CHAPTER SIXTEEN #2
I’m going to break my neck, I thought, holding the gun ahead of me as I searched for a light switch, but found none. Fuck.
I held tight to the handrail as I delved deeper into the shadowy, damp basement abyss and listened to the sounds of the world below.
The monotonous hum of a dehumidifier.
The creaking of floorboards from the house above—Dean moving from room to room in search of Marco.
And then it reached me from somewhere not too far away. Rustling. Whispered breath. Shifting against a concrete floor.
I stilled my lungs and steadied the gun, wishing I could see as I moved slowly, walking farther into the musty space.
My boot crunched over glass, my head bumped into something dangling from the ceiling, and with the help of a sliver of light streaming from a dirty cellar window, I looked ahead and saw the broken light fixture, its chain dangling before me.
He's down here.
I turned my head carefully from one side to another, the gun moving with me, hoping to catch a glimpse of Marco, cowering somewhere in the shadows.
A sound came from behind me. A forceful grunt. I tried to turn around, but he was on me quickly, his arms around my neck. I gasped for breath and wrestled his hold from off my throat, throwing him easily to the concrete floor with an oof as his lungs emptied into the dank air.
"That was silly, Marco," I said, looming over his frame as he groaned and rolled on the glass-scattered floor.
He moved swiftly in the darkness, and that sliver of light glinted off the blade of a knife as his arm reached overhead, slashing at my leg.
He successfully sliced into my calf, cutting deep through skin and tendons.
I hissed and cursed beneath my breath before aiming the gun at his face and firing two rounds in quick succession, the sound muffled by the attached silencer.
"And that … was stupid," I said with a groan, tucking the gun into my waistband. “Asshole.”
Warmth seeped from the wound, and I sighed, sufficiently annoyed.
It wasn't my first time getting injured while on one of these missions, but I knew without even looking that it was the first time I'd need stitches.
"Fuck," I muttered, turning from Marco's lifeless body to head back up to Dean to let him know about the mess in the basement.
But I froze at the sound of something coming from beneath the stairs.
Trembling breaths. Tears. The whimpers of someone small and young—or someones.
Marco's kids, I remembered, squeezing my eyes shut.
Shit. If they had been down here the whole time, then they would’ve likely seen me murder their father, and no matter how terrible he might’ve been, no child should bear witness to something like that.
With a sigh, I pulled my burner phone from my back pocket to turn on its camera flash, utilizing it as a flashlight, and pointed it to the space beneath the stairs.
And within a pile of dirty laundry were the small, tear-streaked faces of two little girls.
A filthy bedsheet caught my eye, and acting quickly, I grabbed it and laid it over the body of their dead father.
Then I crouched in front of them, and instantly, panic ensued. They scrambled within their nest of clothes, their desperation clear as they gasped and squealed and sobbed, trying to get away from me, but there was a wall behind them, blocking their escape.
I didn’t need them to say it to know damn well how terrifying I must look to them in this stupid mask. But I couldn't risk them knowing my face, knowing what I looked like, and being able to pick me out of a lineup.
But that didn't mean I had to scare them with a phony voice.
"Hey, hey, hey," I said gently, holding out my hands. "You’re all right, I promise. I’m not going to hurt either one of you, okay? I swear.”
Still, they sobbed, clutching each other as they cried for their mommy and daddy, but neither of them was on the way. Nobody was.
I hated being the one to bring them terror.
I hated that I’d brought them pain.
I would be the bogeyman in their nightmares forever, and how the fuck was I supposed to live with that?
Make it better. Try.
“Hey,” I said again, still speaking gently. “My name is Abraham. What’s yours?”
Finally, the older of the two spoke in a soft, trembling voice.
"C-Cora," she whispered before hiccupping. "This is my sister, Lara."
I nodded. "Those are pretty names. How old are you two?”
“Four,” Cora whispered. “My sister is two.”
"Sir?" Dean called down the stairs. "Are you all right?"
I deflated with a sigh, staring at the terrified eyes of the two innocents huddled beneath the stairs.
"Well, my leg's messed up," I answered.
“Bad?”
“I’m not really thinking about that right now, Dean.”
“What?” I could hear his frown.
“We have a situation down here.”
His feet were on the stairs in an instant, pounding against the unstable treads.
"What are you—" His words died in his throat as he followed the beam of the phone light and saw Marco's daughters, unable to take their wide-eyed stare from me. "Ah shit."
"Dean, this is Cora and Lara," I said. "Girls, this is my friend, Dean."
"W-why did y-you hurt Da-Daddy?" Lara asked me, tears streaming down her face.
I swallowed and hung my head, wishing I'd been more careful. Wishing I had known they were hiding here. I never would've killed him in that moment if I’d been aware. I would've gotten them away, out of the room. Let Dean do the dirty work for once while I made sure they saw or heard nothing.
"I'm sorry," I told them. "I didn't mean for that to happen."
"It was an accident?" Cora asked, the hope in her small voice piercing the place where my heart might’ve been if it still existed.
Dean cleared his throat from beside me, but I held up a gloved hand, stopping him from saying whatever stupid crap was floating around in his head.
"Yeah," I said, nodding. "Something like that."
"Are you a bad man?"
I poked my cheek with my tongue, thinking of what to say to ease their worries, even just a little bit.
I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a bad man, but I needed them to trust me.
Nothing was going to happen to them; I would make sure of that.
They were going to be all right, but in order for that to happen, I needed them to believe I was at least in some way good.
Finally, I replied, "Sometimes, I have to do bad things to protect people from other bad men."
She looked at her father's motionless form, lying behind me beneath the dirty sheet. She swallowed, her eyes flooding again with tears, but then, even if a little reluctantly, she nodded.
"Can you girls sit here for two minutes while I talk to my friend?" I asked.
They both looked up at Dean, then back at me, and bobbed their heads with jittery nods.
But before I could stand, Cora asked, "Are … are you gonna hurt us?"
I shook my head. "No. Nobody is going to hurt you."
She dropped her gaze, then whispered, “Daddy wanted to hurt us. He … he said … after he hurt M-Mommy …” Her little voice trailed off.
I narrowed my eyes with the realization that we had kicked the door in on a murder-suicide mission.
Marco had killed his wife, administering enough drugs into her veins to force an overdose, and then he was going to kill his daughters before killing himself.
He had known we were coming, and he had hoped to greet us with a massacre.
“Nobody is going to hurt you,” I stressed. “I promise.”
Then I stood, my leg stinging as hot, wet blood pulsed from the open wound. I gritted my teeth and grabbed Dean by the arm, pulling him a few feet away from the girls.
"You shouldn't have promised anything," he said with a disapproving scowl, keeping his voice low.
Taken aback, I replied, “What the fuck do you mean?”
"Gerald's going to want them dead. You do understand that, right?”
I cocked my head. "Do you really think I give a fuck what Gerald wants?"
"Sir, with all due respect," he whispered, a hint of condescension in his tone, "they witnessed the murder of their father, and you pulled the trigger."
"Self-defense," I told him without hesitation. "The guy jumped on my back and tried to choke me. Then, when I pulled him off, he cut the shit out of my leg. He attacked first."
His features hardened, the look in his eyes cold and heartless. "Even still, you know Gerald isn't going to want to deal with them. They're a liability. You have to eliminate them to finish the job.”
A shock of horror forced me to take a single step backward at the thought of murdering a couple of little kids who’d happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I could find some justification in murder when killing meant ridding the world of one less problem, but these girls were practically babies.