Eleven

They didn’t assign me a safe house this time. The job was deemed too dangerous, especially after I messed it up the last time. I should have been insulted, but I considered it a blessing. Ever since Naples the safe houses had become a burden. I’d find myself staring at my hosts, wondering why, if they were so excited about the War, they weren’t fighting it themselves. Maybe then they’d see things differently. It’s not easy to hold a pom-pom in one hand and a gun in the other. In the heat of battle, if given the choice, most people drop the pom-pom.

Instead of the safe house, I was given a new identity and told to check into a hotel. When I got to Montreal, I decided that the hotel could wait. They thought I was in Montreal to do a job. I knew better. I headed straight to your apartment. I left the rental car illegally parked around the corner from your place. What the hell did I care? It wasn’t my car. It wasn’t my money that’d be paying the parking tickets. Hell, the car wasn’t even under my name. I parked the car and walked to your building. My heart was beating so fast, I could feel the blood moving in my veins. I got to your door and leaned on the buzzer. I wasn’t going to let go until somebody let me inside. The drone of the buzzer was strangely soothing. Then I heard your voice. “Hello?” It was music.

“Maria, it’s me,” I spoke into the intercom—whispered, really—unable to fill my lungs with air. You didn’t say anything. You simply hit the button to let me in. I heard the lock on the door click and I went inside. I started up the stairs. Everything I had done in the past month, everything I had gone through, all rushed back to me as I walked up the first flight. I felt dizzy and light-headed. I told myself that there was no future after this moment. There was no past before it. This moment was life. You, standing behind the door waiting for me. Me, climbing the stairs toward you. It was all worth it for this moment. I tried to forget my promise to tell you everything. That didn’t matter right now. I simply tried to remember your face, your lips. Once up the three flights of stairs, I lifted my knuckles to knock on your door. You pulled it open before my fist could reach the surface. You must have been waiting there, listening to my footsteps.

You opened the door. You were wearing a skirt and a black sweater. I had never seen you wear a skirt before. You looked so feminine. I tried to drink in your image. My eyes traveled down your body, lingering on your legs. I couldn’t help but linger there, on your bare skin. I stepped inside the doorway. I lifted my head and finally looked at your face. You had tried to pull your wild hair back into a ponytail but strands of curly hair had escaped and hung down, framing your face. You looked anxious. “Hello, Maria,” I said. I had yet to really catch my breath. I could barely make the words escape my lips. You grabbed my shirt collar and pulled my face toward yours. We kissed. You kissed me with your eyes open. I followed your lead and stared into your eyes as we kissed. They were bottomless.

“Hello, Joe,” you said as we parted lips for a moment. Then, I closed my eyes, pulled you back toward me, and kissed you even more deeply. I could feel the edges of your lips curl up as I pushed my lips into yours. Then you put one hand on my chest and pushed me away from you, but only a few inches away, creating just enough space between us so that you could bend down. You began to unbuckle my belt. I swung my hand back and pushed the door closed behind me. Then, suddenly, you dropped down in front of me, squatting, your knees spread open just enough for me to catch a glimpse of your sheer black underwear as your skirt rode slightly up your thighs. You pulled my shirt up and began to kiss my stomach. You ran your tongue gently over my skin. Then you began to unbutton my pants.

“Your roommate?” I whispered, hating myself for the words as I spoke them.

“She’s gone.” You looked up at me, your blue eyes full of mischief. Thank God, I thought, believing in God again for the first time since I was a child. You tossed my belt over your shoulder, flinging it aimlessly across the room. Then you pulled down the zipper of my pants and pulled them down, along with my boxers, with one firm tug. I looked down again. I glanced past the darkness between your spread legs again and watched your lips as you took me, already hard, into your mouth. I didn’t have the will to stop you. I felt guilty. I thought I should have stopped you and told you that everything about my life was a lie, but I was powerless as you moved your lips over me. You began stroking me with your tongue. I know now what you were doing. You were claiming me. You were making sure that I would never leave again. You were using every tool at your disposal for that purpose. It was all unnecessary. I was already yours. I had been from the first moment I saw you. Nothing would change that. I had already promised myself that I would never leave you again. I would never put you through that again. I would never put myself through that again.

“Stop,” I pleaded, barely believing the words that were coming out of my mouth. If I hadn’t stopped you, it would have all been over way too soon.

“I don’t have to,” you replied, looking up at me. I felt guilty. I didn’t deserve this. After what I’d done, I didn’t deserve this.

“I want you,” I said, pulling you up toward me and kissing your moist lips. Then I placed one arm behind your shoulders and reached down, sliding my other arm behind your knees and pulling you up into my arms, cradling you and carrying you into the bedroom. I was determined to regain some control but you were even more determined to conquer me. We fell onto the bed. I tried to climb on top of you. I tried to slide between your legs. You outmaneuvered me. You climbed on top of me, straddling me, moving. In the rush you had left your underwear on, simply tugging it to the side once it got in the way. You placed your hands on my chest, your arms pushing your nipples closer to my mouth. I took your breasts in my hands. I ran my lips and my tongue over your nipples. You gasped. Then you pushed my head back down to the bed. You moved up and down on top of me, staring into my eyes as your pace quickened. My eyes wandered over your body. I tried to look you in the eyes but I couldn’t help letting my eyes drift over your skin. Your skin was pale but flawless. Your breathing quickened. You leaned back, arching your back, placing a hand behind you for balance. There you were, all of you, naked before me. If your plan was to claim ownership of me, if your plan was to forever brand me as yours, it would have worked, if I hadn’t already been branded. Then it ended, my own spasm sending you into yours, our bodies clenched together. You collapsed on top of me, both of our bodies glistening with sweat.

We didn’t speak. I pulled you closer to me, holding your naked body against mine and wondering if this would be it, if this would be the last time you wanted me. With every passing moment I grew more and more certain that I would tell you my secrets and you’d run. All the while, you were lying there, afraid that once you told me your secret I would run from you. In the end, our secrets didn’t push us apart. They bound us together.

For that one night, neither of us had the courage to talk. We pretended everything was normal. We got out of bed only to eat. Eventually, we wore each other out. You fell asleep first. I could feel your heartbeat on my skin as you slept. Lying next to you, feeling the heat of your body against mine, I closed my eyes and slept too.

 

 

The following morning, I remember waking up with my eyes still closed. I just lay there for a few minutes. I didn’t want to be awake. I didn’t want the morning to come. With the morning came the payment of debts unpaid, the revealing of truths unspoken. I could hear you next to me. You were awake. I glanced through partially closed eyelids. You were sitting up in bed, the sheets wrapped around under your armpits for warmth. I could see fear in your face—fear and determination. Slowly, I opened my eyes.

You didn’t waste any time. “We have things to talk about,” you said to me as soon as you saw that I was awake. You looked nervous. I watched your eyes dance between my face and the ceiling.

“I know,” I answered. “I promised you that I was going to tell you everything.” My words drifted off. I couldn’t think of what to say next so I just stopped talking. There was silence.

