Assassin X

Alex

The next morning Alex’s body was filled with wet cement. He felt heavy and wished more than anything he didn’t have to get out of bed. But that wasn’t an option because he had to pee and though he’d been avoiding looking at his phone, knowing that Raven wouldn’t have texted him, he was sure it had been going off all morning.

He blinked open an eye and saw that Captain had sent him several messages ranging from questions about Raven to telling him to get himself into the station immediately.

After the night Alex had just had, he was in no mood to deal with getting yelled at, probably removed from the position he was in, and most likely sent to desk duty for his foreseeable future. So instead of dealing with any of that, Alex brewed a very large cup of coffee, something he never did but knew he couldn’t head into the café, and took an extra hot shower.

His head was pounding with a mixture of lack of sleep as well as the beer he pounded when he got home, trying to wipe away his night on an empty stomach.

He knew what he had to do, even if he didn’t want to do it. When he finally made his way into the station he was going to have to tell Captain that he’d been found out, if Raven hadn’t done something about that already. It was entirely possible that she’d already taken her anger out on him by doing something pretty bad, but he didn’t want to think like that.

There was also the chance that she had run away, disappeared in the time that he was wallowing in not only blowing his job but also his relationship. He’d been trying to have it all and he’d lost it all instead. The saying having your cake and eating it too finally made sense to him.

But he wasn’t prepared to tell that to Captain. In fact he wanted to prolong admitting to his screw-up for as long as possible because once he did there wasn’t going to a way to turn-back.

Even after the shower and the hot coffee, Alex still couldn’t bring himself to get into work and face the music. He’d been so stupid to think that he could help her and help himself. If he’d been smart he would have chosen his career and left it at that. He should have done his job.

But he was roaming around his place like a lovesick puppy, well actually a heartbroken puppy.

By noon he knew that wasn’t going to do him any good, that he had to do something. And that something didn’t involve sitting around wallowing in his misery. He’d lost Raven in the romantic sense, that was obvious, but maybe there was still a way he could help her. Maybe there was still something he could do. If he could talk to her the way he should have last night, maybe he could still pull her out of all of this mess.

She wouldn’t want to be with him again but at least he could still take care of her. If she was willing to listen that was. He knew that if she saw his number on her phone she was not going to answer, so he was going to have to go over there and hope she opened the door to him when he knocked.

Unsure if she had to work that day or not, Alex decided to wait until night to go see her. That way if she was working it would give her a chance to get home and unwind with a book like she liked to do. Maybe she’d be calmer then. Or maybe she’d be an angry dinosaur because he’d be pulling her away from her book when she was already angry enough at him.

He’d bring food, and maybe that would soften her up. Other than books, food was the way to that girl’s heart, even if she hated to admit it. But a good meal could always make her smile. Alex smiled at the memory of her digging into a big burrito, a smile on her face with a dab of sour cream at the corner of her lips. He loved kissing those little dollops off of her.

Alex shook his head, clearing away the pictures of her from his mind. While he waited for dinnertime to approach, Alex was doing his own digging on his laptop. He was searching through records and files, doing internet sleuthing about Raven and who she may have been before all of this, anything he could think of that may help Captain as well as be useful to help Raven. Maybe if he could prove to her that he really was trying to help her, that he really did care, she’d let him.

There wasn’t much that he found online and he felt his own frustration that he was sure Captain was probably feeling. A lot of questions and too many dead-ends. He had been so preoccupied with Raven herself and the murders that had happened, that he’d avoided asking questions. Or maybe he had intentionally kept himself preoccupied so he didn’t have to think about the questions.

Either way, Alex was feeling riled up with frustration by the time he ordered the food to take to Raven’s. Again he chose to walk to her apartment, picking up the bags of Mexican from her favorite restaurant on the way. While he walked with the bag of food, he knew he was crazy for even trying to find a way to make this situation better. The only thing he should have done was go into work instead of texting the Captain to say that he was sick.

If this plan didn’t work, Alex vowed to himself, if he couldn’t get through to Raven, then he would go to Captain first thing in the morning. No matter how much it pained him to do so. This would be his final try with her, then he was going to take care of himself.

