Hitting on the hitman

Insane. (23)

The door clicked, I guessed he unlocked it so I pushed the handle down and sure enough it opened and I swallowed as I fixed my eyes on the floor stepping in and shutting the door behind me.

Gathering my courage I looked up, my gaze fixed on Lucas' slumped figure, tired and heavy in a black blouse that hugged his body. He sat at a desk leaning on his hand with a pen in his other. Piles of papers in front of him, the room dimly lit but a lamp beside him, his eyes had heavy darkness around them and looked brown in the light. Like the life had drained out of him. His skin was so pale I wondered if he was dead.

He blinked away his weakness and sat up.

Then my eyes searched the room around him and my chest felt tight. It was a small square room, empty, apart from the desk and chair, but the walls were filled, cluttered and littered with pictures and pins, words, red, black, blue, string of all colours. linking and spreading across the room like a map.

There were too many pictures to count, thousands maybe hundreds of thousands, newspaper articles that dated back to even the eighteen hundreds, names and words, some men crossed out, like a target executed, but the string wrapped around it all, spreading like spider webs squeezing his mind.

I had never seen him so much, now I realised why he hadn't brought me down here. It was madness, a maze of confusion.

Was this everything that ran through his head?

A sharp, fast tapping sound hit my ears as I realised Lucas scowled at me with irritation, tapping his pen impatiently as I stood there like a muppet.

"Can I help you?" He growled.

"I-" My throat grew dry. The room was so dark, so painfully quiet.

He scowled once more before looking at the papers on his desk and beginning to write.

"I'm busy, Jess." He coldly stated his eyes scanning side to side as he glared at the paper in front of him blinking back his exhaustion.

"Hunter said you never come out of here, that you work all night." I swallowed and his head shot up. "Why?"

He looked me up and down, "Because I have a job to do."

"What, this?" I grumbled eyeing the madness that surrounded him he looked up at me with a glare and I shifted uncomfortably before he went back to his papers.

"I already told Max I'll start you're training in a couple of hours, so why are you here?"

"Hunter told me to drag you out of here before you go mad," I mumbled.

He put his pen down and ran his hands over his face taking a deep breath.

"And if Hunter told you to jump off a cliff would you do it?" He growled.

"No-"

"Get the fuck out, Jess." He hissed, rattled up like a snake shaking its tail.

"You're the one who insists I stay. So you should make up your god damn mind." I hissed back.

"Yes, yes I do because if Leo suspects you that will be my fault." He ran his hand's through his dark hair, almost black in the lighting.

Guilt pangs through me.

He did promise to protect me, maybe this is him fulfilling that promise?

My eyes fixed on his shaking leg underneath the table.

"Maybe you shouldn't worry about the training thing, we can do that another time, I think you should get some sleep-"

"I've had plenty of sleep."

My muscles squeeze tense inside me.

"Why didn't you show me this place?" I paused, "It's insane."

"Yeah, well."

"How the hell does this even exist?"

He stared at the desk in front of him, eyes fixed like he was stuck in some bad dream. "My parents were cops, FBI, agents. Whatever you want to call it. They had it built."

"You told me they were business people."

"Same thing."

"Not really..." Then it hit me. "What did they build this for?"

His eyes flickered up at me before glaring back down.

"The mafia."

"You told me they died in a car crash..."

"They did."

"Then why the hell are you so determined to stop the mafia, and why do you hate the police if your parents were cops?"

His eyes glazed over, he didn't look up at me, he just stared at the floor. His face blank, but it flinched like he was hit with a hundred memories slapping him round the face all at once.

Why did my knees feel so weak seeing that look on his face?