“But?” you prodded.

“But nothing,” I replied. “If you really want to know, then I’m going to tell you.” I froze again.

“Of course I want to know,” you replied. “You go off for weeks. You barely call. You don’t tell me what it is that you’re doing. You barely even tell me where you are. When you do call, you call in the middle of the night. I need to know, Joe.” You were on the edge of tears. I could see the need in your eyes. It was tangible. I didn’t know where to start. I thought about all the classes I’d been to. I thought about how the Intel guys would show the kids those slides. First, they showed the kids pictures of their enemies. Then they’d show the pictures of the bodies—bodies on top of bodies. Finally, they showed them pictures of their allies. They had a system. That system worked. But you were different. All these kids in these classes, every one of them, grew up suspicious. The world around them didn’t make sense until someone showed up with slides and explanations. To them, the War actually made everything make more sense. Your world already made sense. The only thing in your world that didn’t make sense was me.

“What are you afraid of?” you asked, sensing my fear.

So much, I thought. “I’m afraid that you won’t believe me” is what I settled on.

You wanted to help me. You wanted to believe me. I’ve always heard that monsters are scarier when you don’t see them. That the monster you imagine is usually scarier than the truth. What happens when that’s not the case? What happens when the monster is more horrible than you could possibly imagine? “What if I promise to believe you?” you said, as if such a promise were even possible.

“I’m afraid that might be worse,” I replied. My mouth was dry. I tried to look at you for courage but it only made things harder. This War had taken a lot from me. I didn’t want it to take you too.

“You have to tell me,” you demanded, tears beginning to well up in your eyes.

“I know,” I answered. I had run out of excuses. The rest of my life hinged on that moment. There was nothing left to do but step into the abyss. I leapt. “Everything I’m about to say to you is going to sound absurd.” You opened your mouth to speak, to give me confidence, to make more promises you had no business making. I lifted my hand to stop you before you could start. “Everything I’m about to say to you is going to sound absurd. I believe that by now, you trust me, so I don’t imagine that you’ll think I’m lying. Instead you’ll probably think I’m crazy.” I looked up at you. You were staring at me with incredulous eyes. “First, let me promise you that I am not crazy. Though, by the time I’m finished, you may wish that I was.” I kept watching your face, trying to read your reactions. This was how I would navigate these waters. Lines grew on your forehead. You began to doubt that you even wanted to know the truth, but it was too late for that. There was no going back. Still, that doubt was a good start. Doubt was what those kids that I taught had. They doubted that the world made sense. They doubted almost everything. The strong ones doubted everything but themselves. Break them down. Then build them back up. The whole goddamn thing would have been so much easier with slides.

Doubt, then death. The next step was the part where the Intel guy would ask all of the kids who’d had close family members murdered to raise their hands. Inevitably more than half the hands in the room would shoot up. With you, I have to tell you about my association with death. “I know this is going to sound weird,” I began, “but I need to tell you a little bit about my family.” First, I told you about my mother; that naive, sweet little woman alone in her home in New Jersey. You smiled when I described my mother. Your smile made it harder, but I trudged on. “She is all of my family. She’s all I have left.” I waited a moment, letting that fact sink in. “Everyone else, my grandparents, my aunt, my uncles, my sister, every single one of them is gone.” Your pale skin suddenly got even whiter. “They were murdered. And it wasn’t in some sort of mass killing. They were murdered separately. They were murdered deliberately.”

Your fear was quickly being replaced by confusion. “Why?”

“I’m getting to that,” I answered. Before I could do that, though, I had to sink you deeper into death. I had to give you the how before the why. I had to show you details, like the gruesome slides shown to the kids during their first lesson.

“My father was killed when I was eight. He didn’t make it home from work one day. They told me that he died in a car accident. I guess that technically that was true. I didn’t learn all the details until after I turned eighteen. The truth was that he was run off the road on purpose by another driver. They waited until he was driving on a winding road that dropped off into a ravine. Then they came up from behind him and rammed him over the edge. To me, he was just there one night and gone the next. That was the start of it. I’d only met one of my grandparents, so my father, he was the start of it for me.” Then I told you about my uncle. I told you the same story that I tell in the classes that I teach. Only, when I told you, I left out the second half of the story, the part about what I did to the man who killed my uncle. That part of the story could wait. Then I told you about my sister.

“My sister was five years older than me. She’d always been there for me. She’d always protected me. My mother, for all her virtues, was never the toughest woman in the world. So after my father died, that left my sister. She taught me how to be strong. I loved her so much. When I was fourteen, my mother still wouldn’t let me stay home alone at night. I never understood why. It was actually pretty embarrassing. Plenty of the kids I knew at school could stay at home alone. My mother was just paranoid. This life will do that to you. So, one Saturday night she got invited to play bridge with some of her friends. My sister was a sophomore in college at the time at Rutgers. My mother asked her if she would come home and stay with me for the night. Of course my sister said yes. She would have done anything for me. So we ordered pizza and watched a movie.

“They came for us at around eleven o’clock. I remember. I was looking at the clock when all of a sudden I saw one of their reflections in the glare on the television screen. He was standing outside our screen door, watching us. I wanted to scream but I froze in fear. I didn’t need to scream. Even before my sister saw the men outside, she saw the fear in my eyes. There were three of them but it seemed to me like there were a hundred. They surrounded our house. My sister grabbed my hand and we ran but every door we ran to had another man behind it. Not knowing what else to do, we ran for the back door. My sister opened it. One of the men was waiting outside. I don’t remember what any of them looked like. In my memory they’re just shadowy giants. Jessica leapt at one of them. He caught her. She just started yelling, ‘Run, Joe, run.’ So I ran. I didn’t look back. I could hear Jessica screaming as the man dragged her back into the house but I didn’t look back. I spent that night cowering in the woods. I remember shivering all night but I don’t remember if it was cold or not. I didn’t go home until morning. When I got home, my mother was there. My sister was gone. She died because she agreed to come babysit for me. My mother should have known better. They couldn’t kill me anyway.”

“Why not?” you asked.

“Because I wasn’t eighteen.”

“I don’t understand,” you said.

“I know.” How could you understand? “I’ll explain.” Slides of the enemy, in every lesson I ever sat through, that was what came next. Talk to them about death and then show them the killers. “There’s a group of people out there and they are trying to kill me, my family, and my friends.” Your face changed again. This time, after the confusion turned to fear, the fear turned to disbelief.

“Why?” you asked.

I only had one response, even if I didn’t fully believe it anymore. “Because they’re evil,” I answered. Forget all the other stories. Forget the story about the slave rebellion. Forget the story about the five armies. Forget the broken peace treaties. I had to convince you that my enemy was evil so that you wouldn’t run from me when I told you all the things I’d done.

You responded with the appropriate disbelief. “So you’re telling me there’s a group of these evil people out there that are murdering your family and your friends and no one notices?”

