Shay Savage - Otherwise Unharmed

I checked over the weapons, made sure they hadn’t been tampered with or anything, and then turned to Gavino and Craig.  Andrey hadn’t joined them for this little exchange, and Micah had been stationed outside the door, but he was still listening intently.

“It’ll be done,” I informed him.

“When?” he asked.

“You haven’t actually paid me for this,” I reminded him, “so it’ll be done when I feel like it.”

I was testing the waters, no doubt.  I needed to know exactly how far I could go—how far I could push—and still have him agreeable.  He narrowed his eyes, and Craig crossed his arms as I made a bit of a display to show my annoyance.

“A few days,” I told him.  “No more than that.”

I actually planned to have it done within a few hours, but he didn’t need to know that.

“Good.”

“You never told me if you wanted his actual head or not,” I reminded him.  “I usually go with photos because my carving skills are a little subpar.  I tend to make a mess, but it’s your choice.”

Gavino took a slight step back.

“Pictures are fine,” he said.

I held in a laugh as I shooed them all out of the room.  From the window, I watched them cross the street and head back to the bar.  I shoved the AR and the SIG into a duffel bag before I left the room, locking it behind me.  I used the roof access to check out the scene from there, was pretty happy with the view, and then made my way down and out the back of the building where Gavino and his crew would have less of a chance of seeing me leave.

I’d been gone too long and wanted to check on Lia as quickly as I could.

I walked, took a bus, got on the L for a few stops, and then took a bus back to the Loop.  I loved riding on Chicago’s mass transit systems anyway, so covering my routes wasn’t a chore for me usually.  This time, though, when I had Lia waiting for me, I had to force myself to make sure I wasn’t being followed.  The desire to both keep her safe and get back to her as quickly as I could was in conflict.

I traveled up north, then back down south, and finally got on a bus that would take me to the new apartment.  It was rush hour, and the bus was overcrowded, so I stood and hung onto one of the bars for a while until there was a free seat.  More people packed on, and I tried to stop the claustrophobia from getting to me.

It was a bit too much like the bus I rode just after killing Terry and Bridgett, and I was tense and agitated as people crowded around me.  At that time, I had been without sleep for days and had nearly pulled out my gun and started shooting.  I wasn’t in the same state this time, but I was still feeling quite off.

I tried looking out the window for a while in hopes that the open space outside would help.  It did—for a while.

Then I saw him.

It was the same kid in the same sand-covered clothes.  He was standing on the corner of the street right by the bus stop with his arms out at his sides.  There was something in his hand, and I was fairly sure it was a detonator wired to the explosives underneath his shirt.

I pushed my way off the bus and ran to the corner, but he was gone.

With my fingers curled into fists, I looked up and down the street to see if I could locate him again, but there was no sign of him.

“That’s because he isn’t fucking there.”

I cringed at the sound of my own voice directed at nothing and no one but myself.  I squeezed my eyes shut, opened them, and took one last look around before boarding the next bus.

When I finally arrived at the apartment, Lia was in the kitchen, putting things away from one of the last of the boxes, and Odin was snuffling around in the corners, still unsure about his new surroundings.  After putting my newly acquired weapons in the front closet, I kissed Lia’s cheek, which she seemed to find amusing, and played fetch with Odin for a bit.

I relaxed pretty quickly, even in the less-than-familiar surroundings.  The stuff and the company were all familiar, which seemed to help.

It felt all too comfortable, and as I sat back on the couch and observed Lia make dinner, it started to concern me a bit.  It felt great—no doubt about it—but it also felt wrong somehow.  Maybe because of who I was and what I had done, I just didn’t feel like I deserved it all, but I wasn’t sure.  Even after my little episode on the bus, I was happy.  It wasn’t a feeling I was used to experiencing.

Complacency is a bad thing.

My mind moved into itself.

“Got a spare smoke, sir?”

“Sure.”  I pull one out and hand it over to the private, who lights it quickly before leaning back against the wall next to me.”

“I’m heading back to the infantry unit in about an hour,” he says.  “I’ll report back all the intel you gave me.  Any chance they’ve discovered our position?”

