Slow Agony (Assassins) Read online

  I knew where Naomi was.

  I started to dial the police again.

  Then I stopped. They hadn’t been all that helpful just now, had they?

  Instead, I went to my kitchen, opened a drawer and pulled everything out of it. I threw it on the counter—rubber bands, beer caps, knick knacks, and other junk. The drawer had a false bottom.

  I moved it out of the way, and there was a gun hidden down there. Griffin had insisted we have them just to be cautious. He’d taken some of the hidden guns with him when he left. But he hadn’t taken this one.

  I took it out of the drawer, along with a box of ammunition. I began to load it.

  * * *

  I parked pretty far away from the abandoned house. I didn’t want to spook whoever had Naomi. Assuming he was still there. He’d taken the picture here, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t loaded her into a trunk or something and driven off.

  It was May, and it had been pretty warm the past few days. Even though it was the wee hours of the morning, it wasn’t too cold. The jacket I’d put on to conceal the fact I’d tucked the gun into the waist of my pants was a little too warm. I was sweating.

  Maybe I was only sweating because I was terrified, though. I’d never done anything like this on my own before.

  After I got out of my car, I walked into the woods and traveled near the tree line until I got close to the abandoned house. It was what Griffin would have done.

  But Griffin would have been quieter than I was. He could creep through the woods. I never seemed to be able to do it without making the dead leaves crunch under my feet. Too loud.

  I walked as carefully and quietly as I could, keeping my eyes out for anyone who might be watching for me.

  I didn’t see anything but trees and undergrowth and the starry night sky.

  The abandoned house came into view within a few minutes. It had been white once. Now, most of the siding had been singed off, and it was dulled by the smoke from the fire that destroyed it. Mud and time hadn’t done it any favors either. I couldn’t describe the color as anything other than a dingy gray now.

  One side of the house had collapsed, but the other side still had a roof and even some windows with cracked glass in them. The tall grass was littered with beer bottles and cigarette butts. Like I said, this place was used as a party hangout in the summer.

  I crouched in the woods behind a tree, looking and listening. Was there anyone inside the house?

  I couldn’t see anything. The house was dead and dark. Nothing stirred behind its windows. All I could hear was the distant sound of an occasional car traveling down an adjacent road and my own heartbeat crashing against my skull.

  She was probably gone.

  Or maybe she wasn’t here at all. Maybe she was some other place with distinctive windowsills, and I was completely off base.

  A low whistle cut through the silence.

  I froze, gripping the tree trunk. My heart thudded even faster.

  There was someone inside that house, and he was whistling “Oh My Darling, Clementine.”

  Oh God. I swallowed hard, unsure of what to do.

  Was it the person who’d captured Naomi?

  I had to get closer. I had to see.

  I stayed low as I left the cover of the woods, darting through the overgrown lawn until I was right at the house. I flattened myself against the dingy siding, struggling to keep my breath soft and steady.

  I could swear I was gasping far too loudly.

  The whistling continued uninterrupted.

  He hadn’t heard me.

  Slowly, I crept along the side of the house until I came to a window. I peered inside.

  It was the old kitchen. The appliances had long been ripped out, and there was only a sink along the wall, its faucet glinting dully in the moonlight. The paint on the cabinets was warped and peeling from the heat of the fire.

  I moved past the window to the next one.

  That window had been busted open, and there were shards of glass outside. They crunched under my feet as I got close.

  I stopped moving at the noise, trying to melt into the house.

  The whistling stopped.

  Chapter Two

  Shit. He’d heard me.

  What the hell was I doing here, anyway? Why hadn’t I called the police? I didn’t know what I was doing. Griffin was the one who was good at this stuff, not me. I’d always just tagged along for the ride. I bit my lip hard, waiting.

  There was the sound of footsteps within the house. A man’s voice, heavy with a New York accent. “You hear that, sweetheart?”

  A muffled sound, almost like a cry. Was that Naomi?