“A lot of people notice,” I answered. “But everything is covered up. And it’s not just my family and friends. It’s more than that. It’s a lot more. Do you know how many deaths are attributed to accidents in the United States each year?” You shook your head. “Over a hundred thousand.” I knew the numbers. We all knew the numbers. “People aren’t that accident prone. Most of those deaths aren’t accidents.”

“What are you telling me?” you asked. You weren’t sure if you believed me.

“It’s a war,” I answered.

You understood now. For the first time, you understood. I could see it in your eyes. “So what do you do?”

“I fight them,” I responded.

“What do you mean, you fight them?” you asked.

“I seek them out. I find them and I make sure that they can’t kill people anymore. I make sure they can never again do what they did to my sister.”

“You kill them?” There was no color left in your face.

“If I have to,” I responded.

“How often do you have to?”

I didn’t want to answer this question but I had promised. “A lot. It’s a war, Maria.”

“Are there others?” I chuckled at this question. You would only ask it if you thought that maybe I was crazy, a lone vigilante fighting an imaginary enemy.

“Thousands of others,” I answered. I had no idea what the actual number was. Hundreds? Thousands? Hundreds of thousands? They never told me. Maybe Jared knew.

“But what are you fighting for?” you asked. By this point, you were barely able to speak.

“My sister,” I answered, hoping that, after everything I’d just told you, this would resonate.

“Okay,” you responded. “That’s why you’re fighting. Why is everyone else fighting?” I had never been asked that question before.

“Because everyone has a story like that, Maria. My friend Jared watched them strangle his older brother to death. My friend Michael never even knew his parents. He was raised by one of his aunts. Everyone has a reason to fight.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense, Joe. It had to have started somewhere. People don’t have wars for no reason. You have to be fighting over something. Power? Land? Money? Something.” There was pity in your eyes. Hiding behind the fear was pity. The pity made me angry. It made me feel like a fool.

I thought about telling you the stories then. I thought about telling you about the slave rebellion and how we fought to keep the rest of the world free. I thought about telling you about the broken peace treaties, but I knew that it wouldn’t make a difference. Even if these stories were true, they weren’t your stories. You can’t understand until you have a reason of your own to fight. We all want to know the history. We all want to know that we’re the good guys. But history only gets you so far. So I answered as best I could. “Survival” was all I could come up with.

“That doesn’t make any sense, Joe.” There were tears in your eyes.

“You just don’t understand,” I replied. “Your family wasn’t killed. How could you understand?”

You began to cry. “You can’t have a war for survival, Joe. It doesn’t make any sense. If you’re both just trying to survive, all you have to do is stop fighting.”

“If only it were that easy, Maria.”

“So when does it stop, then?” you asked. You knew the answer without me saying a word. You began to cry. The tears flowed freely down your cheeks. “Does it ever end?”

I didn’t answer you. I was growing weary of answering questions that I didn’t know the answer to.

“How many?” you asked, the flow of tears waning. You wanted to know how many people I had killed. I wasn’t going to answer that question either.

“As many as I’ve had to,” I answered.

“How many?” you asked with more force. I just shook my head. You saw that you weren’t going to get anything more from me.

“What am I supposed to do?” You looked up at me, your blue eyes as large as moons.

“Trust me,” I pleaded, kneeling down in front of you. “I’m a good person, Maria. Trust me.” Even as I said the words I knew that you had no reason to trust me. If it weren’t for your own secrets, I’m convinced that you would have run. I wouldn’t have blamed you for running.

“And what about me?” you asked.

“If you stay with me, you become part of this. There are certain rules that will protect you, at least in the beginning.”

“Rules?” you asked.

“Yeah,” I responded, realizing how ridiculous it sounded. “It’s like how I told you that they couldn’t kill me when they came for my sister because I wasn’t eighteen. That’s one of the rules.” As I spoke, I didn’t realize how important the rules would become. “Another rule is that they can’t kill innocent bystanders. So they can’t touch you, not unless we become a family. If that happens, I’ll protect you.” I should have told you to run. I should have begged you to stay as far away from me as possible. If I were brave, I would have left you. Instead, I muttered, “I can’t ask you to stay. All I can do is promise that I will do everything I can to protect you.”

There was a long stretch of painful silence. My whole body ached. It was your turn to speak. You took my hands in yours. You turned my hands over so that you could look at my palms. “You kill people. You kill people with these hands.” It was my turn to cry. I buried my face into your shoulder and wept.

You must have thought about leaving me. You would have been crazy not to. Still, I could tell that you weren’t trying to break me down with your questions. You were just trying to fully assess the situation. Do you stay with a man you now know to be a killer or do you run? Eventually my own crying stopped. “Do you trust me?” I asked with as much strength as I could muster.

“I don’t think I have any choice,” you replied.

Now it was my turn to be confused. “What do you mean?”

“I’m pregnant.”

In the end it is our secrets that bind us.

 

 

“What?” I stood up again, in shock.

“I’m pregnant, Joe.”

“How?” I was fishing for words.

“You know how, Joe.” Your reply was curt. I wasn’t reacting like you wanted me to. I just told you that I end lives. Now you were telling me that you were going to be the source of one and I was acting like a jackass.

“What about birth control?”

“What about it, Joe? This may be the wrong time to bring it up for the first time.” Your voice was becoming angry.

“You’re in college. What type of college student isn’t on the pill?” It was a stupid comment, but without it, we wouldn’t have realized the mess that we were in.

“Yes, I am in university, Joe. But I’m not on the pill.”

“Why not?”

“I’m seventeen, Joe,” you replied.

My thoughts raced. Seventeen? How could you be seventeen? I began to do the math in my head. Seventeen plus nine months. What was seventeen plus nine months?

“But you said you were a sophomore.”

“I told you that I was in second year at university. That’s all you ever asked me. You never asked me how old I was. I graduated from high school early. I was advanced.” You were shouting. “I was seventeen, in university and lonely, and then I met you. I’ve always been different, Joe. I was different from my classmates in high school. I was different from my classmates at university. Then I met you and you were different too. We were different together.” You were pleading with me now. All I could do was keep trying to do the math in my head. Seventeen plus nine months, what was seventeen plus nine months?

“When’s your birthday?”

“What difference does that make?” You had gone from being angry at my response to confused.

I looked at you. My look must have frightened you, because you flinched. “When is your birthday?” I repeated.

“I turned seventeen two months ago.” Two months ago. What did that mean? My mind was racing.

“How far along are you?” I asked. It was a stupid question. My brain wasn’t functioning properly.

“What do you think, Joe?” you answered.

It was a month ago. I put it together. It was a month ago when we spent the weekend together. You were due in eight months. You’d be two months short of your eighteenth birthday. There was no getting around it. There was no way to stretch things out for an extra two months. I froze.

“Joe?” you shouted, trying to get my attention as I stared off into nowhere. I looked at you. You looked as if you were about to cry again. “Are you happy?”

I couldn’t answer your question yet. “Do you know what you’re going to do?”

