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I AM NOT SURE HOW LONG I have been standing here. The music from the club is pulsing loudly, loud enough that I can feel it under my feet. I can almost count the beat to the music, the way that it moves in the still night. How long till he comes out of there? I have no idea. I check my watch. I need to get him out of here sooner rather than later.
I squeeze the lighter inside my pocket, clamping my hand around the cool metal rectangle to make sure that it’s not going anywhere. I feel like I am going to burst if something doesn’t happen soon. This is the part that I hate the most of all, the part where time feels like it’s ticking at half-speed as I wait for reality to set in. I know that this is going to take all the restraint that I’ve got—but I have done this a hundred times before, and I will do it a hundred times again. I can handle myself. I can do this. No matter what it takes, I can do this.
That is why I am here, because He knows I can do this. I don’t want to think about him right now, though. I know that he is relying on me to pull this off, and I need to prove to him that I can. I don’t know what it’s going to take for me to keep doing this, night after night, but I will carry on. Anything to make sure that he knows I am capable of doing what needs to be done. Anything at all.
I can’t stop thinking about my family. Back at home, probably wondering where I am, wondering what I am doing out so late. I wish that I could tell them, but I know that they would freak out if they knew. My mother is sick—I can’t remember what she is sick with, but I remember, distantly, that she is ill, and that is bad enough for me right now. I can’t be in that house with her. I can’t do this and then just return to her. Something grinding, some terror deep down in my guts, is telling me that I need to stay here, away from her, away from all of that, away from everything that might tie me to what I had seen before.
I push them to the back of my mind. Family has no place here, that’s for sure. I never want my family near this life. I check my strap again, the cool metal of the gun cold against my skin even through the fabric of the thick jacket that I am wearing. It is one of those long, cold winter nights that seems to stretch on into eternity, and I can’t figure out if this one is ever going to actually end. I hope so. I am not sure that I can take the thought of it dragging on any more than it already has.
Before another thought can pass through my mind, I see him. Stepping out of the back door, away from the VIP area where he has probably spent most of his night. He calls to someone back inside the club, telling them that he is going to be back soon. Not if I have anything to do with it, you won’t be.
I close the gap between us as I watch him fumble with his lighter, bringing a cigarette to his lips and trying to bring it to life. I reach into my pocket, pull mine out, and flick it on—he looks up and waves over to me, as though there is anyone else standing in this dank alley on this cold night.
“Hey, can I borrow that?” he asks, and I nod, making my way over to him. I check that the trunk of the car is popped out of the corner of my eye. I need to make this as quick as possible. I hold out the lighter, and he cups his hand around it, waiting for me to light the flame—but, before I do, I jerk my hand upwards, landing a sharp thump between his eyes and sending him sprawling backwards. I follow it with another jab to his jaw, and that, matched with the booze that he has surely been putting away all night long, is enough for him to slump into unconsciousness at the foot of the steps that lead out of the club.
Okay. I have to move fast. I reach down and pull him into my arms, dragging him across the rain-slicked ground and toward the trunk of the car. I yank it open and push him inside, ignoring the groan that he lets out as he feels his huge, useless body fall into the cramped space around him. I slam it shut on top of him and grab the keys from my pocket, glad that he went down without a fight. Perhaps there is some part of him, deep down, though I doubt that he would want to admit it, that is glad that this is over—that is glad that he’s not going to have to spend all that time looking over his shoulder and wondering when my boss was going to strike, once and for all.
I climb into the front of the car, grip the wheel, and inhale slowly. Okay. I have him. Now I have to drop him off, and then I am done with this night and I can collect my bag. That’s all that matters.
He doesn’t make a noise from the back—maybe he is too scared to, or maybe he has slipped into unconsciousness once more and can’t lift his head again. I hope it’s the latter. I don’t want to have to deal with his pleas for mercy. He knows that they are going to fall on deaf ears, and I can’t stand the thought of bringing him in to a fate that he knows is worse than death.
I am starting to get soft. I have never cared before what happens to the people that I bring to my boss. What’s wrong with me? What changed? I grimace as I grip the wheel and put my foot down, pulling out of the alley and hitting the highway, driving as fast as I can.
I am sure that I pass the same place once, twice, three times—where am I going again? I have made this trip so many times that I should know it by heart, but instead, I find myself doubling back to try and remember where I am supposed to be taking this dude right now. Eventually, I find myself on the right track, and I start to recognize the path that I am taking. Yes. I am heading in the right direction. I am going to be there in no time. I just need to keep going, and I am going to get out of here soon enough.
And then I can go back home. Not to the apartment that I share with my family, though I am not sure why. There is another home playing at the back of my mind, and I rely on that. I know that I will be safe when I step through that door. It’s far from here, but it’s mine, and it’s safe, and that’s all that matters.
I don’t play music. It doesn’t feel right, though it would help fill the almost eerie silence that surrounds me. Why are there no other cars on the road tonight? What is going on? Usually, there are at least a few other vehicles, but for some reason, I can’t remember passing any since I got out of the city. Where are they? What are they doing? Do they know something that I don’t? Something that has kept them from making the same mistake that I am making right now?
Finally, I see the house in the distance. It glows on the horizon, so big and bright that it looks like a palace from this distance. But I know it is anything but. I put my foot down and push the car a little faster. I don’t want to be in this thing any longer than I have to be. I can already feel the air starting to thin, as though we are getting too high out of the city to breathe. I focus on pushing forward, pushing on. I need this to be over. I need this to be done. And then I can go home, and I can forget that all of this ever happened in the first place.
I pause outside the gates, but they swing open in front of me a second later, and I drive inside. I know that I am taking this man to something that he will never come back from. Even if he survives, somehow, it’s not like he’s going to be able to just brush off what has happened to him. I hate this. I hate that I am part of this. I hate that I haven’t stopped this yet. I thought that I had put all of this behind me, but here I am, trapped in this hellscape, sure that I am doing the very same thing that I promised myself that I would never get drawn into again.
As I get closer to the house, the glow from the windows almost starts to blind me. I have to squint my eyes against it. I can’t see anything but the lights, the burning lights. Why are they so bright? Are they trying to hide something? I can feel the car slowing, as though it is dragging itself through molasses, and I push forward, keep pushing forward, try not to let it slow me down, but it’s as though the universe itself is telling me that I need to stop and turn back and get away while I still can—
I woke up with a start, the burning of the lights still searing the inside of my eyelids. I was breathing hard, staring at the ceiling, trying to convince myself that I was really here. That I hadn’t just been pulled back through time and forced to face up to everything that I used to do before I came here.
I peeled myself upright from the bed—I was sweating hard, my lungs rising and falling quickly, and I did everything I could to land back in this moment. It was over. It was over. It had never happened. It wasn’t really. Everything that had happened to me back then was as far removed from this reality as it was possible to be, and I wasn’t going to let what I had spent so long building here get ripped away by one bad dream.
But it was more than one bad dream. Ever since I’d done that interview a couple of days before, I had been pursued by the memories of what I was trying my very best to forget. And I didn’t know how I could eject them from my head. Or how I could get a good night’s sleep when they were all that I could think about.
I lay back in bed, unclenching my fists from the tension that the dream had pushed into them. It was just a dream—just a dream. Which meant that I wasn’t going to do anything useful by letting it have more room in my brain that it already did.
I stared at the ceiling and bargained with whoever was listening to give me a decent rest for the next few hours. I had shit to do. And I didn’t want it clouded by the memory of the bad choices I had made before.