By the time her building came into view it was dark and Alex had rehearsed his words a hundred times in his head as he was prepared to have to beg and plead to get into her apartment. But he had the food and he was sure that might help. What he hadn’t anticipated on was seeing Raven walk out into the dark, her petite frame clad in black as she moved quickly through the shadows.

There was only one thing that could mean, Alex knew it. She was working again for Papa.

Without even thinking he set the food down and started to follow quietly behind her. She was good, he was going to easily admit that to himself. As she raced through the night, Alex, a trained cop, lost her a couple of times in those shadows. But each time he lost her, he was able to feel where she was, in some innate way, and find her once again.

He didn’t know how he knew her or understood her moves so well, but he did. What was he going to do once he caught her? Arrest her on the spot? He had his chance this time and unlike last time he was going to be careful and not blow his cover.

But he couldn’t let her kill someone, he was going to have to stop her and blow his own cover eventually. Not until he saw what she was doing and where she was going, who she was going after.

In reality, Alex was surprised he was even having to tail her at all. In the time he’d known her he hadn’t thought she’d had anything to do with Papa anymore. Maybe it was wishful thinking but how could she, he reasoned, when she was spending all her time either working or with him?

On her first night alone, with Alex out of her life there she was dressed in black again and slinking off into the night. Raven slowed her pace and so did Alex, not ready yet to be discovered.

He saw her body, pressed up against a wall, another dark ally just like the first night he’d tailed her. Alex remembered what that small body felt like in his arms, when she leaned into him to watch a movie, or when he hugged her goodnight.

Alex should have been paying attention to where he was, where she had lead him to, but he’d been so wrapped up on thinking about Raven as his girl instead of a killer that he hadn’t paid much attention. As he looked around the alley at the crumbling buildings and cracked sidewalk, he could see that he’d wandered into a very seedy part of the city. And if he had his bearings even close to right he knew that he was in a hotspot for drug activity.

Raven shouldn’t be here, Alex shouldn’t even be here. At least not without backup. But there she was and there he was, and he didn’t know what was going to happen next.

The door to one of the buildings opened and it took a moment for the person to step outside, but when he did he could see it was business mogul Oliver Johnson. At first he thought he couldn’t be seeing it right, but then he saw the man counting money, a lot of money, and Alex knew what was going on.

The door closed and Raven slid behind Oliver, who was walking through the alley alone, a rather stupid move considering the area and the amount of cash he was carrying on him, but Alex suspected that Oliver was rather important to those people and he was most likely not going to be hurt.

Except by Raven.

And a few steps after he walked past her, she stepped towards him, ready to do her job.

Alex’s eyes went wide, he had to stop her.

“No! Don’t!” he shouted into the dark.

Raven’s head whipped around to the sound and Alex saw Oliver take off into a sprint, fully aware of what was about to happen.

Raven came storming in the direction of Alex’s voice and she was clearly ready for a standoff.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she hissed.

“What exactly do you think you’re doing?” Alex shot back. “You were going to kill him!”

Raven squinted hard at Alex. “Keep. Your. Voice. Down.”

“This is insane Raven, you’re not this type of person!”

A nasty laugh burst out of her, sounding so strange in the sudden silence.

“You don’t know anything about the type of person I am or what I do. You only think you know.”

“I know that if you don’t have time to read when you get home you get cranky. I know that you love to eat and are never shy about shoving a huge plate of food in your stomach but you still stay so small. And I know that you aren’t a drinker but you secretly love sweet wine more than you let on.”

Raven’s eyes were wide as Alex spat out every little detail about her, trying to get through to her.

“I know that you were pulled off the streets and thrust into the only life you knew could keep you safe.”

Tears were in her eyes, but she didn’t let them fall. She shook her head and gave him a withering look.

“Yea, you may know all of that but there’s one thing you don’t know,” she said.

Alex waited for her to break the silence, to tell him what it was that he didn’t know. Just when he thought the silence would never end, she spoke again.

“You ruined that hit. And now…now…” Raven looked Alex in the eyes and Alex had a sickening feeling that hit in the pit of his stomach.

“Now I’m as good as dead,” she finally said and ran out into the night.