“What do you mean?”

I should have been more tactful. I wasn’t. I didn’t think we had time. “Are you going to keep it?”

You began to cry again. Your tears made it clear that I was going to be a father. I was going to be the father of a child born to a woman under the age of eighteen. My child was going to be my enemy. That’s what the rules said.

I went over to try to hold you, to try to comfort you so that I could explain my reaction. I tried to hug you and you slapped me across my face. It stung. There simply wasn’t any time for pain. I reached out and grabbed you again, fighting through your flailing arms until your body was pressed against mine.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I chanted. I kept repeating the words. They were a mantra. I said them until you stopped struggling and your body went limp in my arms. The secret that I had just revealed to you was already beginning to fade into the background. I couldn’t let it fade away. I couldn’t let you forget about the War, about my part in the War. I couldn’t let you forget any of that because now there was more to tell. You asked me why I fought. I couldn’t answer you, not in a way that would make you understand. But now there was a new reason to fight. “Of course I’m happy,” I said to you, trying to sooth you, “but you’re a child. You’re only seventeen. Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

“A child, Joe? Fuck you. You haven’t treated me like a child up until now. You weren’t treating me like a child last night. Maybe now’s a bad time to start treating me like a fucking child.” Seventeen. Jesus Christ. I looked at you. You were right. If either of us was acting like a child it was me.

“I’m sorry,” I begged again. “I’m sorry for calling you a child. I’m sorry for how I reacted. I’m sorry for everything. I was just surprised. You caught me off guard.” You sobbed into my shirt. It became damp and stuck to my skin. I decided to say whatever it was that I thought you’d want me to say. “I’ll be happy to have a child with you. I am happy.” I was still in too much shock to sound convincing. I knew it. You drank it in, though, wanting so badly to be convinced. “I want my child to be your child, but I have one more thing that I need to tell you.” I held you away from me so that I could look into your eyes as I spoke. You were beginning to calm down, my words finally equaling what you had hoped to hear.

“I don’t think I can take anything else,” you replied, more prescient than you could even know.

“I’m sorry. But there is one more thing.” Seventeen? I was only sixteen when this War was dropped on top of me. It seemed so young and so long ago. I lived through it, though. You were stronger than me. I told you about the rules again, the rules that I had always viewed as a safe harbor against the madness of this War. Now those same rules seemed beyond cruel. Rule number one: No killing innocent bystanders. Rule number two: No killing anyone under the age of eighteen. All that was left was to explain to you the third rule. Children born to those under the age of eighteen had to be handed over to the other side. You gasped when I told you, quickly grasping the idea. “I would tell you to run but they’d find you,” I said. It was true. Running without me was no longer an option. “They’d find you and they’d take our child. If you’re with me I can protect you.”

“There has to be another way.”

“No. There’s not. If we are going to have this baby, these are the rules.” You shook your head in disbelief. I wish I had better answers. Better answers didn’t exist.

“So what do we do? I’m not giving this baby up, Joe.” Your voice sounded stubborn and strong, stronger than I would have imagined possible at that moment.

I wasn’t about to give our baby up, either, Maria. “We run,” I said to you. “We run.” Not yet, but soon.

 

 

The rest of the day went by in a blur. Both of us were exhausted. We were emotionally spent. We passed the day trying to absorb the new twists in our lives. We both knew that nothing would ever be the same. Every so often you would ask me a question or I would ask you one, trying to clarify some details, trying to clear up uncertainties, just trying to get to know each other. It was hard to believe that we’d only actually spent five days together.

“So, have you been to the doctor?” I remember asking.

“Why? Are you doubting that I’m pregnant?” You smiled again. “Are you still trying to get out of this?”

“No. No. No. Trust me. I just want to make sure you’re taking proper care of yourself. I just want to make sure that you’re taking proper care of my child.”

“This is Canada,” you replied. “Of course I’ve been to the doctor.”

“So when are you due?” I began counting on my fingers.

“July,” you said before I had a chance to finish counting.

“July,” I replied, and smiled.

 

 

“What about my family?” you asked at one point. I barely ever heard you talk about your family. I mythologized them in my head. They were normal. They’d produced you.

“If people think they know anything, their lives will be turned upside down. They’re innocent bystanders, so they can’t be physically hurt, but there are a lot of ways that people can mess with you without physically hurting you.”

“So I can’t even reach out to them? I can’t tell them where I am?”

“Well, there are ways. We’ll be able to let them know that we’re safe, maybe even send them pictures. But we won’t be able to see them.” You looked worried.

“Ever?” There was strength in your voice again. I could tell that you were already willing to make any sacrifice to protect our child.

“One day, after we get away, both sides will forget about us. They’ll write us off. Then we can visit your family.” Maybe, I thought. Maybe we’ll be able to escape. “I want to meet them.” I smiled, trying to cheer you up. “I’m sure they’ll want to meet their grandchild.”

“They’re not going to understand,” you said. Your voice was sad. I wanted to say something wise to make you feel better. I didn’t say anything.

 

 

“So what are you, some kind of genius?” I asked.

“No,” you replied. “I was homeschooled. My parents always kept me ahead of the other kids. I sit in classes now and I’m amazed at how smart the other students are.”

“But you’re two years younger than they are.”

“So, what does age have to do with anything?”

“Why don’t you just admit that you’re really fucking smart?” I asked.

“Nice language, Joe.”

“Maybe if I was homeschooled, too, I’d speak more better,” I teased.

“Shut up,” you said. You picked up a pillow and threw it at my head.

“I’m excited. My kid has like a fifty/fifty chance of being a genius,” I replied after dodging the pillow. For the first time all day, you smiled.

 

 

“Does everyone have to kill people?” you asked. It was a fair question. You wanted to know if I’d volunteered for this job.

“No. There are lots of different jobs.”

“So how did you end up with the one you have?”

“Aptitude testing,” I replied.

“You’re shitting me.”

“I wish I was, but I’m not. I could have been sent to Intelligence, genealogy, a bunch of other jobs. But they analyze how you react during your initial training. After analyzing my reaction, they gave me a test and the test said that I’d make a good assassin.” I looked at you. You didn’t like it when I used that word. “I’ll be honest, though. When I was seventeen, eighteen, I would have volunteered for this job. I was so angry with them.”

“And now?” you asked.

“Now I wish my hands were clean. But I’m still angry.”

“At them?” you asked.

“Yeah,” I replied, “at the people who murdered my family.”

 

 

“Do you think I’m a bad person?” I asked after building up the courage.

“No,” you replied. I breathed a sigh of relief. “But I don’t know you.” I looked at you. You did know me. You just didn’t know it. You already knew me better than anyone else in the world. I couldn’t explain that to you, though. I’d have to show it to you. It would take time. “I love you, but I don’t know you.” Love was good. It had gotten us this far. “And I think that what you’ve done is wrong, no matter how you try to justify it.” I accepted this. You hadn’t lived my life. “And I’m a little scared of you. And I want you to stop killing.”

