She ended up being collateral damage. The one contract I refused to fulfill because…of the guilt I carried. Only two of those men died in the accident. The third escaped in the days I waited for word on her condition. A contract killer isn’t supposed to develop a conscious or attachments, but Jude ruined me for all others. A slip of a girl who I’ve known most all of my life and I can’t utter a single word to her because guilt eats at my soul and paralyzes me for what I’ve done.
I waited for it to go off so I could watch them suffer and report back to my mentor. She jogged across the campus lawn quickly, across the street and into the building too fast for me to catch her lithe form. Dropping her books when she opened the door to the science lab, the fumes overtook her. Wearing my mask I chased after her, jumping out from my perch like a gorilla into the smoke pulling her back out, but not before it was too late. Blood seeped from her nose and her eyes swelled shut from the chemical contact. My skin itched and burned where it was exposed but it was nothing compared to her. She suffered, writhing in pain and throwing up all the lunch she’d consumed just moments before with her chirpy girlfriends. I held her steady waiting for her to succumb to the deadly gasses that snaked down her airway passages. I’d wanted those men to suffer, I’d wanted their lives snuffed out just as my sister’s had been. Instead my vengeance was painfully boring holes into my skull with her screams of pain as I held her down hoping it would end sooner rather than later.
I needed her to die peacefully.
I wasn’t a good man.
Each time I returned to Karim, she was the first person I saw and the ghost I needed to lay to rest–but don’t. I can’t. Each visit is another shot at penance for the life I return to when I leave her here. Austin is a mere blip when it comes to her. My fancy house, fast cars mean nothing. The gifts are a paltry consolation prize for touching her; I would give her the rarest gems in my collection. My actions have provided me a glamourous lifestyle far away from Karim, but I’ve no one to share it with and so I come back whenever I can and torture myself seeing her.
“Judith!” The screams of a fellow classmate come back to the smoky building searching for her. She’s barely breathing, but hanging on, my little fighter. I carry her outside and lay her down in the copse of flower bushes gently. Surrounded by soft white daisies she looks ridiculously angelic and she should because I’m killing her with what I’ve done. I remove my knife thinking I could make this merciful for her. She has no sins to atone for, but I do. She’s paralyzed from the shock and pain, all I can do is watch as she fights for clean air to enter her now scarred lungs. My hesitation causes me to lose too much time as people are calling her name looking for her.
“Keep fighting, Jude. I’ll find the last one and make him pay.” She doesn’t acknowledge me or my vow and I don’t expect her too. She’ll likely die, and that’s the most peace I can offer her.
Tonight, I left another gift. Time is getting short and the gift, a diamond studded Eye of Horus within the triangle is meant to protect her. I’m not wildly superstitious, but the symbol is well known among my set and should she wear it, it will protect her if they find her. I didn’t build a reputation for nothing. She’s mine and I won’t have anyone taking her from me now. I’m close to finding that third man from the school and I’ve been dragged back to Karim this time to finish the job.
After all, I am the Falcon and she is mine.
She was angry with me tonight and rightfully so, as I refused her request again. Her questions are valid, but trouble for us both if answered. If she heard my voice with her sharp senses she could eventually identify me. My family had been one of the underprivileged ones. My older half-sister babysat her before earning a scholarship spot to the school we all attended. She’d know me as the quiet boy who grew up searching for his missing sister.
It was better for all involved that I continued to play the mute.
I washed myself clean again to the point of scraping skin off–I was sure she could smell me a mile away. It was evident in the slight tilt of her face and the flare of her nostrils when I stood before her as if she was sensing me out. I was surprised to learn the caustic fumes didn’t damage her nose and lungs in the long-term once they were flushed from her system. It would seem the chemicals stripped one thing while giving her acute senses a boost I had to be careful with, though her eyes still held twin cataracts blinding her.
Jude is the only woman to kick me out, and yet I returned each time when the craving to see her gets the better of me. Her fiery attitude made me smile.
Keep fighting, my girl.
Three
JUDE
“Arrg, I am so fed up with this.” I slammed my water bottle down, the sound muffled on the carpeted flooring. My voice is forced out in a guttural whisper.
A chuckle to my right whispered back. “Judith May Noire, do I detect an attitude this morning?” My best friend Ella Parks muted her laugh behind something as I looked over at her. All I can see is a blob of blurred color in the bright studio and I close my eyes to avoid the headache lying back on my yoga mat inside the hot room. It was ordinarily quiet except for the chatter between mats. Our class never seemed to adhere to the respectful silence needed to maintain the meditative atmosphere.
At least here I was safe, surrounded by people I knew even if I couldn’t see the studio walls
were painted a bright red or the carpeted flooring under my feet was a dune brown color. All details were once imparted to me by others who thought I’d like to know. Did it really matter?
Sweat dripped between my confined breasts, my skin itching. Bikram yoga wasn’t for everyone and after practicing it for several years to keep in shape; I had mastered the movements in the sweltering hot room to be an expert.
“He came to see me again.” I stood up and moved into Tadasana pose, my right ankle resting easily in the joint of my left hip. Breathing deeply I struggled to clear my mind into that blank space and let my hands meet in supplication of prayer, palm to palm. I needed balance in my life not mute stalkers. I knew the lecture coming from Ella.
“Seriously? That shit is fucked up, Jude. Next time call the police, or me, or that useless uncle of yours. You should not be living alone.” I’m surprised she believes me, the first time I told her she accused me of making him up for attention. Since he began leaving delightful hickies the size of quarters on my neck for apparently all to see, Ella hasn’t questioned me since. A blind woman really isn’t able to fake that kind of stuff apparently.
“I know….” I didn’t know, not at all, but the thought of him left my body wanting, and standing in the heat of the room didn’t help my uneasy arousal. My nipples puckered just thinking about him and I prayed this sports bra covered me, hiding my secret lust for him.
Her arm reached out for mine. “When are you going to call the police? Hire security of some kind?” She begged me.
“I don’t know,” and I knew I wouldn’t, because anytime someone was staying at my house he didn’t visit me and I craved him like a junkie craved their next fix.
“I know! We can get you one of those Seeing Eye dogs. A big one that bites and barks so loud that deaf neighbor of yours will hear you.”
Snickering, I think about Mrs. Goddard. That woman couldn’t hear worth shit and what a pair we made, she deaf and me blind. I was lucky to be living in Karim’s Independent Citizen’s complex, a housing unit dedicated to the disabled and fully funded by the town. The downside was that all my neighbors were typically older than seventy-five. I learned to navigate as best I could. Living alone was about as wild a life I was going to have since moving out of my parents’ house. They moved back to Connecticut to benefit my Mother’s aspirations of being a highly paid school administrator. Their goals were more important than my actual happiness.
“No, I don’t need a dog to take care of.” The idea wasn’t half bad but the thought of being responsible for a living thing dependent on me was scary. I had the funds to sustain myself since the accident awarded me enough money in damages and the school was more than happy to pay out quietly to avoid any public scandal.
“Is it at least good?” Ella nudged me.