My Ugly Suitcase

Again, a thud and now it was clearly her cry of pain. I really needed to get some light. Wait. There was a flashlight in the kitchen. The shelves near the entrance. That's where I was. Not believing my luck, I fumbled until I felt the reassuring metal tube. Success. Now I had a flashlight in one hand and a loaded handgun in the other.

Feeling confident, I switched on the flashlight and was greeted by Dani lying on the floor, her arm lifted to protect herself from the blows. Her leg was angled in a sick way and obviously broken. She was badly battered, bleeding and clearly defeated.

Vinnie stood above her, a log of wood over his head, just about to deliver the decisive blow. His face and one arm were bleeding, but he didn't seem to care.

"Drop..." was all I could utter before the wood was thrown into my direction. He was quick, I had to give him that. Without thinking, I ducked the thing and shot at him without really thinking about it. The log only grazed my ear, causing me to fall backwards and losing the light while I heard him flinching.

The flashlight rolled away from me, causing weird light effects, while I heard Vinnie's grunting and swearing slowly getting nearer. It sounded suspiciously as if he was crawling towards me. I must have hit him somewhere, but that didn't stop him. Problem was, I couldn't shoot into the dark, as I could have hit Dani.

Instead of just standing up, I crawled backwards, too, towards the flashlight. The guy was motivated, I had to give him that. On the other hand, he was fighting for his life, as was I. The thought drove me even more and I soon reached the errant flashlight. Pointing it directly at him, I saw his face clearly for the first time.

He had clearly taken quite a few hits as well. One eye was swollen shut, his mouth was bleeding and he didn't look too amused.

"You fucking asshole," was how he greeted me.

"Hey Vinnie, long time no see," I said, trying to convince both of us that I was a damn cool bastard. Neither of us was buying it. At least I stood up, to stop the undignified crawling around.

Vinnie looked contemptuously at me from his one good eye. "You won't shoot me. You don't have the balls. You looked away for years while I banged Doris. I think you even enjoyed it, right? I really didn't give a shit about her, you know? It doesn't matter, you're too weak to kill me."

He wanted to goad me, which didn't seem like the best strategy when a guy with a gun stands in front of you. Still, what he said might have been right. I had never intentionally hurt anyone and it seemed quite unlikely I'd be able to pull the trigger. In which case, he'd kill me. He was wrong about me accepting Doris' affair, though. I really had no idea, and I certainly wouldn't have enjoyed it.

We both looked to his right, where the flashlight had revealed a handgun on the floor. I had no idea whether it was his or Dani's, and it didn't really matter.

He grinned at me condescendingly while he moved his right hand towards the gun.

Dani.

He grabbed it.

He'd kill Dani, too. I couldn't let him do that.

He started to lift it towards me.

I fired.

It surprised me just as much as him. We both looked at the small dark spot in his breast, which marked an interesting turn of events. I had actually killed a human being. Another one, to be precise. I hoped this wouldn't become a habit.

"You..." he said before his head and right hand fell back onto the floor.

I couldn't wait for conflicting emotions to take over. That might come later, rescuing Dani had to come first.

"What took you so long?" she greeted me jokingly. She had watched the whole scene and the worried look had just left her pretty face.

"You know how it is. You meet old acquaintances and it takes forever to get rid of them."

"I hope he won't pester you again."

"I guess he won't. I'm pretty sure, actually. It seems he's had enough."

"That's nice, but we're really going to have to talk about double tapping, Michael. Just one bullet might not be enough if you want to succeed in this business in the long run."

"Wait, what? You said you weren't a killer."

"No, I said I wasn't at the time we met. I was just joking, though. I'm out of whatever business. You may take me to the hospital now. My leg seems to be a bit out of shape."

"As you command, my lady."

Her leg was indeed broken, just as two fingers were. The rest were just bruises and lacerations. Our story about a biking accident seemed a little thin to me, but either the doc wasn't the suspicious sort, or he was glad to have a reason to go on to his other patients and not waste his time calling the cops on me.

Dani had to stay in the hospital for five days, and I visited her all the time. I bought flowers, sweets and magazines. I was terribly afraid she'd break up with me now that the threat was gone. She was equally frantic. She refused to release my hand whenever I was near her bed. She looked pitifully worried whenever I went home.

Finally, I couldn't stand it anymore.

"Dani, I'm not sure what you plan to do, but I love you and I'm not going anywhere, unless you chase me away."

She sighed and relaxed visibly while she pulled me close to her.

"Yes," she murmured with a contented smile.

"Yes? I didn't ask anything."

"I know, but my answer will always be yes. I love you, too, Michael, and I'm yours if you want me."

"Good. Good," I just sighed and felt the tension leave me. We stayed like this for a while, just enjoying the time together.

"You can ask the damn question now," she softly said.

"What?"

"Don't go 'what' on me now, okay?" Her sense of mischief was returning quickly; I decided she must be recovering. Then it finally dawned on me.

"Dani Everson, will you marry me? Will you become my wife?"

She whooped quietly in a really cute way.

"I already answered that. But as you're a bit slow sometimes, yes. The answer will always be yes." She pulled me down for a really, really nice kiss. "I'd love to marry you, Michael."

Now it was my turn to whoop.

"What took you so long anyway?" she asked, still smiling contentedly. "I knew you were the one for quite a while."

"My damn self-doubt," I answered. "But I'm working on it. I really am."

We never really returned to her house. I used my training and removed the corpses while she was in hospital, cleaned up the blood and employed someone to start the repairs. After our quick Vegas wedding, with her beautiful white dress hiding the cast on one leg, we started looking for a nice place without bad memories. She said it was the fresh start we needed and I didn't disagree. I was deliriously happy, and her having more money than I did had nothing to do with it.

Burying an empty turquoise suitcase was my last symbolic goodbye to life as an unhappy vending machine technician. We had tried to burn it, but the damn thing wouldn't catch fire. When Dani finally stopped laughing, she said it wouldn't burn because it was too ugly to die, we would just have to bury it, so we dug a hole together and tossed it in. I said a last farewell to Doris because I thought I should, then turned happily toward my beautifully smiling new wife and my new life.

Many thanks to Blackrandi, Cagivagurl and George Anderson for their kind help.