Target Down - The Ghost Assassin

Really?

The  rest of the week keeps my mind occupied in anticipation for Friday. My close circle of friends think my excitement is for the up coming camping weekend on school grounds.

It's not.

I have other plans.

"So, what time are we hooking up to set up our tents?" Nathan, practically jumping for joy asks our little group.

Cheyenne puts a finger to her cheek to think before answering him. "Let's say 4?"

Mila slings an arm around her and agrees before all three pairs of eyes are on me.

Not really focusing on the discussion at hand, my eyes are leering the road to my house while my mind is wondering about my mother's work schedule this weekend.

" Sky!" All three of their voices reverberate around me at the same time.

"Huh? Oh yeah, sorry guys. I won't be able to do the whole camping thing this weekend. Mom, hasn't really been in a good mood so she didn't sign the permission slip." I inform them, squelshing my face up in the best fake look of disappointment as I can possibly muster." But maybe I can sneak in later tonight to make sure you three are behaving. " I add with side smirk.

They all laugh and agree to see me much much later and we all head our separate ways. Cheyenne giving me a lift back home. This time I needed it. There is no time to waste today.

As I walk into the house, I see my mother coming down the stairs in her uniform.

"Oh Angel." She starts as her feet come to the bottom of the staircase, her arms outstretched towards me, coming in for a hug. "Looks like it's going to be one those weekends, the ones that make feel guilty for leaving you on your own for too long."

I smile innocently back her as her hug ends and she pulls away from me.

"Mom, it's ok. Really." I half chuckle to her. Knowing full well that this is totally going to work in my favor.

"I feel bad always leaving you alone. I should be home more." she starts off on one of her, maybe I should quite, speeches, but before she gets too far into it I cut her short.

"Please don't!" I rush through ny words. "You at home doing nothing will drive me to drinking or drugs." I add, dripping with sarcasm.

My mother just laughs. She knows. She is well aware of how much of a busy body she is and the thought of her not doing anything would just turn a soap opera tragic.

" Ok, well I'm heading out. I'll see you in the morning and..."

"Yes Mom. House rules. I know." I joke with her as she heads out the door. Again, she comes barreling back in and places a kiss on my forehead.

"Love you my Angel." She adds, retreating back through the door again.

With the sound of my mother locking the door, I spin and high tale it up to my room, where I once again grab and open my laptop.

Halfway through the video I note down hurriedly the directions my father gives. I close my laptop. Change into something comfortable. Grab my backpack, keys and a bottle of water and run out the door, paper in hand.

Half way down the road, I haul out my phone and open Google maps and type in the directions my father gave me.

I have no idea where I'm going and the only thing I know is that I'm looking for a "stash", his stash. Something my father has left for me and only me.

I follow Googles directions, which seems pretty easy to follow. Doesn't look too far away either which is a bonus. I can ne back even before dusk colours come out.

As I walk, I keep a watchful eye out. My nerves making feel like I'm in some conspiracy theory movie, where someone is out there somewhere watching my every move. Paranoid much? The area seems pretty normal, same as the street I live in. Medium sized gardens all well kept and green with multi coloured bushes and flowers at the edges. Families moving around in their homes behind the open curtained windows, some standing by their doorways greeting the visitors who have just pulled up in their driveways.

Normal.

I chuckle to myself as I walk. Normal. What is normal? Is normal defined as something expected of you by ways of advertized social standards or is it something as individual as how you have been raised?

Because let's be honest for a second. Looking around at all these other families, how normal is it for a fourteen year old girl to walk through a neighborhood looking for a stash of god knows what that her father has hidden for her? I smile as I forge on.

A couple more turns down some random streets eventually brings me apon what looks to be an overgrown plot with nothing more than a single rusty, dilapidated tin shack towards the back of the property. No fenses, no gates and completely forgotten about.

I turn cautiously in all directions to make sure nobody is watching. The last thing I need is for someone to think I'm up to no good and call the cops.

I pause to imagine how that sort of conversation would go down with my mother after I surreptitiously avoided her house rules speach. I laugh to myself, well at least I could tell her that I did mention drinking and drugs.

With one more look around, I thread my way through the long grass and weeds towards the shack. I notice that at the front there is no door so I circle slowly around it and find a hole at the bottom of one of the panels, not really a wall. I grimace but duck down and weasel my way through the hole, seeing as though that's the only opening I could find.

A bit freaked out, I press my back up against the panel I've just crawled through and yank my backpack onto my pulled up knees and start rummaging through it's contents. I let out a breath when my hand comes into contact with the circular, metal handle of my flashlight.

Taking in another cautious breath I press down on the flashlights 'on' button and let the light illuminate my surroundings.

The inside looks just as bad as the outside, long weeds matting the floor of the shack, only with a few added wooden planks piled up in the middle making it look like someone was trying their hand at a life size game of pick-up-sticks.

"Ok Sky..." I give myself some much needed encouragement. "We're here. Now what?"

I get up and start looking around the place.

"What am I looking for, dad?" I half whisper to the pile of wood.

Shining the flashlight around for another five minutes and shifting planks as quietly as I can in this dark tin shack, I spot a matt canvas bag burried under healthy growing weeds, with a couple of miffy planks hiding its obviousness.

A few more silent humphs and hauls of the miffed planks, I dig my fingers into the side of the canvas and yank the bag free. I scan the flashlight over the bag which by the way is heavier than I thought it looked, I smile.

"Hello stash." I say triumphantly to no-one. I head back towards the hole I came in through and settle down. I pinch the flashlight in the crook of my neck, holding it there with the side of my jaw and search for the zip on the canvas bag.

The zip is rough and opens with jagged tugs. Looks like this has been here a while, I think with each tug. Eventually the zip gives way and I flip open the top of the bag.

Confusion hits me square in the face as it would with any idiot who's expecting something more cloak and dagger as my eyes land on a batch of cds within the bag.

"Cds? Seriously, dad?" I say slightly annoyed that it's not a gun or a set of family airloom knives.

With that annoyance I zip the bag closed and shove it through the hole in the tin panel and follow it out the shack. I dust myself off and sling both bags over my should and Google my way back home.

Highly annoyed.