Lucky

PROLOGUE: CHASE

Death

I've seen a lot of it.

The terror in a man's expression as he drowns in gas, burning from the inside out, the pain on a persons face when they step on a landmine, the sadness in someone's eyes when their friend gets shot to pieces in front of them and there's nothing they can do to help.

The sound of agony ripping from the mouth of a soldier who's lost his leg, the crying of a wife who no longer has a husband and the screaming of a mother who has lost her only son.

I've seen it all.

I left home when I was 19 to join the army. I got shot for the first time a year later on my first tour in Afghanistan. I never told anyone, I didn't want to leave on my first week of proper service so I got a pair of pliers we'd used to cut a rusting fence earlier that afternoon and pulled the bullet out myself. How it didn't get infected I'll never know.

3 moths after I got shot it happened once again in the shoulder and again the next year in the back. It hurt like a bitch I'll tell you that now but each time I got i sorted myself because no matter how many soldiers you have around you, however many guys claim to love you like a brother you're alone and you're as good as dead if you show any kind of weakness.

I spent 3 years in the army, 1 of those in basic training and the other in Afghanistan, I didn't visit home once. I turned 22 and held a gun to my head as I thought about all the members of my platoon that didn't make it this far. That didn't even get to 20, so why the fuck am I still alive.

I might look the same from when I left bar the tattoos on my arms and back, but I'm certainly a different person than the one I was 4 years ago.

I'm a hit-man now 'il salariato' they call me. The hired man.

I'm a contract killer, I'm given Money to take the lives of those who piss of anyone that's got enough cash to spend on hiring me to kill them.

35 so far. That's how many people I've killed this year.  I don't feel guilty or sorry. It gives me something to do in the day and at night I lay awake so that I don't have to close my eyes and relive the horror of the war. Pathetic...I know.

When I go to kill people they know who I am by the tattoo on my wrist, right above my pulse. Their eyes usually widen with fear as they piece together what's happening to them. Scrambling to get away or screaming for help. Of course that never works.

When I left for the war a girl gave me a pendant of sorts with a four leaf clover hanging on the end of it. I promised her that one day I'd come back and return it to her. I did. Kind of.

I sent it to her In an envelope 3 days after I began my active service. To have a piece of her with me felt.....wrong. She's too innocent to have any part of her near a place like war. Gunfire and death.

I got the tattoo so I'd still have the luck but I wouldn't feel....bad about it.

It's a four leaf clover and it's the only tattoo I have that means anything to me.

It was for her.

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I'm not sure how much I like this but here you go guys.

What do you think so far?

Love y'all