Legacy // H.S

10.

'We live and then we die as one

Yeah, we all live under the same sun

*

Just a few more metres. Over there by the gate. That's as far as I need to go, then I can finish for the night. Maybe have a bath with some Epsom salts, Harry close behind me until we fall asleep in each other's arms as we do every night.

Just a few more metres.

In the days since our meeting at the new warehouse, Claude has helped put me on a strict workout routine to get my strength up. Most of it is there, it just needs to be refined so I'm able to pull off some more of the daring attacks should I need them. This is my first day attempting it, and it appears to be harder than I thought.

A few laps around the gardens, circuit training, stretches, weights. Everything I'm not used to and despise. I would work out sporadically before this, only if I felt like it or was pressured into it by friends. But the new reality I live in requires the peak of fitness if I'm to make it out alive. The people I'll like find myself up against are twice my size in height and muscle weight. They could snap me like a twig, and some almost have. The only times I've escaped have been out of luck.

We can't rely on luck anymore, though. Luck won't protect us, not in this war. Only our bodies and minds can do that. We must think fast and be quick on our feet. In many ways, it feels like we're training as a regiment, all of us waiting for the day we're called to battle and cementing our fate in the history books.

I wonder how the young men felt when they were told they were to fight in the deadliest of lands throughout the twentieth century. The countless wars that cost millions of lives, all dependant on the young soldiers that didn't have a choice in being there. We don't have a choice, but we could still run farther towards some type of freedom than any of those that came before us.

It could happen at any moment, the final toll of the bell. Ringing in the night as we rest in our slumber, dreaming of peace and safety, only to be ripped from its sanctity and thrown into hell. The demons will attack, but no God can save us.

No, we rely on ourselves, on each other.

Harry doesn't like the idea of me running around the neighbourhood on my own, though. He would have joined me today if it weren't for a meeting with Claude and Liam. Belly is set to come round this evening as Toby has conveniently decided to take a trip out of town for 'work', meaning we're due to go over some more insider information on him.

Instead, I've been jogging around the exterior of the house for the past hour or so, feet as dizzy as my clouded mind while the sweat drips from my head and down my neck. The hair around my face sticks to my skin and my clothes seem to be melded to my body, but the end is in sight. Just a few more metres, and I can end today's session.

Although it pains every limb in my body to even participate in such extensive exercise, it's at least given me something to distract myself with. Not just from the chaos surrounding us but also the subsequent change in routine.

Only a few weeks ago did I finally hand in my notice at the store, citing grief from the loss of my father and wanting time to travel and explore my choices. My boss wasn't surprised given how few days I'd been reduced down to in the week, but Cathy seemed to find the whole thing unsettling. She tried to reason with me while I stood in the office with the sheet of paper in my hand, but no words could encourage me to stay.

It boils down to safety. While I loved my job, even as I continued working on the heist, it was no longer a place I could guarantee my security. After Hugo came in and shot me, and the events that followed the team after, it was settled that I'd be better off leaving it and taking away one of the targets for the Charles family.