  “Maybe our Griffin’s already found us. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

  It was him. And Naomi must be here too.

  Anger surged through me, white hot. I reached into my jacket and took the gun out of the waist of my pants. It was cool and heavy in my hands. My heart seemed to steady, and my breathing evened out. Holding the gun had calmed me.

  I took a step forward, looking in the window. The voice hadn’t sounded too close, but I couldn’t be sure.

  The room inside the window was empty except for a moth-eaten blanket in one corner and an empty six pack of Bud Light.

  Clutching my weapon, I kept moving.

  “Griffin?” said the man. “That you? Did you miss me? Your old jailhouse pal?”

  He was in the front of the house. I could hear that now. I quickened my movement, heading up to the corner.

  “I missed you. I missed everything about you.”

  He was just around the corner. I lifted the gun, took a deep breath.

  And whipped around the front of the house, gun first.

  He was as tall as Griffin, maybe taller. He was wearing a clingy white tank top that showed off all his muscles. His arms were covered in winding tattoos. He was sneering, but he was surprised to see me. “You?”

  “Where’s Naomi?” I said.

  “Where’s Griffin?” he countered, taking a step towards me.

  “Hold it,” I said. “I will shoot you.”

  He laughed. “You really aren’t that scary, blondie.”

  I squeezed the trigger.

  Motherfucking safety was still on. I disengaged it, feeling flustered.

  He was really laughing now, still walking towards me. “Come on, now. Why don’t you just put down that gun, and—”

  I pulled the trigger again.

  The gun kicked in my hand and the sound exploded through the air.

  The man gurgled, his expression stricken. His hands were clutching his neck.

  I could see that he was bleeding, blood gushing from his throat. I grimaced, feeling sick. I’d just shot a man.

  He gazed at the blood on his hand in disbelief.

  I took a step away from him.

  He reached for me with his bloody hand, staring at me, pleading with his eyes for me to do something.

  I put my hand over my mouth. Oh. Oh God.

  He fell to his knees, one hand still clutching his throat.

  Then he fell face down on the porch of the abandoned house, thudding against the old wood.

  I was shaking. I lowered my gun. I walked around his body and into the abandoned house. “Naomi?”

  I heard her cry out, but her voice was muffled.

  I followed the noise until I found her. She was tied up just like she had been in the picture. I knelt next to her. “Oh God, Naomi, I am so sorry.”

  I pulled the duct tape away from her mouth.

  She shrieked.

  “Sorry,” I said again, wincing.

  “Leigh? What the fuck is going on?”

  I got to work untying her. “It’s complicated, Naomi. I don’t really know, but we need to get out of here, okay?”

  “Are the police with you?” she said.

  “No,” I said. “We can call them, though.” Or... Should I do that? I’d just killed a man with a gun that I didn’t have a permit to own. “Well, maybe
we shouldn’t call them.”

  Her hands were free, and she helped me work on the knots at her feet. “Why not?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  I helped her to her feet. “You’re okay, right? You’re okay?”

  “No,” she said. “That man kidnapped me and tied me up and hit me over the head.” She touched the wound on her forehead. “I’m the farthest thing from okay there is.”

  “Right,” I said. “Well, let’s get you back to my apartment so that you can get cleaned up, okay?”

  “Your apartment? Leigh, I want to go to the hospital. I want to file a police report against that asshole, and I want him locked up. And I want—”

  “He’s dead,” I said. I led her out of the house, onto the porch. His body was lying there. His blood was soaking into the wooden boards. There was a lot of blood.

  “Oh my God, Leigh,” said Naomi. “What happened?”

  “I shot him,” I said.

  Naomi backed away from me. “You what?”

  I looked back at the man. “I had to.” I turned to her. “I don’t like killing people, but he was hurting you, and he was threatening Griffin, and—”

  “You killed people before?”

  “Only one,” I said.

