Isolated (Evan Arden 4)

“I could call her,” I whisper. “I could tell her it’s all okay now. I’ll promise not to do it anymore.”

“You’d be lying.”

“I mean it,” I say, trying to sound convincing. “No more contracts; no more hits. I’m done.”

“For how long?” he asks. “How long before the urge to kill brings you back to Rinaldo? How long before your loyalty to him outweighs your need for her?”

I have no answer.

The kid moves forward, and I flinch. He places his palms on the floor and leans his head down until we are face to face.

“You are a killer.”

I swallow. I open my mouth, wanting to protest, but I can’t.

“I’ll…I’ll change…” I don’t believe the words even as I say them. I gasp for air and try to sit up as my body shudders.

“You don’t deserve her.”

As I hear the words and recognize the truth of them, I release all the tightness in my body. I slump against the floor again, head buried in my arms. The air around me is so heavy, it’s oppressive. I can’t move.

I don’t have any reason to move.

I knew this day would come. Part of me has always known it. When we left Chicago to escape the life I had there, my intentions were pure. I had planned to get out of the business and live a quiet life with Lia.

I should have known better, but it’s what I had wanted at the time.

It wasn’t possible to stay away from that life. It had taken six months for Rinaldo to contact me after I left Chicago, but if I was to be honest with myself, I was glad when he did. Target shooting was never quite enough for me. I craved the real shot—the real kill. I took the odd jobs, escaped Lia with some lame excuse, and flew out to wherever I needed to go to take out whoever Rinaldo had assigned. At first it was just a couple of jobs, but they became more frequent.

But now he thinks I’m dead.

How long would it be before Rinaldo figured it out? How long would it be before my own desire to return to that life interfered with my time with Lia? Would I even last a year before I went searching for information on Rinaldo’s activities with thoughts of doing what I could to help him?

I can’t blame Lia for leaving. I want to, but I can’t.

My shoulders shake, and I don’t know if I’m sweating or crying. I squeeze my eyes shut, but I know if I open them, my persistent phantom will still be there. I don’t want to see him. I don’t want to look into his eyes and know he’s right.

I can’t change.

I fall to my stomach, no longer able to control my sobs as images of Lia scroll through my head. My leg is pressed against something sharp. It might even be cut, but I don’t care. I squeeze my eyes shut, but I can’t close my mind. She’s everywhere inside of me.

I see her for the first time as she walks to my cabin in Arizona. I see her through the sights of my Barrett as I take shots randomly around the local park. I see her as she wraps her arms around me, tells me it will be all right, and runs her fingers through my hair.

It’s not all right. It’s never going to be all right.

Curling into a ball, I finally lose consciousness.

I wake up, screaming.

My eyes are dry and achy as I stare into nothingness, lost in my own thoughts. I’m not sure how long I’ve lain in the middle of the living room floor, surrounded by the shambles of my outburst. I know my stomach stopped growling at me long ago. I’m not even thirsty anymore.

A thump at the door startles me, and I look up. I can see through the window a thin outline of a man on the front porch. He crouches briefly and then stands again.

Instinct kicks in, and I roll myself away from the center of the room and take cover at the end of the couch. I don’t have a weapon on me. The closest gun is in the kitchen, still inside the backpack Eddie-boy handed me on the beach.

The shadow in the window moves, and I tense. Whoever it is turns and thumps down the steps to the driveway. I push myself to my feet and race to the kitchen to retrieve the Glock from the backpack and then head to the window in the front room.

Barely pushing the curtain aside, I watch a UPS truck pull away from the cabin.