“We've been here two weeks, private,” I say. “If we were going to be found, we would have been found already.”

“Evan?”

“Huh?”  I glanced up at Lia who was looking at me with questions in her eyes.

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah, sorry.”  I rubbed my face and felt annoyed with the stubble.

“I asked you if chicken was all right for the stir-fry.  There’s also beef.”

“Chicken is good.”

I thought about my route back to the apartment.  It had been complicated enough, but that didn’t mean there was no way for someone to have followed me.  I didn’t think anyone had, but there had been times in the past I thought that, too—times when I had been wrong.

We ate; I fed Odin, and then I stepped out onto the balcony to smoke after I had cleaned up the dishes.  I had to insist on it, telling Lia that the cook didn’t do the cleaning.  It was a phrase I had learned in the convent, though I hadn’t used it since then.

Throughout the rest of the evening of television-watching and somewhat subdued fucking—for us, anyway—my paranoia over being followed grew.  Lia seemed to sense that I was on edge, but I wouldn’t tell her why.  I didn’t want her to worry about it and then not be able to sleep.  If she didn’t sleep, I wouldn’t either.

She fell asleep, and I got back up and went out into the living room.  I looked around at the handful of still unpacked boxes but wasn’t sure where anything in them should go, so I sat on the couch and watched Odin watch me from his bed.

I tried not to think, but it didn’t work.  Memories assaulted me.  My mind replayed a vision of myself looking down the scope of my Barrett and squeezing the trigger.

“What the hell was that, sergeant?”  My captain’s voice comes from behind me, and I turn to look at him.

“Insurgent,” I say quietly.  “I could see the explosives under his shirt—he was heading in our direction.  As soon as I hit him, his hand must have release the detonator.”

I feel his hand on my shoulder.

“Keep watch,” he says.  “He may not have been the only one.  I’ll send a couple of our boys out to check what’s left.”

“Stupid fucking kid.  What made him do something like that?  They knew we were on the watch.”

Odin’s wet nose came in contact with my bare leg, and he snuffed at me.  I reached down and thanked him for his observation skills with a scratch behind the ears.

As much as I tried not to let it seep into me, the stress was just too much.  Eventually, I pushed myself off the couch, pulled on a pair of jeans, slipped into my shoulder holster, and tucked my Beretta in it.  I grabbed the assault rifle and a magazine of hollow-tipped rounds from the closet.  Out on the balcony, I leaned my back against the rails and watched.

It was a quiet night—too quiet for my preferences.  I liked the noise of the city, but there wasn’t much to be heard here.  Quiet gave me the advantage if someone was approaching, but it also made me a bit jumpy every time a bird landed in a tree.  I had a decent view of the river and tried to focus down the rifle’s barrel in that direction, but there wasn’t a scope on it, so I couldn’t see much.

I’d have to get it fitted with a scope.

I sat out there for a long time, just looking down to the street and watching for anything that didn’t look right to me.  With my fingers curled around the AR, I felt a bit more in control.  In the morning, I’d find Lenny Yates and do a little dirty work.

If I were going to admit it, I would have to say I was looking forward to it, not because of who it was, but because I hadn’t taken anyone out in a while.  I was eager to get back to work and to show Gavino I was serious about joining up with him.  It would also get me that much closer to getting Trent what he wanted so I could get Lia out of town.

Nothing was going to stop me from getting this job done.

On the northwest side of Chicago, next to a low-rent school district’s transportation department, there was a two-story building where Rinaldo’s underlings were often found.  The area was used for a variety of activities.  There were a handful of ancient, broken down school buses that looked to be long forgotten.  They made for quick and easy temporary storage, and the area was an out-of-the-way place to conduct some of the smaller transfers of goods for money.  The building also served as an occasional residence for those who didn’t have anywhere else to live.

It was simply referred to as the warehouse by Rinaldo’s crew.  I’d never lived there myself, but I’d been there plenty of times.  When someone in the organization got out of line, I’d killed there a few times as well.  It was right by the river, which made dumping the bodies quick and easy.