  “Only...” She shook her head very slowly, horror all over her face.

  I gulped. “Naomi, please. We have to get out of here. And we can’t go to the police, because I’m not supposed to have this gun.”

  Of course, there was the little problem of the fact that I’d reported all of this to them earlier that night. How was I going to get around that? Tell them it was all a misunderstanding? This was a mess. I had no idea what to do.

  Naomi took a shaky breath. Then her eyes rolled up in her head, and she fell to the ground. She’d fainted.

  * * *

  Naomi was wrapped in a blanket, sitting on my couch. She’d let me clean and bandage the cut on her forehead. She seemed fairly calm. She was taking most of this okay. “So, you’re saying that Griffin used to be an assassin.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “He worked for a secret wing of an arms corporation. But last year, we shut them down, so I don’t know who this guy was. He said something about jail, so maybe he didn’t have anything to do with Op Wraith. Maybe he was someone who was in jail with Griffin.”

  “Griffin was in jail?”

  “Yeah, when he was a kid. He robbed a store with a toy gun and got tried as an adult.”

  “In jail. An assassin.”

  I nodded. Maybe she really wasn’t taking it all that well after all.

  “How can you not think you’re lucky to be free of that man?” She shook her head.

  I bit my lip. “You want more tea?”

  “I want you to explain to me how this relates to me. Why did he kidnap me?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I didn’t get a chance to ask him.”

  “Before you blew his head off.”

  I looked away. “He was dangerous. He threatened to kill you if Griffin didn’t get in touch with him. I had to do what I did.”

  “You could have called the police,” she said. “Why didn’t you call the police?”

  “Well, I did, but then they left, and I thought that they hadn’t been much help, so I might as well check it out on my own, and then...”

  “And then you killed someone.” She set down her tea on my coffee table. “And you don’t even seem the least bit upset about it.”

  “I am,” I said. “I think I’m... in shock.” I hugged myself. I wished Griffin was here. He would know what to do. I had no idea.

  “And now you want me to lie about what happened,” she said. “You want me to tell some story to the police.”

  “Just tell them that you heard a shot, and you managed to get away, and you ran to my house. That’s all. It’s not that much of a lie. You only don’t know who shot him.” To me, this seemed perfectly reasonable. I looked at her hopefully. “Sisters unite?”

  “Fuck you,” she said.

  I looked at the ceiling. “If you don’t, I could get in trouble for killing that guy.”

  “You did kill that guy.” Her voice broke.

  I turned back to her. “I am so, so sorry, Naomi. I thought this was over. Last year, Griffin and I took care of everyone who was after us, everyone who was trying to kill us. If I thought for one second that I wasn’t safe, I never would have become friends with you. If I thought that I was putting you in danger, I swear to God—”

  “Leigh, I seriously have no idea what you’re fucking talking about.”

  I got up and sat down next to her on the couch. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. This happened to you because of me, and I’m just glad you’re okay.”

  She let out a noisy breath. “Well, I wouldn’t be, I guess, if you hadn’t saved me. If you hadn’t...” She turned to me, grabbing my hands. “Did he teach you how to do that? Did he teach you how to kill?”

  I knew she meant Griffin. I didn’t say anything.

  “He did, didn’t he?” She squeezed my fingers. “He wasn’t a good boyfriend, Leigh.”

  I swallowed. “Are you going to tell the police what I did?”

  She gazed into my eyes. “I...”

  “Please, Naomi.”

  “I guess not.”

  I hugged her. “Thank you.”

  She hugged me back. “Sisters unite.”

  We held onto each other for several minutes. Then we broke apart. There were tears in my eyes. I’d come so close to losing her. “I can’t believe this happened to you. It’s because of me.”

  “Because of Griffin, you mean. Isn’t that who the guy wanted?”

  “Same thing,” I said.

  “Are you an ex-assassin? Were you in jail?” she asked pointedly. “None of this is your fault. It’s Griffin’s.”

