I ran my hands through my hair. I was freaking out now. They were relentless. These men were not going away. They would try and try until they got me. And they didn’t care who else got in their way. They would waste them.
“I have to run. I have to hide where they can’t find me. Staying here and waiting for them to make a move isn’t helping anything. We are sitting ducks.”
“No, this is the best way. I know it sounds like you are bait, but that’s right. You are bait. They come to you and eventually we trap them. We have incompetent people working this thing. That’s the problem. I didn’t want to go all vigilante and do their job for them, but it’s coming down to it. I’m gonna have to wait up and lay in wait until they make a move. Then I will fix it. But I don’t have the protection of a badge to keep my ass out of jail.”
“I don’t want you to do that. Why can’t we just go somewhere else? Do you know of any other place?”
“Because they will find you no matter where you go and we don’t have any backup in another place. We have some backup here, even if it is totally incompetent.”
“I know, but I can’t keep waking up to gunfire. I’m really freaking out here. I… I just don’t know what to do.”
Bill reached out and hugged me, pulling me close to him with his big, brawny arm. “Hey, it’s going to be alright. Don’t fall apart on me now. We’ve got this. It will all be ok.”
“I wish I felt as confident as you do. And why can’t anyone shoot these fuckers? Dammit. They are just men. They aren’t ghosts.”
“Calm down,” he said. “I know what you need. Follow me.”
Bill led me down to the bottom level and into the computer monitoring station he had set up. Then he led me through another door I didn’t even remember seeing last time. This room opened up into a fairly nice gym. This house held more surprises than I ever could have imagined. It was insane. From the outside it didn’t look that big, but it just kept going. I loved it.
The room we were now in was about twenty feet by twenty feet. In one corner was a big punching bag. One side was a dumbbell rack and a bench press station. And the other side held an old looking elliptical, and a stationary bike.
He led me over to the punching bag. “Go ahead.”
“What?”
He grabbed a pair of boxing gloves off a nearby small table. He put them on my hands and said, “Hit the bag.”
“I’m tired. I just want to go to bed.”
“Well, you and I both know you are too wired now for that to happen. Might as well get that fear and nervous energy out of you. Now, hit the bag.”
I groaned. “Ok.”
I drew back my right hand and hit the bag hard. Surprisingly, it hit with a very satisfying smack. I enjoyed it.
“That’s it,” he said. “Do it again. Jab and then right cross.”
I followed his instructions. I hit the bag harder and harder, really stepping into it. And then he showed me how to throw some bobs and weaves into the bag workout and create almost a real fight out of it. And after a few moments I really felt drained. The cardio of this stuff was incredible. I thought I was in good shape, but nothing compared to what an actual athlete went through. But I could see how it would become addictive to hit this bag like this all the time. I loved doing this.
“Wow, this is therapeutic beyond all else,” I said with a smile as I finally took off the gloves.
“You’re right,” he said. “It is why I spend a few hours down here every single day. I’ve got to keep the sanity some way.”
“I guess this is a healthier option than some.”
“Absolutely. I’m glad you feel better. Listen, if you really want to go somewhere else that’s your choice. I’ll even go with you, help you find some place to hide out. But hiding is the wrong move here. I’m telling you. We need to stand our ground. I just need to be a bit more proactive. I didn’t before because I hoped that the cops would be able to contain this without me breaking the law, but now we’ve given these assholes a false sense of security. They will try this again and this time I will be waiting for them.”
“But I don’t want you to get in trouble with the law and I don’t want something bad to happen to you. You are still just one guy. These guys are like some network, or a gang. They are relentless.”