A Hunters Prey

Chapter 8: Revealed

"I'm ready to talk; but only to you first, doll."

Those were the words I awakened to Friday morning, before the sun had even come up. Travis always had that exasperating trait of randomness that drove me crazy, why he couldn't be predictable once in a while, I would never know.

It wasn't even eight and I was already dressed and walking through the city. Not that it bothered me much, I was an early riser on most days and it's not like sleep was finding me easily with everything creating havoc on my mind.

"Beers already?" I drawled stepping into the vacated bar, surprised at it's lack of liveliness. I've scarcely ever seen it this dead before, "You're two hours away from my deadline; cutting it close, don't you think?"

Travis looked more out of sorts than I had seen him before. His eyes usually sparkled with humor but this morning they were bloodshot when I found him at a table covered in scattered pieces of paper, I doubted he had even slept.

"The city streets are crawling with agents who are hunting for me. I can't even get myself a damn coffee from the barista across the street!" Travis muttered sorting through the papers before slapping them down and pinching the bridge of his nose, "The call for me was put out an hour ago."

My fingers drummed against the table and I nodded my head, "I warned you that they'd come for you." I reminded him in a not so gentle tone, "I can't wrap you up in bubble warp and protect you from them; it's four separate agencies."

"We had a deal, Halen." Travis stated grimly, tipping back the last of what was in his glass swiftly. The atmosphere in the room shifted between us as we shifted from pleasurable banter to business, "I have what you want but I need assurance."

"I'll keep you safe until the next two hours." I promised knowing that our relationship based on the promise of kept words. 

Travis was pleased by this, at least, but didn't look like he was about to move any time soon, "You don't want a drink?" He asked light heartedly, and Frank placed two glasses of whisky down on the table.

"What I want is to know why my informant didn't tell me about agents dropping like flies. You know? The kind of stuff you're paid to tell me about." I snapped crossing my arms over my chest, making it known that I wasn't here for his sparkling charm, "And how you seem to be in the center of it?"

My tone was cool, just the way I wanted it. Smooth without a trace of anger in it, keeping it mellow so he didn't see how much he angered me, or how close I was to ramming my blade through his eye-socket.

He would only annoy me even more if he knew the effect he had on me; that effect being my homicidal one. Nonetheless, he was a valuable contact that I needed to keep; Travis was the all seeing and hearing eyes and ears of the streets,

"I think I have answers that will satisfy you." Travis finally answered with a sigh, rising to his feet "But we should probably move to a more secure location."

We both knew of the secure bunker he had under this little business he ran. Frank offered me a glass as we passed him by, "It's happy hour somewhere." He pointed out, pouring a shots worth of vodka into the glass, and walking towards the table of papers, "I'll be up in a minute."

Travis held the door open for me as we walked into his office and towards the over-sized bookshelf, "I want to start off by saying that they paid me a lot of money- three times more than you did." He began as he unsealed the hidden lock and pushed it sideways, "And- it took me a few beers to figure out what was happening. I only figured it out a couple of months ago."

"Bullshit." I called stepping past him, and he shrugged dismissively at me, "Spit it all out, Travis. You have even less time than you did before."