“Fair enough,” I replied. I couldn’t ask for much more than that. I’d lived with fear my whole life. It was only natural that you’d be afraid, too, after what I had told you. I wish you weren’t afraid of me, but time would take care of that. You didn’t think I was a bad person. That was enough for me for now.

“So will you?”

“Will I what?”

“Stop killing.”

“Yes, I will,” I replied, “if they’ll let me.”

 

 

“Where are we going to go?” you asked. I hadn’t thought about it. We were going to try to find a place where they wouldn’t think to look for us.

“I don’t know. South?”

“Why south?”

“I’ll take you someplace warm,” I replied.

“If we go someplace warm, what will I need you for?” you replied. Our first night together already seemed like a long time ago. I stared off into the distance, remembering the look on your face when you asked me to get under the covers with you. “What are you thinking about, Joe?” you asked.

“You,” I answered, and left it at that.

Outside the window, day was slipping into evening. “So when do we leave?” you asked.

“Soon,” I replied. “I have to take care of one thing. It will buy us some time. Then we can leave.” You didn’t ask any questions. I think you knew what I had to do. You had asked me to stop killing. I promised you that I would. I planned on keeping that promise but I couldn’t yet. I needed to do one more job to buy us enough time to escape. For that, I needed to do some planning.

 

 

That evening, when we had run out of questions to ask each other, I checked into a hotel under the assumed name that Allen had given me. It was suddenly important that everything look as normal as possible. I was sure that they’d be tracking me, checking to make sure that I was up to the task this time. I remembered what Jared had told me, that they had big plans for me, but I knew that I couldn’t be too careful. In my whole career, I had only blown one hit, but that one was enough. Plus, I was already a day behind. They had expected me to check into the hotel the night before. From here on out, my every move had to be by the book. Check into the hotel. Do the job. Then we would have a two-week head start. It would be two weeks before they expected me to call in again. We could get halfway around the world in two weeks. For all I knew, that’s what it was going to take to get away.

I picked the hotel at random, eventually checking into a place in the old city that used to be a bank. As if to drive home the point that I was being monitored, I received a package in my hotel room only three hours after I’d checked in. They must have been monitoring the credit cards they’d given me because I was sure that I wasn’t being followed. The package contained an updated status report on my target. There wasn’t much in it that was new, two days a week teaching classes, one day at the strip club, lunch one day in Chinatown. The big Aussie had quit the job after getting out of the hospital. As far as they could tell, he’d fully recovered and gone back to Australia. My mark had hired a new bodyguard to replace him. This time the second bodyguard was one of them. Last time I had spent a week developing a plan that didn’t work. Now I had two days to put together a new plan and I had to factor in the probability that the mark and his employees would be on high alert. There had been a killer in his house, only feet from his bedroom door, and he knew it. There’s no way that didn’t stick with a guy. No matter how I sliced it, this job was going to be a bitch. But this was it—the last job that I’d ever do. Get in, get out, and run. Then I’d be free. Then we’d be free to be together.

I took out my notes from the last job. I wanted to see if I could find any openings that I had failed to notice last time. His home was out. There’s no way that they hadn’t beefed up security since my last attempt. Besides, I’d feel like a fool screwing up the same job, the same way, twice. I had to find another location. There was too much security in the strip club. I thought about the university, but I worried that this was too close to you. I hoped that no one knew you even existed and planned on keeping it that way. Plus, there were too many eyes on campus, too many young, alert people who could ruin things. I needed to get my mark as isolated as possible. I needed to start with a smaller crowd.

There was only one option left, the Chinese restaurant where he went for lunch once a week. It was a small place, maybe twenty tables. They had two small rooms off to the sides, which were separated from the general dining area by wooden beads. My mark and his business partners always took one of these rooms. The bodyguards approached the lunch the same way every time. They split up. One ate with the mark, sitting next to him. The other ate alone in the general dining area, keeping an eye on the restaurant. The situation was far from ideal, but it was the best of the bad options. So the venue was settled. Now I needed a plan.

Poison? It would be poetic justice to kill him with one of his own poisons. The idea was too complicated, though. How could I poison him without running the risk of poisoning the other people at the table? I kept bumping into the same fact. Killing people was easy. Killing the one you wanted to kill was hard.

I began asking myself what Michael would do. I couldn’t help but shake the feeling that I had simply overplanned my first attempt. I’d tried it Jared’s way. I just wasn’t up to Jared’s standards. He was the one who’d gotten promoted. So what would Michael do? He’d probably walk in, pull out his gun, take out the bodyguard in the dining room, walk into the side room, plug the other bodyguard, plug the mark, and walk out as if he owned the place. That was just Michael’s style. It went against everything we were taught. But my mark knew everything we were taught. He was taught it too. I would have to be careful not to shoot any bystanders and I’d have to work quickly. I’d have to get out of there before anyone else in the restaurant had a chance to realize what was going on. It was risky, but I was going to have to start getting used to risky.

Lunch in Chinatown was the next day. I tried to concentrate on the job. It wasn’t easy.

 

 

The next morning I got up early and headed over to my mark’s house. I had decided that I should follow them throughout the day, all the way up until they went for lunch. I wanted to make sure I had a few hours to watch the new bodyguard. I needed to have his image imprinted in my brain. I needed my aim to be true this time. I couldn’t afford to have any doubts when the hit went down.

The new bodyguard had spent the night at my mark’s house. He was blond with sharp blue eyes. He was smaller than the Aussie, but there was something about him that made me nervous. He looked a little crazy. He was, at most, five foot seven. He lacked the spectacular build the other bodyguards had. Intel hadn’t given me much information about him other than that he was one of them and that he’d been hospitalized multiple times, at least three of which were for gunshot wounds. So I knew ahead of time that he was a tough person to kill.

As I followed my mark, it dawned on me that this was my last hit, my last job. After this, I’d never have to hear Allen’s voice again. I could go wherever I wanted to. I could take you and run to anywhere in the world. We could have a child that wouldn’t have to worry about death and murder and war. We’d be free. The whole idea began to scare the shit out of me. What scared me wasn’t the running. It was what would happen after the running. I began to doubt myself in ways that I couldn’t explain to you then. Suddenly, the idea of becoming a father was terrifying. All I knew how to do, all anyone had ever taught me to do, was one thing. Killing, up to that moment, had been my entire life. I took a deep breath to try to calm my nerves. I felt the weight of the gun in my backpack and found it comforting.

