Shadow's Within

10 : They found me again! Get a life!

I woke up to the sound of mockingbird tuning a song in their synchronized tunes. The entire entity of setting before me was the one I had woken up to when I was a kid. The needle clock beside the bed shows the time as half past two.

There's muffled noises outside the room. I can hear the voice of people talking. I let my feet drawn me towards the noise. Mom and Chase are talking cheerfully. She is not the same person whom I saw with glooming dead eyes yesterday. Today she's energized, working her hands on pots and stoves around the kitchen.

"Are you serious?" Chase said.

"Why wouldn't I..." my mom replies. "She had the cutest twin ponytail a girl could have. She didn't want to let the hair free. Just walking, eating, sleeping and shower with that hair." She's laughing.

Chase turns his face to me. "My my... woke up late didn't we sleepyhead"

"I was tired... you know from the running and all" I said.

"Well.. come on then, join us for breakfast" Mom intervened.

The kitchen smells just like I remember. Mom hand me a plate with a gorgeous delight waiting to be gorge down. I clinch at the sight of the food.

"It's your favorite" Mom said.

Cinnamon toast, with a side dish of scramble egg and her famous home baked butter biscuits. I grab the spoon and fork and gauge down on the food like I haven't been eating for a week. Her food taste as delicious as I remember. I didn't slow down and keep on eating savoring each bite as I chew.

After breakfast I went to clean myself, taking a hot shower and putting on some clothes before joining mom on the living room. She sat there, looking by the fireplace, with a thick black cover book.

"Family picture.." she said without looking back. "Every morning I would open this book, and just look at the past. How happy we were. You, me and your father. You were such a cute baby girl. I remember holding you the first time, after they cut your cord. I touch your puffy cheek and you barely open your little eyes. It was the happiest day of my life. Me and my beautiful daughter."

I wrap my arms around her shoulder and rest my head on her. I didn't want to let her go. I wish I didn't leave her back then. The guilt coursing through my body, the sense of pain I felt longing in my heart even since I left that day.

"Ehemm" a voice interrupted.

I gaze back, it was Chase. Fells weird calling him Chase, I never called my past target by names before. All they were was targets, nothing more.

I join him in the kitchen. He sat on the kitchen chair and propose I join him. I take a sit opposite him.

"So..." he said.

"So?" I said.

"Tell me the truth" he coiled.

I sighed. "Fine. I did promise to tell you after we settle down."

"Great" A smile breaks in his face.

I take a peek behind the door, looking for any movement from mom. I wouldn't want her to accidentally walk into this conversation. She's still on the sofa. The coast is clear. "Listen carefully." I said. "I belong to a secret organization."

"A secret organization? What kind of.."

"Shh... quiet! Let me do the talking. You just sit there and listen."

He puts a finger on top of his lips.

"So... this organization deals in a contract per se. The office will send their order to the agents such as myself. And the agents will carry the order. The order consists of many course of action such as assassination, extortion, accident."

He jumps to his feet. "Wait.. what?!"

"I said be quiet!" I retort.

"And yes... the reason I was there in your office that night was because I was carrying an order given to me. The order was for me to kill a writer named Nicholas Chase." Chase didn't budge. "Somehow, that night, something was off. I wasn't myself, I couldn't get myself to pull the trigger."

"What about that guy last night? Why was he trying to kill you?"

"We call him the reaper. They're a group of skill assassin that specifically deals in agents who failed their mission. Because I fail to pull the trigger on you not once but twice, the organization have decided I was no use. I'm a rogue agent now. A fugitive, there's nowhere safe for me, not even...here" I said hopelessly.

"Then what's your plan?" He asks.

I took a sip of water. "Away. Far away from here. They won't stop searching for me until I'm dead. I can't risk endangering my mother."

"So you're just going to leave her again?"

"I have to!" I roared. "If I stay here they will kill her. I'll die before I see a bullet run through my mother's head."

"Annie.." Mom walks in. "Is everything okay? I hear shouting"

I reach my arms to her. "It's nothing mom, just discussing plans with Chase"

Dinner runs to me ever so fast. Night has befallen, after a lovely dinner of meatloaf and mac and cheese I stay by the living room accompanied by the sole light flickering above me. My arms stretch picking up the family photo book. Page by page I slip and scan the black and white monotone digitalized pictures. In the picture we did look happy. One big happy family. Where's that family now. Ruins and scrutinized by my own lack of judgement.

Chase calls me over and discuss me the lengthy picture of my next plan for the second time.

"I told you. I'm going away" I said. "It's the only solution."

He stares his sapphire blue eyes at me. "Then your mother?"

"It can't be help. I have to leave her to protect her. Tomorrow I'm leaving, I suggest you do the same. Your fate is just as vile as mine. You're still on their list"

"What if I follow you?" He said, confidently. "I know you...

"No" I retort.

"But you said it yourself, I'm still on their list." He scours. "I'm as good as dead if I'm out there. At least with you, I know I can be safe"

I quickly grab the front of his shirt. "LOOK! I'm not your freaking bodyguard. I tried to kill you in the past 48 hours. I don't know you. You don't know me. Consider yourself lucky I save you when the reaper came knocking down on my door!

"Bringing you along would just slow me down. I'm not a kind person. I kill for a living! Man, woman, elderly... you name it. The world is built for people to look out for their own. The strong lives and the weak dies. It's what I've learn. Nobody is there for you! You're all alone in this world!"

My hands were straining his upper chest. I released my hands. The picture book lay below me. I gaze to it, reminiscing of my younger self. So pure, so innocent, never truly learn the cruel trick of the real world.

"Pack your bags, stay out of plain sight, trust no one, don't think of going back into your own lives. You're a fugitive now. Nowhere is safe."

"But!..."

A loud thundering storm burst into the door. I'm thrown back, the impact of the blast is strong. The back of the couch breaks my fall. My eyes lift straight up, only to see the door's been broken into smithereens. Clouds of smoke huddling together. Beneath the fog, a lone figure stands, with a pistol in hand.