Focal Enemy | ✔

Extirpation (exterminate a full race of individuals, i.e. ants, humans)

"It's done."

Theodore put his gun on the table. Lucas raised his eyebrow, a puff of smoke escaping his mouth. Shock lined his face.

"Well, who would have thought that you were capable of that? What's this - your fifteenth job? I'm impressed," he said, chuckling. He bought the fag back to his lips, inhaled for a moment and then exhaled. "What do I owe you?"

Theodore scoffed. He felt his face go like a tomato as his irritation began.

"A lot," he said, "and I want it in full. I didn't do it for nothing."

Lucas pulled a stack of green money from his pocket. The smell of it hit Theodore's nose immediately. It smelt dirty, like it had been passed through many hands. Theodore thought the stench was familiar to that of iron. Or, that could have been the smell of the blood on his hands. No matter how much he washed them, it was always there. It would be until his blood was on another's hands. That was how it worked.

Quickly, Lucas doubled the amount that he had pulled out at first, taking another drag from the fag between his dirty lips. He looked as though he didn't know what soap and water was.

"You earned it this time, Theo. I wouldn't have taken that job."

Theodore pocketed the money, stashing it deep in the pocket of his jacket.

"Nolan has a job for you if you're interested," said Lucas. "Talk to him. He'll give you all the details."

"I will do," said Theodore, though he was unsure if he would. "And, it wasn't my fifteenth. It was my hundredth."

He turned on the spot, tucked his cold hands into the pockets of his coat and exited Lucas' so-called office. It wasn't much of an office. It was just a rented unit just off a motorway exit. The light didn't even work and the table had been found alongside the road in five-foot high grass. It was the shittest office in the world.

Nobody noticed Theodore as he slipped through the streets like a shadow. He was nimble and fast, although broad and tall, and so he found himself to be ignored quite a bit. He could get away with quite anything, so he had found. There was something about the night that gave him hiding places which were in front of all eyes. Maybe it was the darkness, maybe it was the silence and the loudness that accompanied it or maybe if was just because people were too lost in their own worlds, but Theodore couldn't have cared less. The shadows were where he belonged.

#

"And, where do you think you've been?"

Theodore could have seen the disappointment on Josephine's unblemished face if he had looked, but he chose not to, preferring to keep his head down as he slipped through the door. The house was illuminated, almost like a police light in the middle of a dark, lightless forest. The place couldn't have seemed inconspicuous if he wanted it to.

"Theodore, I'm talking to you! Don't you dare turn your back when I'm asking you a question!"

Theodore ran a hand through his dark locks, threw his coat on the staircase and turned around. Josephine had her hands on her curvy hips, her brown hair reaching past her bottom. In her silk dressing gown and flip flops, she seemed to match in with their surroundings, much more than he ever would. She looked rich. She looked a million pounds on her own.

"Where have you been?" Josephine demanded. "I have been waiting for you to come home all night. You are obviously not drunk, so where were you?"

Josephine may have been wooed by the house, but she was no fool. Theodore knew her better than that. She was more clued up than he would liked to have acknowledged. He could not cover his tracks, especially after what he'd done last time.

"Lucas had a job for me."

Her face screwed up and her eyes mirrored slits.

"You told me you were done. You promised me."

Theodore knew what was coming. He sighed, sitting on the bottom of the staircase, rubbing his hands over his face. He knew how bad of a person he was. Josephine did not need to tell him what he already knew.

"Why, Fee?" she asked. "Why did you do it when I asked you specifically not to?"

Instead of replying, Theodore threw the stacks of money on the floor. That captured her attention, but not in the way it did with other girls. Josephine bent down, picked the money up and threw them back at him.

"You are risking your life, you are risking our relationship and you are risking prison just for a couple of thousand," she seethed. "I thought you were done with all that dodgy stuff. I told you to be done with all that. Is all of this really worth losing what you already have?"

"Nolan wants to see me," said Theodore. "He's got another job for me. One more and I'm done. I swear to you that I will not break that promise. One more and we'll sell up and move and I'll never do anything like it again. This one is for twice as much money."

"But, the money doesn't bother me!" cried Josephine. "Every time you walk out that door, I'm scared that you're not coming back. I'm scared that someone is going to get the better of you and you're going to end up dead. Dead, Fee. D-e-a-d. Why can't you stop now? Why can't you focus on what you want to do and walk away from this? Do you enjoy it? Is it some sort of sick addiction?"

"No, Josephine, I don't enjoy it."

"Then, why do it? You have everything you want already!"

The way she paced the floors, on edge and jumpy, made Theodore feel guilty, but he could not deny that there was some part of him that lived for those 'dodgy' jobs. His way of dealing with his past and his hurt and his temper and his misery was to take it out on whomever he was ordered to.

"You can't keep putting your life in danger for money. That's just stupid. Why can't you be normal?"

"I am normal! One more job and I'm done."

Josephine stopped pacing and turned to face him.

"One more job, eh?" she mocked, stepping forward. There was fire burning in her eyes, and Theodore could not deny that it intimidated him. Josephine's determination always did. "I dare you to do that job. See if I'm still here when you get back."

And, then her feet carried her up the stairs, her slim legs moving at the fasted pace possible. Theodore did not turn to look at her, nor did he attempt to follow her. Josephine was just that - a fire. She was one that could not be tamed, nor could see be put out. Her flames were controlled by only her, and if he wanted to strike someone with them, she made sure that that scars stayed there for life. Theodore just had to be careful enough not to get hit.