The Mistakes and Memories of Edward Townsend

Buenos Aires, Argentina

"Tell me, Abigail," Edward pants as he and Abby sprint furiously down one dark alley of many they've traversed in this city. "Why the bloody hell is it that we always get ourselves knee-deep in trouble every time we're in Buenos Aires?"

They skid on their heels as they turn a sharp corner, but they have to take off as quickly as they stop because Edward's at least seventy five percent sure that the three men with the AK-47s are still behind them. That changes to one hundred and ten percent when Abby opens her mouth to speak and the ear-splitting sound of rapidly-fired bullets burying themselves into a faded wooden fence.

Gripping her shoulders, Edward forces Abby to duck down as the bullets fly above her head, and practically drags her out of harm. She wrestles her arm away from him as they continue to run through the uncomfortably snug alley littered with smashed beer bottles and assorted trash, muttering the worse version of the word "crap" in at least five different languages.

"That's not an answer!" Edward says tightly.

"Oh, right," Abby snipes, leaping gracefully over a fallen trash can, "because I'm supposed to give you a lengthy, well-worded answer worthy of a presidential address when we're being chased by heavily armed Circle members!"

Yes, Circle members. The cells of the Circle of Cavan are still alive and well in the dark, gloomy, gang-controlled area of Buenos Aires, amassing large quantities of semi-automatic weapons that flowed from what was the Delauhunt heir to the Italian Mafia of the biggest city in Argentina. Edward and Abby are here to end it. Which meant they had to assassinate one of the kingpins of the Argentinian arms trade- and a lifelong Circle member.

The entrance was successful. The execution was smart. Abby's shot was clean. What happened afterwards, however, was definitely not, and neither of them had explosives handy this time. "At least we accomplished our mission," Edward says, trying to see the slim slivers of positivity at one in the Argentinian morning, but Abby glances at him like he's mad.

"No, we haven't, Townsend, because we haven't gotten away yet!" Abby replies, and Edward ignores her, if only for listening to the pounding feet behind them, the shouts in Spanish carrying through the night.

They run until they find a tiny street, an empty, pothole-ridden, cobblestone avenue dimly lit by sodium yellow street lamps. The taller buildings, warehouses of crumbling brick and mortar, rotting wood, and faded paint on crooked signs, are completely abandoned. There must have been store here before, because glass lines the front of some of the buildings. It is a scene straight out of the 1900s- if this part of Buenos Aires back then was a Middle American ghost town.

"Uh," Abby says, stopping cold.

"What?" Edward snaps back.

"Listen." Eerie silence permeates the midnight air, a stark contrast from the yelling and shooting of a few seconds ago. "What do we do?" Abby asks in disbelief.

Then Edward sees the orange tip of a fearsome-looking weapon pointed directly at her head from behind one of those buildings and has only one word for her.

"Duck."

Everything explodes.

Glass shatters. Shots ring in the hollow street. The world seems to be overwhelmed with the sounds of gunfire and smell of smoke right now as Edward hits the rough sidewalk, his cheek scraping against gravelly concrete. The boom is loud, popping his eardrums, and he throws his hands over his ears as they ring painfully. The ground shakes like an earthquake has past once before the eerie silence reappears and all noise stops.

"What was that?" Abby, visibly shaking from the shock of the blast, struggles to lever herself upright. Her hands are wound tightly around her chest, and her face is pale except for the cuts and scrapes on her face; they bleed dark red profusely on her white cheeks. Consciously, Edward reaches up and feels the deep gashes on his forehead and chin from the shards of glass sprinkled around them like snow.