Ellie tried to decide if he did. She made herself think. To see him as a problem, rather than as a person. Just as a problem she needed to solve, something she needed to deal with, and nothing more than that.

She stood there looking at Mark, thinking.

Mark was getting worried. He was lying on his back, on the bare concrete floor. He tried to slide away from Ellie, scrabbling and moving himself a little. Ellie didn’t bother going after him. He wasn’t moving very much, only inches with a kilometres of open space around them. He couldn’t go far enough for it to matter.

She should decide, though, she thought. She shouldn’t make this unpleasant for Mark if she was going to kill him. She shouldn’t let him worry and suffer. She should just shoot him. Or put tape over his nose and let him suffocate. One or the other. But she shouldn’t drag it out.

All the same, she felt oddly reluctant to decide.

After a moment, Sameh seemed to realize.

Sameh had been waiting, but now she became impatient. Impatient, and she also seemed to understand what Ellie was feeling. This had happened before, Ellie’s hesitation about executions.

Sameh sighed, and went over to Mark. She stood over him, looking down at him, and reached for her sidearm.

“No,” Ellie said, glancing around. “The noise.”

Sameh nodded, and shifted her hand. She had a knife on the back of her belt. Ellie knew it was there, because it always was. She saw Sameh’s hand move towards it.

“Wait,” Ellie said.

“No,” Sameh said. “You wait.”

Sameh took out the knife, but hid it from Mark. She knelt, knelt on his chest, and leaned close to him.

“Wait,” Ellie said again. She stepped sideways a little, so she could see past Sameh’s body. Sameh was holding onto Mark’s neck with one hand, and was still hiding the knife in her other hand from him.

“Just let me,” Sameh said. “Stop worrying about it.”

“Wait,” Ellie said again. “I haven’t decided.”

Mark made a desperate gasp noise through his nose, and looked at Ellie frantically.

“Just give me a moment,” Sameh said. “Then it won’t matter.”

Ellie almost let her, because it was simpler, but then she changed her mind.

She shouldn’t let Sameh decide this. She should let Sameh kill Mark so casually. She probably shouldn’t have even let Sameh start. Not Sameh. Not like this.

Sameh was different. She was a monster, something that came from a world of secret police cells and civil wars and what was normal for her was excessive anywhere else. Sameh was doing what seemed reasonable to her, but it wasn’t really reasonable at all. Sameh was always too quick to start killing people, and Ellie should know that by now.

Ellie should know that, and she should stop Sameh, too. She should, even though thinking that made Ellie a little sad. Sameh was doing this for love. Sameh was doing what she thought would help Ellie, because she loved Ellie. Like someone else would scatter roses around a house on an anniversary.

Sameh was trying to help, and it was almost unkind of Ellie not to let her.

Ellie loved Sameh and wasn’t going to judge her, or condemn her, to tell her not to be herself, monster and all. But she also wasn’t going to let Sameh kill Mark for no real reason. Not if he wasn’t a threat to their operation.

And he wasn’t a threat, Ellie thought. He wouldn’t be, not now. Mark had been beaten and scared and hadn’t actually done anything wrong. Ellie was fairly sure he’d behave. He was unlikely to tell anyone what had happened if Ellie asked him not to.

Ellie was almost certain of that.