Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Katherine
T he evening air is crisp and heavy with possibilities. I walk briskly, but not quick enough to garner any unwanted attention. There are men posted on every other corner. I assume they’re the Sandman’s men. This is their part of town, and they keep their presence seen. I avoid catching anyone’s attention as I come up to the mouth of the alley that I know Whitman just sauntered into.
The alley is…well, an alley. There are a few garbage dumpsters scattered around and more trodden cardboard than I could have imagined. A small family of racoons skitters about near one of the dumpsters, their tiny freaky hands carrying old food. I watch where I step, careful to avoid any plastic or debris that could give away my location.
Whiteman is roughly fifty feet ahead of me. He walks with an atypical gait, indicative that his previously broken leg is bothering him. Good. I can work with that.
I quickly shorten the distance between us. At twenty feet, I let my hand roam along my waistband.
At ten feet, I grip the handle and halt abruptly. I’m still silent as a mouse, my steps light and quick. I keep my hand on my weapon as I draw it from my waistband and pull it to my side. I keep the nose of it pointed down, my pointer finger twitching toward the trigger.
“Whitman,” I nearly yell out his name.
He stops, stock still and suddenly taller. I maintain my composure. I’ve worked too fucking hard to fuck this up now. I swallow any lingering fear, letting my stomach acid bobble around before dissolving it.
Whitman faces me. His face is covered with shadows, like a masked man. But I know better. I know his pock-marked face, his shitty excuse for a beard, and his wayward eyebrows that are in desperate need of a trim.
“Who the fuck are you?” His voice is higher pitched, an ounce of vulnerability seeping into his words.
“You don’t need to know my name,” I respond callously.
He scoffs, “Whatever, bitch.” He turns to walk away, wanting to ignore me.
I’m not willing to be ignored.
The cold metal of the gun bites into my skin.
“Turn around or I’ll put a bullet in your ugly fucking head,?” I scold.
Whitman turns around, not hiding his laugh as he cups his mouth. “You on something, girl? What’s your poison?” He begins stepping toward me.
I stand my ground, refusing to give him any hold over me. I have a plan. I came here with one intention only.
“The only poison around here is you .”
He laughs more. The audacity of this fucker. I hate him. I hate him. I hate him .
I step closer. “You killed him.” A fat, lone tear slides from my eye.
“I’ve killed a lot of people, honey, you’re gonna have to be more specific than that.”
I hate him.
“Rhett.”
“You’re talking about that pretty boy from last year?”
I nod, not trusting my voice for once today.
Whitman lets out a long sigh, rubbing his forehead with the back of his hand. “Of fucking course you’re talking about that bitch kid.” He looks directly at me, and from this distance, I can see his face now. He doesn’t look well, and that gives me a bit of hope as well as some sick satisfaction.
“You riddled his body with fucking bullets.”
“Yeah, that’s usually what happens when you gun someone down, sweetheart.” His voice is a knife in my heart. I hate him .
“Why’d you do it?”
“Why did I kill the kid? Well, that’s an easy answer. Sandman wanted it to happen, and when boss says jump, you ask how high.”
“Why?”
“I don’t ask boss questions. It ain’t my place to question. The kid had to die.”
The kid had to die.
The kid had to die.
The kid had to die.
Tears blur my vision. I can barely see Whitman, who has somehow closed the distance between us. He’s barely an arm’s length away now. I swallow thickly.
“It’s best you keep going, girl. Don’t make me doi something you don’t want me doing.”
“Oh, yeah? Like what? Murdering the love of my life?”
He laughs. Again. “What are you? Like eighteen? He wasn’t the love of your life. Fucking dramatic ass teenagers. Move on.”
I raise my arm and the gun touches his chest. My finger doesn’t twitch, my muscles steady in their decision.
Whitman doesn’t pale. He doesn’t move or say anything new. His eyes just bore into mine as his lips turn up. Does he want me to kill him? Is this what he wants? Why isn’t he grabbing my arm and snapping it in half?
“I see you’ve got yourself some questions.”
I only nod.
“Well, you ain’t gonna be getting any answers from me,” he steps impossibly closer, burying the gun into his chest even more. “So. Do. It.”
I pull the trigger.
A loud bang shocks through the alley as vibrations race from my hand to my wrist to my arm and shoulder. Whitman’s eyes widen before quickly looking down at his chest. His hands grasp the barrel of my weapon, forcing it down. He doesn’t use much force, however. He can’t.
I shot him square in the chest.
He’s a dead man walking.
Just like Rhett was.
As Whitman crumples to the nasty ground, I turn, walking down the alley as my breaths come in waves. The gun isn’t linked to me directly, the serial number having been wiped by the seller, so I toss it in one of the dumpsters I pass.
I’ll never forget tonight. It will haunt my dreams until I fucking die.
But I can rest, even just for a bit, knowing that the man who killed Rhett, my sweet, beautiful Rhett is eliminated from his own fucking pitiful existence.
Walking down the alley, my phone rings. My hands burn from clenching them into fists for the last several blocks. I slowly withdraw my phone from my pocket, and see an unknown number flashing against the dim screen. I answer, knowing the voice will be synthesized and comforting.
“Hello?” I answer the call.
The hacker barely calls me, but I knew they would tonight. They need to start, if they haven’t already, wiping the cameras in the streets of my presence. It’s all a part of the plan. The delicious plan we baked up together.
But their voice isn’t the same electronic one I’ve been hearing for the past several month. I halt as I listen.
“Kath, did you get the job done?”
Kath.
Before I can respond to the ghost, a heavy thunk meets the back of my head and I crumple like a doll to the cold concrete of the place where Rhett was last seen.