When the right time comes

20: Gift

⚠️ Warning: Gore ahead! 

Screams of pain echoed in his ears. Even the walls couldn't contain them within it. Jimmy inhaled numbly, sitting in the dim chamber of his boss and in front of his supposed clients. They were drinking, analysing Jimmy half the way. He didn't join them to drink. He knows how alcohol can be dangerous at times, especially when he has to put all his concentration wisely around him. 

A short while after, his boss came out of the secret door on the wall of the chamber. His silky white inner shirt soaked in blood and gloved hands carried a freshly cut thumb to the table. 

There was a wave of shock jolting up Jimmy's spine. How much gore he watched, that sight still gave him chills. The owner of the thumb was a former partner of the clients sitting in front of him. It was just a business deal. He refused to do it. But they only needed his thumb. Now it is here on the table, cleaned at the edge and smeared ink to be pressed in the documents. That's the price the man who just wanted Jimmy's company had to give for buying him food and alcohol.

After finishing with the business, they tossed that piece of flesh to the plate of offals of their side dishes. A cut finger on the pile of bones and chewed meat. Jimmy stared at it blankly.

“Tsk, tsk… What to do? He likes it the hard way.” One of the clients who did the ordeal said as he leaned back to the couch to a comfortable position after wiping the blood residues on his fingers in a tissue. He tossed it on the table and didn't hesitate to pour a drink and drink it right away as if he didn't hold a piece of raw flesh a moment ago within that same hand which holds the glass now. “Thanks, Knox. You made this easier for us.” 

The boss smiles, taking a seat beside Jimmy and putting a hand around his shoulder. “You should thank this devil here instead of me, John. He is the one who lured that bastard here.” 

Jimmy was shook by him as an appreciation. Though Jimmy tried to smile, he couldn't. He has been starting to feel guilty about what he had done. That man was good to him. Luring him out wasn't anything difficult but for some reasons, what he did was contradictory to his own beliefs. Now that man was here, suffering as a result of believing him.

“So, these are the papers you have to deal with.” The other client said, extending a fresh bunch of papers to Jimmy and breaking the bubble of his thoughts. He is older than the John guy and has a not so perfect shape and baldness peeking from under the hair strips that he combed in a way in order to hide it. 

Jimmy accepted it with a stoic face and checked it. That was a medical report. 

“You just have to take the thumb impression of that doctor in these papers and take a copy of these before putting the original one in his office instead of the report there. Remember, the copy should be brought to us and there should be no originals of the report that is now in that doctor’s hands.”

Jimmy gave a once over to the client. 

“You sound like it is the easiest thing to do. I have checked him several times. Most of the time he would be in hospital, surrounded by a bunch of idiots all the time. It is definitely nothing easy.”

The client raised an eyebrow in surprise at how he talked back. John and him shared a silent glance before turning their attention to him again.

“Got it. You will have four weeks.” John adjusted in his seat. “You have to take it at any cost. If you fail in the mission, be ready to bear the consequences.” Their threatening gaze almost bored a hole in Jimmy, who looked back at them in the same intensity. 

The air around them thickened as the hold of his boss on Jimmy's shoulder. 

“I hope you didn't forget that I'm still here.”