another short story mates, hope you like it :)
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She stood at the window staring blankly. Dressed for the occasion, but she couldn’t make her feet move. Her mind was chaotic. Nothing made sense. She still couldn’t get her mind around it all. All it took was a second, one precious moment to take away the only family she had left. Her brother may not have been the best role model for her or the most law abiding person but he looked after her when their mother died and he looked after her when their father left not long after. He took care of her the best he knew how, even if that meant making mistakes along the way. However, one moment changed everything; one single moment with a gun and the will to die.
Character is doing the right thing when nobody's looking. There are too many people who think that the only thing that's right is to get by, and the only thing that's wrong is to get caught. -J.C. Watts
I admit that it probably wasn’t the pinnacle of my life but it was the strangest position I’d ever been in. It was the typical, big fish eats little fish scenario. And I was caught up in it. The big fish in this case was a member of a secret shipping company transporting illegal drugs into the country. Now I wasn’t exactly ‘quivering in my boots’ as people liked to say, but the feeling of having a gun pressed against my temple did have me scared half to death. Especially since I knew that all it would take for the trigger happy man to shoot me dead, was a word. It’s not one of the most heart-warming things I can think of. Being held in this warehouse was all part of the plan, a plan that if everything falls into place as it should, will shut down the shipping company and its illegal trade.
They never learn no matter how many times they go through the same silly ritual of “but you’re a woman” and “you haven’t got the guts” or my personal favourite, “A pretty face like yours shouldn’t be holding such a big weapon if they don’t know how to use it”. I mean, seriously, why would I be here threatening to kill with said weapon if I didn’t know how to use it is a complete mystery?
It’s not like I do it of kicks or anything, but once you get dragged into this mess, there’s no backing out. If you’re too mindful of your own self-preservation and interfere with our business, then it can’t be helped if you end up in the situation he is in at “The Warehouse” as we like to call it in the company. It’s a pretty melancholy place desolate and forgotten; it’s where they’re all brought to die…eventually.
It’s only his sister and him left. Both parents are out of the picture and once he’s died the poor girl will have no one to fend for her, but that can’t be helped. He’s tunnelled in too deep. He either becomes part of us or dies…
She’d given me just one option; just one, but an escape all the same. I could either join them or die. Cheery prospects I know, but to join the group I’m trying to bring down went against my morals. But my sister was also out there waiting for me to come home. I guess that was partly why I have ended up in this position to begin with. I had never wanted anyone to go through what my sister and I had. The pain, the struggles, the heart break. I was going to bring them down and I had a plan.
Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.
– Maya Angelou
Their dad always said he’d be around, that he’d always be there for them. He snapped though. He couldn’t cope with the pressure of raising a 12 year old and a 17 year old. So he just ran leaving a note behind saying that he would be back… but he never came.
Her mum’s still with them although she’s dead. She likes to believe that she can feel their mother sometimes in the change of the wind or at night when it’s all dark and she’s alone. She can feel warmth inside of her and she knows they’re not alone.
Her brother had told a lot about the company and the behind the scenes business in trafficking drugs. He’s always been concerned with drug dealers and traffickers ever since Mum died of an overdose, but lately this one become an obsession. He’s determined to bring them down even if it means getting caught and killed. He won’t let it get to that; he’ll have a plan he always does. He always does.
He’s too calm. He shouldn’t be acting like this with a gun pointed at his head. By this stage most of them are in tears and begging me to let them go. But he hasn’t said a word; no accusations or insults, not even trying to lie himself out of here.
They arrived just a few minutes later and that is when it ended. They had the place surrounded. Their guns at the ready. Everything was going as planned.
I walked away from the window and picked up my car keys. As I started the car the radio blared: “major drug trafficking company Z-Corp has finally been shut down and the majority of its underlings arrested. The brave citizen Brian Petera who was shot by a stray bullet while aiding the police died on scene. His funeral is to be held today at…”
You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” ― Mae West