I followed my mark and his men downtown and watched them as they headed into the same office building I had staked out only a few weeks earlier. Just like last time, I went to the café across the street to watch the building entrance and wait. I remembered that the last time I’d sat in that café I was bored, counting down every moment as it passed. This time, I sat there terrified, wishing that time would slow down so that I’d have a few extra moments to pull myself together. The questions in my head wouldn’t stop. I looked across the street again and watched the motionless door. I prayed that it would never open. I placed my backpack in my lap. I slipped my hand inside it so that I could feel the weight of the gun in my palm. I thought back to the moment, only a few months earlier, when I was sitting in the parking lot of that mall in New Jersey waiting for Jared and Michael to come and pick me up. I remembered watching the people go in and out, being envious of their lives. I looked at them and saw no fear. They came to the mall on the weekend to buy a few things and then head back to their suburban homes to watch television and wait until Monday morning, when they would wake up and shuttle off to jobs they hated. I envied their lives, their “normal” lives—their pointless, tedious, normal lives. Is that what I was destined for? And what about Michael and Jared? What about the others on my side? What about the children that I’d taught? I remembered what Jared had told me only a few nights earlier. They believed in me more than I believed in myself. Could I just give this War up? Give up the only fight I’d been raised to care about? Was I ready for any of this? I caressed the handle of the gun. Maybe I liked killing. Maybe I had seen so much death that it was the only thing that made me feel comfortable. I tried to chase these ideas from my head.

I nursed my drink, watching the front door of the office building, waiting for them to come out, waiting for my destiny to come out that door and head down the street toward Chinatown. I was afraid. I had never felt that type of fear before. Not even when I was kneeling on that beach in New Jersey, my hands tied behind my back, a gun pointed in my face, did I experience fear like this. The fear I felt on that beach was simple. I was afraid to die, but it was only for me. All I had to lose was my own pitiful life. But from now on, if I fail, I fail you and I fail our child. Up until that moment, I had been a soldier in a war that was bigger than me. I was a pawn. I knew it. My only responsibility was death. Even if I failed, it led to death. A successful job meant they died, a failed job meant I did. Now I was responsible for life too. It was terrifying. Right then, sitting alone in that café, the butt of that gun resting in my hand, I had to remind myself that that my only skill in the world was still going to serve me well, at least one more time.

After a few hours, my mark and his entourage came out of the building, the new bodyguard in front, my mark in the middle, the American behind them. The new bodyguard’s eyes scanned the street as he moved. For a second he looked in my direction. I felt his stare in my gut. The three of them left the building and started down the street. It was time to move. Suddenly, the doubt was gone. The fear was gone. I was on the job for the last time. I’d have time for doubts again when I was done.

I didn’t follow them to the restaurant, fearing that I’d be spotted. I knew where they were going. All I had to do was figure out which of the two bodyguards was sitting in the general dining area and which of the two private rooms my mark was in. Then I’d walk through the door, stroll casually up to the first bodyguard, shoot him at close range, walk into the private room, shoot the second bodyguard, and then shoot my mark. Then I’d walk out of the restaurant through the kitchen and disappear forever. If I was successful, it would be a job to brag to people about, though I knew that my days of bragging were over. After this job was done, I knew that I’d never see Michael or Jared again. I couldn’t put them in that position. I couldn’t ask them to ignore the rules for me.

As I walked to the restaurant, I continued to visualize the event. I tried to look at all the angles, tried to make sure there was nothing that I was overlooking. I assumed that no one in the kitchen was going to try to stop me. It was a safe assumption. I’d have a gun in my hand that I’d proved I was willing to use. I tried to picture it in every scenario. First, my mark would be in the room to the right. Second, in the room to the left. I tried imagining how the job would go with each bodyguard in the different positions. I hoped that the new guy would be in the general dining area. I wanted to get him out of the way first.

When I got to the end of the block, I peeked around the corner to see if I could locate the entourage. The three of them were standing outside the restaurant waiting. The new bodyguard was taking a long, deep drag off a cigarette. He didn’t open his mouth after inhaling, instead blowing two long streams of smoke out of his nostrils. I turned back behind the building, leaning against the wall to make sure that they couldn’t see me. I listened but none of them spoke. I kept looking around me, knowing that I would have to move if I thought I saw my mark’s business associates coming. I got lucky. They came from the opposite direction. I heard my mark greet them. I recognized his voice instantly from the lecture. There was a general greeting, followed by some introductions. There was no discussion of business outside—that would be taken care of inside the restaurant. I knew what these men were here for. They were buying weapons. I just didn’t know for what war. I didn’t really care.

I wanted to get a good look at the buyers before they went inside. I needed to be sure I could differentiate them from my targets. I stepped forward for a second and casually looked both ways along the street, pretending that I was looking for someone. As I did I glanced over the faces of the buyers. There were four of them. They were wearing similar outfits. Each had on black slacks, a dark shirt, and a bright tie. They each wore a black leather jacket in lieu of a suit jacket. All had dark hair. They looked like brothers. Once I caught a quick glimpse of them, I stepped back into the shadows. Mistaken identity wouldn’t be a problem. My only worry now was that they’d be armed. If any one of them had a gun and decided to play hero, I was in deep shit. I wasn’t Dirty Harry. A gunfight wasn’t something that I was prepared for.

I stood there for a few moments, my back leaning against the brick wall behind me, and listened, waiting to hear them go inside. I wanted to see them being seated so that I knew which side of the restaurant they’d be on. The left side would be easier, as it provided faster access to the kitchen, but either would do. It was only important that I knew. After walking in and shooting someone in the head, walking to the wrong private room would be a disaster. I waited until I heard the last footsteps on the stairs leading up to the restaurant’s front door, then I turned the corner and peered inside through the front windows. The restaurant was rather small. The building itself was bright red, with a dragon carved into the archway above the door. The entire front of the building had waist-high windows that opened up onto the street on the hotter days of summer. I looked through those windows and watched as they showed my mark to his table. I was in luck. The new bodyguard entered the building last. As the last in, he’d be sitting in the general seating area. While the larger party was being escorted to the private room on the left side of the restaurant (luck appeared to be on my side), another waitress motioned the blue-eyed bodyguard to an empty table in the back right-hand corner of the main dining area. He nodded and took his seat.

I could have still called it off. We could have run. I could have skipped the hit and gone back to get you and we could have left that afternoon. We’d still have a little bit of a head start. It would probably take them a day or two before they realized that I wasn’t going to do the job. It would take a day or two before the manhunt started. We could get pretty far in two days. We could have flown to Europe or Asia. We could have gone to visit the big Aussie back in his hometown. The world was small. A day or two might have been enough time to run and hide, but our trail would be fresh. Our scent would still have been on everything we touched. It didn’t matter where we could get to because they could get there just as quick. We needed more time. We needed time not just to run away but to get lost.

I took a deep breath. One job. That was it. I took the gun out of my backpack and placed it in my jacket pocket. I slung the backpack over my shoulder. The backpack now contained the other two magazines for my gun, three passports in three different names, and a few hundred dollars in cash. I was ready to leave this job and be gone forever. I hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but I was prepared. I stuck my hand in my coat pocket and wrapped my fingers around the gun. I slipped my index finger over the trigger and caressed it lightly. The silencer was still on the muzzle. I had never removed it. The safety was off. It was time to go.

