Trained by the Mafia

Chapter 30: Ranger

SAM'S POV

I ran and ran and ran; 'till my lungs were aching desperately for oxygen. I ran through the woods, I figured out that the house where I was, was completely surrounded by trees, to allow its owners privacy and safety. Branches of all kinds were scratching my face, my legs, my arms, making running away extremely difficult but mostly painful.

Pain, that was all I could feel at the moment; both physical but mostly mental. My head was screaming that it was the best thing for everyone continuing with their lives without me. However, my heart was sending me images of them, the only people that I truly loved after my parents.

I came to a stop, a cliff in front of me, finally catching my breath. Love really hurts, but I was convinced that without me they would have been happier and safer without all of my problems. I shouldn't have thought about living as a normal person, I shouldn't have even considered it; normality, I didn't even know what it meant.

I wasn't made for that, I wasn't born to be happy; Miguel's was right, I don't deserve to be happy at all. Maybe...maybe I've made a mistake running away from Him and Carlos, from the Assassins, from what was my real identity.

What was I even thinking back then?! To finally live happily when I've murdered thousands and thousands of people?! How could I even think about that with all of the phantoms that haunted my sleep? A lot of thoughts were running through my head at the moment, and let me tell you that they weren't happy ones.

I took, unconsciously, a step forward, a few inches divided me from certain death and I would have made another step if a pair of arms didn't pull me backward. I widened my eyes, finally coming to my senses, and realized what I was doing and succeeding if the Good Samaritan didn't stop me.

"You're fine, you're okay now" a voice, which I couldn't recognize came muffled to my ears. "Deep breaths, can you hear me? Take deep breaths boy!" it continued.

All I could think of was what I barely managed to do; I would have killed myself, I would...I...

A slap resonated to my ears, pain spreaded on my cheek. My breath slowed down and I felt my body calming down a bit so that my vision came back and the thoughts stopped. That was...unexpected but it helped me come to my senses and into reality again.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry but it was the only thing that came to my mind; Dave always says to not hit anyone, he'll be so pissed" I heard a feminine voice say, almost panicking.

I looked at her, wide eyes, not believing how someone as little as her had pulled me back and slapped me with such force. I mean...she really was small, I had to lower my head to see her face and I wasn't even that tall. She seemed really scared of having hurt me with that slap and was mortified about it.

"It's okay, relax, you helped me come to my senses so I'm grateful" I said, trying to calm her down and that seemed to do the trick.

We stayed in silence for a while, studying each other from head to toe; until a thought came to my mind. The house was supposed to be in the middle of nothing, there shouldn't be anyone around here even if it's a public forest or whatever it is called.

"Why are you here?" I asked, rather harshly even if I didn't mean to.

"I'm a Ranger, see?" she said, pointing at her jacket, noticing only now that she had an emblem of the US forest service.

Why didn't I notice it before? I was good at looking at details of each person, it helped me understand what kind of person it was but...that little piece of information slipped through my mind. That made me realize that I wasn't looking at her or well I was but not connecting what I was seeing with my brain. My mind was focused on something else...on certain people that I was expecting to see but that weren't here.