Up the narrow old stairs, as softly as possible step by step fear builds in the pit of her stomach with each step she takes. Her heart pounding inside her chest so loudly she can now hear it quite clearly. She knows at any point the slightest sound could alert everyone in the house to her presence... SQUEAK!! She freezes, hand gun drawn, not even daring to breathe.
There’s no sign of anyone even noticing the intruder in their midst. She continues up another squeak not quite as loud but still ear piercing to her. Her heart is beating faster and harder, her hands starting to sweat. Her stomach feeling as though it would like to jump out of her and wait somewhere, anywhere else as long as it was not with her. She is starting to sweat all over, though she feels miserably cold with fear. Her fear weighing her down, making each step feel heavy and deliberate, as if her feet are made of lead.
Her eyes are just clear of the second floor when she sees the dog staring at her in the darkness, its lips pulled back, teeth exposed, and a deep ominous growl forming within it. It stands there prepared to do harm to the intruder when Wren pulls the shot. The silencer does its job and the body of the dog quickly slides across the slick hardwood floor to rest against the opposite wall with the force of the shell's impact.
“I’ve got to be quick so I can get out of here. Four doors, which one to choose first? I guess we’ll go left to right.”
The first door is partially open and she can easily see a bathroom sink. The next door is locked. She'll come back to it later if she has to. The third door opens with a slight nerve racking creek and peering around it she can clearly make out a couple, one stirs in their sleep but doesn't seem to notice her as they return to snoring.
“Door four this has got to be it or it's back to door number two.”
She pushes the door open and there still up and looking straight at her his silhouette just visible in the dim light cast by the street lamp outside stands Hacker, his hard bass voice coming out through his clenched teeth as he tries to speak softly yet menacingly.
“I thought I’d been followed home tonight. I guess Tommy was right when he said he was followed. Clarence will be pretty happy to have a rival gang member taken out though.”
He reaches for the light beside his bed.
“Hey! What’s up with the lights?”
“Stupid boy doesn’t know when the powers off does he? Oh, that’s right there’s no power to his brain either or he would know sooner or later his crimes would come back to haunt him.”
“WREN!”
Her pistol goes off with a now familiar PFFFT and Hackers now brainless, limp body hits the floor with a loud Thud! The smell of burnt gunpowder mixed with the acrid scent of blood quickly permeates the air as Wren darts from the room.
She sprints to the stairs, slips on the dog's blood and slides down the railing then almost throws herself back out of the living room window stumbling to her feet as she runs in the direction of her bike.
When she gets back to her bike she is out of breath, shaking with fear and choking back her own vomit.
“I hope that shot worked, the dot was right between his eyes.”
She straps the additional bag to the back of the bike and throws a leg over. Heading in the opposite direction from where she came, she catches Jamison leaving her visor open allowing the wind to punish her face and dry her tears until she reaches highway forty-four. She drives west not knowing or caring where she is heading and is all the way to Gray Summit before she realizes where she is and that she is getting low on gas. Too late to make the exit, she leaves the highway at the Washington exit instead.
Daylight is just breaking when she pulls into the gas station. Dismounting she pulls off her helmet freeing her head and loosening her long hair to cool in the breeze. Her fear has left her and she is now instead sick with hunger as she fills up her equally hungry bike. She pays for the gas and walks over to the counter of the attached Burger King to get some breakfast.
“Can I help you?”
“Yea, I’ll have a Whopper with everything and a Coke.”
She sits down and can hear the familiar sounds of the channel two morning news from a television somewhere in the restaurant.
“Police are investigating a series of strange homicides this morning. All occurring within relatively close proximity to each other. A police spokesman had this to say:”
“The first three seem to have been committed by the same perpetrator as all the shots are in the same locations on the bodies. The fourth would seem to be a burglary gone bad as a laptop is now missing. The thing that concerns us is it could be a gang dispute as all four have the same tattoo on their right ring finger.”
“In other news....”
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