Contract

Chapter 2: Contract-Rilee

Rilee's P.O.V

I only heard about Rawen's mugging attempt in the morning. I was completely unsurprised by the result. Fortunately the muggers were only badly injured, not dead, and it was decided that Rawen wouldn't have to appear in court.

I offered to go to his house and comfort him, not that he would need it, but because it was the right thing to do. Strangely, he didn't seem too keen on me coming over. I didn't push it; I wouldn't be keen on him coming over to my house. It's hard enough hiding my job from the police, but keeping it from my best friend was nearly impossible. Many times I thought about telling him, but that would get me killed before the sun went down. The Fluellen Warriors had no tolerance for mistakes. He'd probably hate me anyway if I told him. He had seen his fare share of war, things so gruesome I didn't want to remember them, but he would never hurt anyone for no reason. Or so I thought.

I grabbed my Samsung Galaxy Alpha off if my wooden bedside table, I saw a message from Rawen.

Rawen: Hey, don't worry about coming over, I'm fine :)

Me: Sure?

Rawen: Yep. Why don't we go to Cherry's again?

Me: Sounds good!

Rawen: I'll text the others. Gtg, chat later.

Me: Cheers!

I climbed out of my velvety bed, and searched my light grey room for my MacBook Pro, which I found on my desk.

I lay back down on my bed, opened my laptop and punched in the 16 character password. I changed it every month. The hair I left on the enter key was still there, no one had been on it. I checked my emails; all of them were junk mail, and went back to the homepage. That was what I actually needed to do. My wallpaper was a picture of Rawen and I, along with the rest of Charlie Company on a roof looking over Iraq. We had successfully taken down an enemy stronghold that day, my beaming smile paid tribute to that. I glanced at the left side of the screen, laying my eyes on Private Robert Shane. He was fully equipped in his gear, except his glasses. This meant only one thing.

There was another job. I sigh; that's two in one week, much more than usual. I got back on my phone, and went into Rawen's chat.

Me: Hey, why don't we go somewhere fancy? We went to Cherry's just the other day, let's treat Erin if she is better.

Rawen replied a half an hour later, agreeing with me.

*****

6 P.M

Before leaving home, I set my laptop exactly 6.4 inches from one end of my desk, end 2.6 from the other. I replaced the hair on the enter key, and locked my house. I placed another hair on the door handle, it was old-school but it worked.

I walked alone up the road towards Rawen's house. Sure there was a mugging attempt just a yesterday, but I can take care of myself. I knocked on his door, he opened it in a couple seconds. He was wearing a navy blue pair of pants, a white collared shirt and a waistcoat. His orange hair was slicked back neatly, he pulled a snobbish frowning face, which made me laugh. I was wearing a black pair of pants, with a white shirt and a snazzy suit, if I do say so myself.

We walked up the road for a couple miles until we came up to The Square, the biggest mall in town. We worked our way up to the fourth (and highest) floor, before walking into La Deliziosa, a lovely little Italian restaurant. I handed my suit to a small Italian wolf, his name was Alfonso, but I pretended I didn't know that. We took our seat by the window, along with Christy, Erin and Xen. I was glad to see Erin was better; she had a terrible cold.

I ordered a kind of tomato puree and pasta, the name of which I didn't bother to remember.

The night ended up being spectacular, well, for the others. I couldn't get the thoughts of earlier events out of my mind. Contracting was a good business, exhilarating. Sure I got to play with some awesome toys. But I couldn't shake away the thoughts of what is easy doing. I had been in the business since Rawen left for the Spetznas. That's four years worth of murdering. I got on average a job a month, sometimes more. That means I've murdered 48+ people. All the sadness, the pain, the suffering, the hopelessness I had seen and experienced was just bottled up inside of me. I couldn't keep on with it, I'd go mental. If I wasn't already. Soon the bottle would burst, but I couldn't afford that now. I stuffed all of this down and tried to enjoy the evening, but it was hopeless.

The bill came, I paid for it. I was actually quite wealthy, although I couldn't show it without arousing suspicion. I collected my suit from Alfonso, and walked home with Rawen. The rest had brought a car, and anyway they lived in the opposite direction. Rawen dropped me off, I watched the striking dragon walk out of sight before checking that the hair was still on the handle. It was.

I put in my new key, since Rawen had broken the last lock (I replaced it earlier) and unlocked the door.

Instinctively I went upstairs and checked that no one had been on my laptop, no one had.

I lay on my bed and pulled out my phone, went into Clash of Clans and left my clan. I searched 'Mabula', and found a clan with that exact name. I joined it, requested for troops, and left as soon as someone donated something to me. Now that they knew I had collected the contract information, I closed the game.

I took off my suit, and surgically slit open the stitching of the lining at the bottom of my left sleeve. I found a thin piece of paper neatly folded in the sleeve. My heart was racing, I had done this many times before, but this time it felt different. I couldn't find equilibrium, even though I was normally the master of my emotions.

I put my sweating hands on each end of the paper, and opened it.

2007, July 3rd

8 Years ago

Iraq

It was my first op. I was told to provide sniper support for Whiskey Company, with some guy named Rawen. I was excited, and to be honest, shit scared as well. When I first met Rawen, he scared me to death. He was huge. A dragon, too. "Don't mess with me" was written all over him. He was 23, I was just 19.

We worked our way up to the sniper's nest without any hassle. He appointment me as spotter, doubting my shooting skills. I doubted myself too. I had never seen battle before, I didn't even know if I had the balls to pull the trigger on someone. The overwatch was uneventful, a buzzkill for my first day at the office, until we got up to leave the building. Some patient motherfucker had been watching us the whole time, waiting for us to leave before letting loose his RPG. It smashed into the building, knocking me off my feet. Rawen gave me his hand to lift me up, as I was about to take it an insurgent leapt up the stairs and shot Rawen in the chest. The dragon fell back, just as I unloaded a 9mm bullet into the insurgent's chest. But I wasn't fast enough. Rawen was bleeding badly; a bullet from an AK47 hits hard. His face was contorted with pain. I ran over to him, I needed to treat his wound. Fast. I took off his light armor, the bullet had gone straight through it. There was a red hole in his shirt, the red was spreading. I grabbed my knife, and held it to his shirt. My heart was racing, I didn't know if he was going to survive. Would I be able to save him? Would he blame me if I could? Or worse, if I couldn't? All this ran through my mind as I cut open his shirt to treat his wound.

Current day

The volatile mixture of emotions I had been through on July 3rd, 2007 flowed through me like a hurricane.

Fortunately I could save Rawen that day. Fortunately he didn't blame me. I opened the paper, knowing in my gut that it was bad.

At the top of the letter, in bold letters stood the name:

Target: Richard Cosly