Best Served Cold

1

1

This was not my life.

Normally, I wouldn’t be sitting in the middle of that field, a bulletproof vest strapped to my chest. I wouldn’t be feeling the cool night air ruffling my short hair, or seeing the dark green blades of grass rolling to the rhythm of the wind. I wouldn’t be drifting back, thinking of all I was leaving behind.

But I had to do it. I had to.

A car pulled into the parking lot and its headlights lit up my lonely world for a second as they drifted over the field. The roaring of the gritty old engine sputtered to a stop, and my grassy seat was again plunged into darkness.

From all the way across the field I could hear them slam the car doors, the sound reverberating through the night. The only noise to challenge it was the distant roar of cars speeding down a highway, but here the stillness overshadowed the city’s pervasive urgency, even the fresh cut grass overpowering the smog.

This was a disaster. I tried choking back my sorrow before they could see me. I curled over my crossed legs and fought the waves of emotion, but the tide was strong. This never happened to me. I always had control, always.

Yet when I paused to think, all of it came back.

I took a deep breath and blinked a few times. Slowly, I straightened and the world became clear of distraction, clean of emotions. Emotions could not get in the way of my mission. Emotions could not control me.

All the while a tingle was spreading through my body. I felt like some kid working up the courage to ask a girl on a date. All the pain, all the tears, it was all for this. It was now or never.

And I couldn’t mess up here.

“Don’t see him,” a man said from the parking lot. He spoke with a Mexican accent.

“Hey, you there?” another man called out.

Shadowed figures appeared at the edge of the parking lot. I was told to stay silent until they physically came over to me, and that’s what I did.

“Good boy,” the first man said.

He started walking out to me, followed by two other figures, one male and one female. Even from all the way over here I knew the woman was beautiful just by looking at the curves in her silhouette. I couldn’t see their faces in the dark, but their profiles showed they carried guns.

Good. They were prepared for things to get hairy. Which meant that they were cautious and not complete idiots.

They thought that they were testing me, too. Funny thing.

I hopped nimbly into a standing position as they approached and gripped the cool metal of the gun in my holster.

“You Mario?” I asked.

“You Alex?” It came from the man on the Mexican man on the left. I could now see his spiked black hair and tan face peering at me through the darkness.

I nodded.

The man in the front, a hulking mass of muscle, started fingering his gun.

A test it is.

His buddy, Mario, tensed his arm, obviously waiting to spring into action. I walked towards them to close the distance before this erupted. If these were my employers, I wanted to be nonlethal.

I couldn’t mess up here. It might be my only chance.

Nine feet, eight feet.

The man started to draw his gun, and I leapt into action. I fired a bullet into the grass, the bang bursting across the field. He may have already been moving, but Mario jumped slightly and missed his cue.