The Innocent Target

Chapter One

Calculating every move, she swung bare legs over the fence, landing on a surface that struck out a loud clang upon impact.

"Ugh!" She hissed under her breath. Blood tainted her expensive, black cocktail dress, and the ache pricked as though syringes being jammed in her skin repeatedly. She'd taken out the pocketknife that was stuck in her leg and slowly rested against the smelly metal. Her breath caught her tongue, and a cough erupted some condensed puffs past her lips.

She held her wound against the railing, pressing the pain away. The chill made her body feel numb in all the places unnecessary. A tear rolled past her cheek and a gasp clogged her throat. Suddenly, she heard footsteps and held her breath.

"We got a body here." A voice through the window behind. It was rough. A couple footsteps.

Holding the knife in her hand, she braced by the windowpane and scrunched her legs close. She felt the terror course through her body. Gritting her teeth, she waited for something to happen.

Nothing.

The footsteps retreated but the fear left her unsettled. Something didn't feel right, yet she didn't know what she could do. Her gun was out somewhere in the house, and she wasn't finding an alternative to the whole situation without making her way back into the house.

Just as the site cleared, she opened the window, sneaking herself in very slowly. In inch by inch, her body shuddered at the sight of the dead lady. The blue in her eyes stared through death and the gorgeous white gown she wore laid smeared with droplets of her blood. She'd been shot in the stomach, then her chest and straight through the bridge of her nose.

She held her breath and shut her eyes. A bite in her cheek and then she walked out of the room. The dark wooden hallway was quiet. The green carpeted floor as if untouched to any misdeed. The lights in the hall, illuminating the path out but still a darkness loomed around. She needed to find a weapon to arm herself. She hadn't been expecting this. Not an encounter. Yes, she knew she'd entered a dangerous territory, but it was only to find someone. To find answers and figure out when she could leave all of this behind her and go back to her life, whatever it may have been.

She winced at her leg jerking in pain and watched the dripping blood splatter on the floor from the tip of her toes. Moving to a wall, she ripped the edge of her dress and wrapped it around her thigh, bleeding carelessly.

"It's not that deep. Don't look at it." She assured herself and kept her feet moving. The small, almost harmless knife was in her fingers and though she'd suffered from it, she knew it wasn't strong enough to help her harm someone with it, "Don't look at it." She grunted the pain aside, almost stumbling to the floor but gaining composure.

Another set of footsteps sounded in a distance, and she froze.

Looking for a hiding spot, she crawled behind the large vase by the wall and held her breath. She held a sob when another gunshot rang and smacked a hand to her lips. She was scared because now it seemed the person she was here for, wasn't invited to the party and she was stuck in a crossfire that wasn't hers to attend.

Blood squeezed through the cloth on her leg and childishly so, she told it to hush and stay inside. As footsteps died from where she was stuck, she snuck out and continued moving, plastered to the wall. When the two opposite corridors by the end of the hall seemed clear, she took the familiar right one. She was sure, she'd come from here. Not even the first step in and she was faced with a tuxedo dressed dead body laying on his chest. Pressing a hand to her stomach to stop the bile rising to her throat, she walked, choosing to ignore it. Only, she couldn't dismiss him entirely for a gun laid under him. With a shivering hand, she sat on her toes, like a cat reaching for a ball of yarn, and snatched the gun. The magazine still four bullets left.