  “You don’t understand,” I said. “It’s complicated.”

  “So you keep saying,” she said. She sighed. “But it’s over, isn’t it? You killed that guy, and it’s over.”

  “Yeah.” It was over, wasn’t it? “Look, you should stay here tonight. In the morning—”

  “That’s pretty much now,” said Naomi, gesturing to the window.

  She was right. Outside, the sky was splintered with the dawn. The sun would be coming up in a few minutes. I rubbed my face. “Wow. And here I was, wanting a drink. I guess it’s officially too early, huh?”

  “Screw it,” she said. “You got some marshmallow vodka in that freezer of yours?”

  “You know it,” I said, getting up and going to the kitchen. I brought back the bottle and handed it to her. “You don’t need a glass or anything, do you?”

  She laughed, but it was strained. Unscrewing the cap, she upended the vodka into her mouth, taking a big gulp. She swallowed, made a little face, shivered, and handed the bottle to me.

  I followed suit.

  We watched the sunrise together in silence, passing the vodka bottle back and forth. I wasn’t sure what else there was to say. The liquor burned its way into my stomach, lighting me up inside and making the rest of the world just a little blurry around the edges.

  * * *

  I woke up to the poke of cold metal at the base of my skull, a deep voice whispering in my ear, “You need to call Griffin.”

  Naomi and I had passed out on the couch together, exhausted and half drunk. I opened my eyes to make sure she was okay.

  She was still asleep, curled up on the other side of the couch. I could see her out of the corner of my eye. If I turned the other direction, I could see tattooed skin. He was beside me, his arm around my shoulders, pinning me against his body. He had a gun at my neck.

  “You’re not dead,” I said.

  That could only mean one thing. The serum. This guy had it. The serum was a weapon that my father’s company Dewhurst-McFarland had developed to make supersoldiers. A guy named Bart Caldwell had gotten hold of it and used the serum to make his
own army of assassins for hire. Griffin had been one of those assassins. This guy was probably one too.

  The fact that he had the gun at the back of my neck and not at my head cinched it. I had the serum too. And that meant that the only way to kill me was to cut my spinal cord and keep the wound from healing. He had the gun against the most vulnerable part of my body.

  That was why this guy wasn’t dead after all. I’d shot him, but he had the serum. So, he’d healed.

  “You’re a terrible shot, sweetheart,” said the man.

  I didn’t think so. I was fairly sure that I’d killed him. But his voice was gravelly and scratchy, and there was still blood all over him. Was it possible that I’d only wounded him?

  “Are you Op Wraith or what?”

  The man just laughed. “Call Griffin.”

  “I can’t.”

  “The hell you can’t. I can see your damned phone on the coffee table.”

  “I don’t know his phone number. I haven’t seen him in months.”

  “Bullshit. Don’t try that with me. I got good intelligence that the two of you are hot and heavy.”

  “We broke up.” I wish I’d taken the time to cut this man’s spinal cord back at the abandoned house. Just to be sure. But I hadn’t even thought about it. What the hell was wrong with me? Some guy was after Griffin, and I didn’t even think that it was likely he had the serum? What? Was I too stupid to live or what?

  “You broke up.”

  “Yes.” I looked at Naomi. No, I was being too hard on myself. I didn’t know what I was doing. Griffin was the one who was trained for this kind of stuff. And she was right. He’d gotten me into this mess. This was his problem, not mine.

  “I don’t buy it. You’re protecting him.”

  “I’m not,” I said. “I don’t know where he is.” Was I going to be able to convince this guy of that? Somehow, I didn’t think I was. I was going to have to figure out some way to take him down. But how? If I moved, he’d shoot me.

  The man laughed. “I get it, sweetheart. You’re willing to sacrifice yourself for him. But how about your friend?”

  And then he wasn’t holding onto me anymore.

  I got off the couch as quickly as I could. Where was my gun?