Hit List

~chapter 4~

Don't trust words, trust actions.
_________
Noa

Noa yelped as Ezra burst through the door, a vicious sheen over his eyes.

"What the hell do you think you're doing!? Jesus Christ!" Ezra shouted at her, pinning Noa, shaking, to the wall by the front door.
He dropped the ratty plastic bag, full of leaking Chinese food, onto the doormat, never taking his eyes off her. His tone softened, but his jaw still twitched. "Noa, what was that? You scared me, seriously, I mean you were crying and everything, I've never heard you so upset! I thought you were in real danger, you know how dangerous it's round here - ugh, what with the gangs and all. I ran all the way back here, I nearly got run over!"
He made a wild gesture with his arms, venting his frustration. "Is this a joke to you? Do you have any idea where exactly we live, because Noa I thought something terrible happened to you!"
Ezra was sobbing in relief by now, his grip on her wrists loosening as he pulled her in for a hug. Noa gladly folded into her brother's warm embrace, but she couldn't say she wasn't confused.

Then it dawned on her. Ezra thought that Noa was joking. Ezra thought that Noa only pretended that a middle-aged psychopath broke into their apartment, Ezra thought that all those sobs and screams were a complete act. Ezra didn't believe Noa. And that hurt. Of course, she understood why someone wouldn't instantly believe her - they were talking about murder here - but she expected her own brother to trust her. She needed her own brother to trust her.

"It's not a joke, Ezra." She snapped, turning away to hide the tears that caught in her eyelashes. Ezra's incredulous eyes looked at her with a sudden scorn. He didn't believe Noa in the slightest.

"Oh really," he spat, angry that she still insisted on the twisted joke. "I'm sorry, but I find it hard to believe that you've escaped this serial killer without getting your limbs cut off. Grow up. Get out of your head. You're just vying for attention." Noa clenched her fists, tears of anger made salty streaks on her face. Ezra had always been a stubborn, he'd never given in, and Noa had never found a reason to mind. But now, Noa felt sick. She wanted to scratch his face with her fingernails. She wanted to scream at the top of her lungs. She wanted to show him the saturated body.

"Do you still think I'm a liar?" She whispered, biting down on her cheek and drawing blood. Then, without waiting to hear his response, she marched into the kitchen, expecting Ezra to follow her. He wasn't going to believe her until he came into the kitchen - where the stranger lay wrapped in blankets, covered in blood and water.

She pushed the door of the room open, the pungent stench hitting her almost immediately. She retched, covering her mouth, and stumbled back around. She met Ezra's eyes. They were glazed over in shock. His back arched suddenly and he retched, clutching his stomach and then sinking into a chair.

"I'm not a liar." She pulled up her sleeve, gasping, and showed him the cut in her arm, swathed in a towel, stained with blood and pus. The last of her tears leaked, hot, from her eyes.

"I..I." Ezra grabbed a chunk of his hair and his body jerked. Noa had never seen him so distressed. "What the hell have you done? There is a dead body on our floor." He looked at her, eyes wild. "THERE IS A DEAD BODY ON OUR FLOOR." He screamed..

She slapped him across the face with the last of her strength. Her palm stung.The raw, angry mark on his face jolted him back into reality. He was silent for a minute, staring at the floor. He swallowed
"Okay. Okay I need you to tell me everything." His voice shook. "Just tell me, right from the start, what happened. Don't you dare miss a thing out, because it might be our lives on the line here, okay?" Noa nodded, and so she told him everything. Everything; about the tall, psychotic man with the thin face and mad, hazel eyes. About the knife he'd plunged into her arm, and twisted under her chin. About her desperate attempts to escape; the penknife, the frantic rush to the kitchen. About how she had plunged the serrated chopping knife into his heart, his eyes widening, knees buckling. About his last moments, her name spoken softly into a phone, his last breath mingling with the stench of fear and iron, thick in the air.

Ezra stood there, silent the whole way through, his mouth agape. And when she finished, he stayed in that position, as if he was frozen, deep in thought. "So he said your name. To the person on the other end of the phone." He muttered. Noa nodded, her hands shaking. "Did he lock the phone before he died? Is it here, we might be able to look at it, it may help us know why he was here in the first place." He walked around, kneeling down to peer under a cabinet, in search of the mobile. "Unless, of course, you already know why he might've wanted to kill you?" He asked, looking up at her.

"Of course no-" she started, but then stopped. Could there have been something she'd done? Something bad, unknowingly. No, it couldn't be. Noa had a clean record, no crimes, no drugs, hell, she barely even drank or smoked. "No. I can't think of any reason as to why he was here." She said firmly. Ezra nodded and continued to search for the man's mobile phone.
Noa covered her nose and mouth and peeled the blanket off the body. The stench worsened, but she persisted. Blood had congealed on his chest, and at the corner of his mouth. She ignored this as best she could, and caught sight of a glowing phone in his hand. Thank god it wasn't switched off. She called Ezra.

Ezra tried to pry open the dead man's hands, which were clenched around the phone. In his lifeless grip lay a plastic mobile - a stupid Nokia. Probably because it revealed the least personal information. Great.

Ezra handed the phone over to Noa, as he continued to rummage through the man's pockets in search of anything that maybe prove useful to them, retching every so often. Noa flicked through the call history - the man had erased all but one number - his last phone call.

"Ezra!" She called, rushing over to him, her the cut on her arm screamed, but she bit back the pain, "A phone number! It's anonymous."

Ezra's face lit up. "We've got to call that number."

"First we have to call the police. I don't want to sleep with this corpse in the apartment." She washed the blood off her hands in the kitchen sink, and shivered.