I walked straight toward the restaurant’s front door. I walked up the steps, pulled open the door, and walked toward the hostess. As I walked, I stared straight ahead, but out of the corner of my eye, I watched the blue-eyed bodyguard. He was watching me too. I took two steps toward the hostess. She smiled at me and was about to ask me how large my party would be. Before she could get the words out, however, I saw the bodyguard move. He gently took his napkin off of his lap, and folded it on the plate in front of him. It was odd. Why would he take the time to fold up his napkin? I stepped quickly past the hostess. I saw the confusion on her face. I took a few large steps toward the new bodyguard. By then he was on his feet. He had an object in his left hand. I stepped closer to him. He began to move his left hand toward me. I made it to about ten feet from him before I pulled the gun from my jacket pocket. I moved quickly, quicker than he did. I lifted my gun toward him and fired. One shot. I hit him in the head. Not between the eyes, but in the head nonetheless. He had gotten his arm about three quarters of the way toward me. Some blood squirted on the wall behind him and he fell to the ground.

No one in the restaurant moved. The hostess, sensing that something was wrong as soon as I walked past her, stifled a scream. Other than that, the place was a museum, a funeral home. I’d expected everything to move slowly. I’d expected time to slow down. I’d expected to see everything in slow motion. For a few moments, it was like that. Once I pulled the trigger the first time, however, everything went into hyperspeed.

I walked immediately across the restaurant, toward the private dining area. No one in the restaurant moved. I tried to stay focused. All the images outside the small tunnel of my vision became blurry. I walked holding the gun out in front of me. I pushed the hanging beads in the doorway aside with my left hand and stepped toward the long rectangular table. All six of the diners looked up at me. My mark and his bodyguard were seated against the wall facing me. The four buyers were in chairs with their backs to me, but they turned to look at me when I entered. I didn’t bother to make eye contact. I lifted the gun again and fired one shot directly into the chest of the American bodyguard. He looked at me for a second and then looked down at his chest, confused. Then I turned toward my mark. I aimed my gun at his head and fired. Then I fired again. Then again. I don’t remember how many times I pulled the trigger. The first two shots went into his head. After that, I just riddled the bullets into him. With each shot his body jerked and each time his body moved I lost confidence that he was actually dead. Everything hinged on his being dead. By the time I was done pulling the trigger, I could have killed five of him.

Just then I heard a loud popping sound coming from behind me. It broke my trance and I stopped firing. I looked around the table. The American was just sitting there, his eyes glazed over, not moving. My mark was hunched over in his chair, his face nearly touching his plate. All the planning and work that went into the first attempt on his life and now he was dead just like that. It really had been that simple. Then I looked over the stern, ugly faces of the buyers. They looked stoic. They weren’t about to involve themselves in someone else’s battles. One reached down for his spoon and continued eating his soup.

I heard another pop from behind me and suddenly felt a searing, burning sensation in the back of my left leg. I turned and looked back through the beaded curtain. There was the blue-eyed bodyguard, standing, holding his gun out in front of him. Half his face was covered in blood. He kept one eye closed to avoid getting blood in it. He stumbled forward and pulled the trigger again. This time the bullet buzzed by my head and entered the wall behind me. I heard someone scream and saw a few people run toward the front door. The bodyguard lifted the gun again, but before he could pull the trigger, I pushed my way through the beads and headed toward the kitchen. Until I took my first step, I had forgotten about the pain in my leg, but as I walked the leg screamed out in agony. I had been shot in the back of my thigh, luckily a few inches above my knee. I made my way toward the kitchen as fast as I could. I heard another popping sound and a whizzing by my ear. I had to get out of there.

I walked quickly through the kitchen, holding the gun up by my head. The kitchen staff stayed out of my way. I limped toward the back door. I exited the building near the Dumpsters in the back. It smelled like rotting meat. The scent from the garbage combined with the searing pain in my leg almost made me sick. I swallowed hard. I had to keep moving. I had to get away from the scene. I made it about a half a block down the back alley when I heard the kitchen door open behind me. I looked back and there was the blue-eyed bodyguard stumbling toward me like a zombie from a low-budget horror movie. He was a walking nightmare. I could see where I had shot him, grazing the top of his head and blowing off a piece of his skull. It wasn’t a direct hit. He lifted his gun toward me and fired again. The bullet whizzed by me and I heard glass shatter. The bodyguard’s aim was gone. He was losing blood, getting weaker. His one closed eye must have been wreaking havoc on his depth perception. Still, throw enough darts with your eyes closed and you’re bound to hit the bull’s-eye eventually. I wasn’t going to stand around and let him use me for target practice.

I tried to run around the next corner and disappear, but I couldn’t push off with my left leg. Instead I wobbled toward the turn, the walking nightmare following close behind me. Despite his injury, his legs were in better shape than mine. I turned the corner before he got too close to me. Then I waited.

I could hear him walking, both his feet dragging along the ground like a drunk’s. I looked down at my jeans. Everything below my knee on the back of my left leg was a dark purple. Fuck, I thought. This wasn’t good. The monster stepped closer to the corner. He came relentlessly. If he’d had any sense, he would have taken another route, or he just would have given up and tried to save himself. He came nonetheless. His left hand, extended with his gun out in front of him, crossed the edge of the building first. I reached out with my hand and grabbed his wrist. I pulled his hand, holding the gun, far above our heads to keep him from being able to point the gun at me. The motion ended up pulling his body toward mine. Our chests collided and our faces were now only inches apart. He was weak.

I looked directly into his eyes and saw death. How many times had I seen that before? He returned my gaze. Only God knows what he saw. Then he spoke. “They brought me here to kill you,” he said to me, the blood pouring down his face. As he spoke blood ran into his mouth and collected in the corner of his lips. The thickness of the blood muffled his words, making him sound as if he were half underwater. He stared directly into my eyes. “They brought me here to kill you. They knew you’d come back. They knew.” With each word, I could feel more strength slip from his body. I lifted my gun and pointed it into his chest. Even in his weakened state he wouldn’t take his eyes off mine. I jammed the muzzle of the gun into his ribs. I’m sure he felt it, but he continued to stare at me coldly. “They brought me here to kill you,” he repeated again, spraying blood on me as he spoke. I pulled the trigger, sending a bullet into his heart. He gasped one more time after I fired. Suddenly, we were no longer struggling. My hand was still wrapped tightly around his wrist and I was holding him up. I had seen death before and his was imminent. I kept holding him up. I decided to let him die on his feet. With his last gasp of life, he looked at me again. His eyes were now confused, as if he couldn’t understand what was happening, as if he’d completely forgotten who I was. Then his body shuddered and he was gone.

I dropped his body in the alley. I reached down, and with the only clean patch of his shirt that I could find, I wiped the blood from my face. The struggle over, the pain in my leg returned with a vengeance. I had to get back to the hotel. I had to fix myself up as much as possible. I had to find you and then we had to leave. It all seemed so urgent now. I should have gotten you ready before this. I should have told you to wait at the hotel. The blue-eyed bodyguard’s words kept echoing in my mind. “They knew you’d come back. They knew.” I could hear him speaking them again and again through his bloodstained lips. They know, I thought. They always fucking know. If we were going to get away, we had to give ourselves as much time as possible. We’d run and hide and run and hide until our trail was untraceable. It was the only way.

