Forced to Change Ch. 14

Chapter 14

"You promised me. Where the hell is she? You promised no more problems!"

"All I can say is, there was a problem. I'm working on it. Not tonight is the best answer I can give." Carter said.

He smashed the cell phone on the ground so hard it shattered into pieces ending the frustrating conversation.

The girl in the hotel room had done nothing to sate his urges and his headache had gone into overdrive on the way home. He'd almost crashed his car pulling into the garage.

"Honey, are you okay?" his wife said from the doorway to the living room.

"Fine, dear," he snapped and crossed the foyer to her, taking deep breaths as he walked. "It's nothing. Just a business thing going wrong. I swear whenever I'm out of the office everything falls to pieces."

"Oh, I'm sorry. Is there anything I can do?" She smiled and placed her warm hand on his arm. It took everything in him not to flinch away from her touch.

He concentrated on the small things, breathing in and out deeply. Pushing aside his frustration he cleared his face of all emotion. "No, dear."

"Not that I mind, but why are you here? You told me you'd be out of town this week." They walked arm in arm to the staircase. "Don't get me wrong. I enjoy having you home. But if you need to work, I do understand."

"You're too good to me. My trip is postponed. Nothing for you to worry about." He planted a smile on his face as they ascended the stairs together. He wasn't worried. Just under the surface where it often hid, his anger boiled. Carter, he'd paid him too much money and he'd waited too long for things to not come together now.

***

"I should have killed her. I wouldn't be in this mess," I murmured as I stepped away from Katie. If only I could kill her, I wouldn't be in this mess, my mind amended.

Most of my life I'd pulled the trigger never giving it another thought. I joined the Marines out of high school, then I was quickly moved to a branch of the military I didn't think about, let alone talk about. It was a branch that didn't really exist.

That was how I met Carter. Carter had seen that I was a natural born killer. But Carter was dead. There was no guilt or feelings about his death for me. Killing was easy, too easy. But when it came to Katie, I couldn't do it and that irked me. My mind raced, not from fear but the knowledge that I'd screwed up. There was a reason I'd never considered killing Carter before tonight. I didn't want to bring down the wrath of Carter's death into my world.

Carter being the man he was, surely he had a figurative dead man's switch. He created killers. Carter had carved monsters out of men and women until we were blindly loyal machines. He'd sliced off the last of my humanity in such a way that I never questioned his orders. There was no fear, no doubt, no questions when it came to Carter and what he could do, what he could make me do.

I think I was the first person he ever trained that doubted him and lived. I'd planted a seed six years ago. I didn't stick around to find out what grew from my betrayal in Cantana. If I had ignored the next assignment after Cantana, Carter would have never figured it out. Carter set me up and I fell for it. Only one person had agreed with me about Carter back then.

I shouldn't have cared. When push came to shove I ran. I'd been running for almost five years. When it came down to it, I couldn't trust that Carter hadn't wanted me dead. Tonight should have been no surprise, but what would come next I couldn't guess. That, more than anything, motivated me to run faster and further away before I found out. I imagined that everyone was after me. I knew it wasn't paranoia if it was true.

I was racing against a clock that was counting down to a massive explosion. The timer had been started by my bullets, the ones that had caused Carter to die. There were probably seven other assassins, most trained by Carter, after me. Run. All I could do was run. No matter how far I ran, I knew my impulsive action was following us. Katie's life was in danger because of me.

I had to get us moving again, only she couldn't be moved. Not while she convulsed and threw up like a broken doll on the ground. For the first time in my life I was torn. How to fix such a major mistake? Find and kill?

"I should have killed her already," I thought again as she whispered her pleas to God. My gun was suddenly in my hand. I couldn't wait until the others were dead, not after killing Carter. The time had come to end the life of one Kathryn Rollins. It wouldn't be the way I'd planned it out, but as I aimed the gun, self-preservation took over.

I'd watched her. I could see that for her, dying would be a kindness. Killing her was probably the nicest thing I would ever do in my life. Her emotional pain was so palpable; killing her was an act of mercy. I raised my gun as my mind rationalized it. My chest tightened and my heart galloped. My breath was frozen mist. She had to die, now. I pulled the trigger. The sound cracked and echoed in the silence and her body was still, so very still.