I took my gun and put it back in my backpack. I looked back at my leg again. I could see the hole in my jeans where the bullet had gone through. There was nothing in the front. The bullet was still lodged in my leg. I’d have to get back to the hotel, clean out the wound, and pressurize it to stop the bleeding. I was pretty sure I’d be okay. There was pain, but I didn’t think that the bullet had hit any bone. It was simply lodged in my muscle. Clean the wound, make sure it doesn’t get infected, stop the bleeding, and I’d be fine. That and a half a bottle of painkillers would do the trick.

I limped out into the street, gazing at myself in the reflection in the window of a nearby building to make sure that I looked presentable. From the knee up I looked fine. My skin was a bit shiny from sweat, but there was nothing too extreme to give me away. I hadn’t heard a single siren yet. Any moment, I expected to hear the roar of police cars racing down the street. The sound didn’t come. It didn’t make sense to me, but I wasn’t about to question my luck. I’d read later that the buyers, who were themselves armed to the teeth, had warned the entire restaurant not to call the police. They did not want to find themselves mixed up with Canadian officials. They stayed in the restaurant for another fifteen minutes, guns drawn, sitting across from two corpses, and finished their meal. When they finally left, they told everyone in the restaurant to wait twenty minutes before calling the police. They said that they’d find anyone who disobeyed. They asked for twenty minutes, they got ten. Those ten minutes probably saved my life.

My leg ached with each step. I bit down on my bottom lip and kept moving. The inevitable sirens, those that I wouldn’t hear until I was half a block from my hotel, inspired me to keep moving. My hotel was only about ten blocks from the restaurant, maybe half a mile. The walk took me nearly twenty minutes. As I neared the hotel, I heard sirens for the first time. They’d be a few minutes too late to catch anyone and twenty minutes too late to save anyone. When I reached the hotel, I gritted my teeth and did my best to walk through the lobby without a limp. I went immediately over to the elevator and pushed the “up” button. The waiting there, watching the numbers above the elevator drop ever so slowly as the elevator car approached the lobby, was the most painful moment of all. I turned my body so that no one could see the back of my bloodstained jeans. After about thirty seconds, the bell went off and I stepped inside the elevator. Once inside, I slammed on the button to close the doors.

When the doors opened again, I stumbled out and headed toward my room. I took out the key card and opened my door, nearly falling over as I pushed my way inside. I fell to the floor and immediately stripped off my jeans. The blood on the jeans had begun to coagulate so I had to actually rip the jeans off my leg. It would have been fine except for the fact that the bullet hole had started to scab over, so when I pulled off the jeans, I pulled off the scab as well. The blood, which had slowed down, began to flow freely again. I went into the bathroom and turned on the hot water in the shower. I stepped into the water, as hot as it would go, and began to scrub the wound with soap. I’d have to make do with the limited resources that I had. After scrubbing out the wound, I walked over to the minibar. I left the water running in the shower. I opened up the minibar and grabbed every miniature bottle of liquor they had and dragged them back into the shower. I lay down in the tub on my stomach, letting the hot water splash against my back, and, one by one, I opened up the bottles of vodka, scotch, and gin and poured them into the hole in the back of my leg. Each successive bottle stung a little less. When the alcohol was gone, I scrubbed the wound again with soap and water. It continued to bleed. I got out of the shower and dried myself off. I took an old T-shirt and I wrapped it around my leg, tying it tightly over the bullet hole to stop the bleeding. Once that was done, I grabbed a bottle of painkillers and downed a handful. Eventually that would dull the pain, although I’d need something stronger if I really wanted to forget it.

What was there left to do? I sat down in a chair, naked except for the T-shirt tied around my leg, and took a moment to rest. “They brought me here to kill you. They knew you’d come back. They knew.” What the fuck did that mean? My mind raced. I wanted to sleep. I wanted to lie down and sleep. I wanted to forget the faces of the dead. It wasn’t going to happen. Not then, not ever. We had to move. I picked up the phone and dialed your number. It rang twice. You picked up.

“Maria. It’s me. We have to go.”

“I know.” Your voice sounded sad, resigned, but there was no urgency. I needed urgency.

“No, Maria. You don’t know. We have to go now.”

“Now?”

“Yes.”

“Why? What happened? Why now?”

“Just trust me. We have to go now. Come to my hotel. Bring everything you think you’ll need but no more than what you can carry.”

“This is crazy, Joe. We can’t go now. We can’t just get up and go like that!” It was crazy. You had no idea how crazy. I didn’t even know how crazy.

“We don’t have a choice, Maria.” I tried to keep my voice calm but stern. I should have prepared you better for this. But it didn’t matter. No matter how well I prepared you, you wouldn’t have been ready. After telling you where I was, I got dressed. I left the T-shirt tied around my leg, although I was pretty sure that the bleeding had stopped. I threw everything I owned in a bag. I called down to the front desk and told them that I would be out of town for a few days but that I would keep paying for the room and that I would like them to hold it. They were happy to oblige. Almost exactly nineteen minutes after I had hung up on you, there was a knock on my door.

 

 

We took a bus to Boston. You slept most of the way, your head leaning up against my chest. As requested, you had packed light, carrying only a couple changes of clothes and a toiletry bag. I stared down at your face as you slept, your head bobbing up and down as the bus bounced over the bumps in the road. You slept through the bumps like they were nothing. I had to protect you. I didn’t want to be the worst thing that ever happened to you. My hope was that one day you’d think that meeting me was a blessing. Every morning I wake up with that same hope.

We didn’t have any trouble at the border. I warned you that I was traveling with a fake passport and under a fake name. The lying didn’t faze you. That boded well for our future.

When we got to Boston we rented a car. We’d drive the rest of the way. We were headed to New Jersey. I thought we’d be safe there. I didn’t call my mother to warn her that we were coming. After this trip, I knew that it was doubtful that I’d ever see my mother again. Before that happened, I wanted her to meet the mother of her grandchild. For one moment, I just wanted us to feel like a regular family.

Throughout the car ride from Boston to New Jersey, you were quiet. The only question you asked during the entire trip was “Are you sure you can do this, Joe?”

“Do what?” I asked, trying to figure out what you were talking about.

“Are you sure you can leave the War behind?”

I thought about it. I thought about what the War meant to me. I thought about the family of mine that they’d killed. I thought about my father and my sister. I thought about what Jared had said about my future. I thought about the friends I was leaving behind. I knew I’d never find friends like that again. “I’m sure,” I answered.

“How can you be sure?” you asked, sensing my thoughts, knowing that I hadn’t given up on the War.

I looked at you. I looked down at your stomach, still hiding the secret that would change my life forever. “I had a good reason to fight. Now I have a better reason to run.”