Hitman

Chapter 13: Trip Down Memory Lane

They sat in silence as Chase drove, their journey taking them out of Redwater and into the surrounding countryside. Looking over at Rebecca, Chase noticed how her posture screamed exhaustion, confusion and concern. He focused on the road again, his leg causing some pain but not enough to bother Rebecca. The fact she had put her blind faith in him as to their destination showed how broken she was by the events that had occurred and Chase still didn't know why. Glancing back towards the woman seated beside him, he noticed her shivering a little in her outfit and opted to reach into the back seat where he had noticed a blanket earlier.

"Here. Wrap up warm or you will catch a cold dressed like that out here."

He held out the blanket to her, his voice pulling her from her thoughts and causing a slight smile to creep over her lips. Rebecca took the blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders, snuggling up into it as she looked out the windscreen into the darkness ahead. They both sat in silence again, this time it being slightly less cold and threatening than before. It was almost comfortable.

Dawn was upon them by the time a conversation was started. Rebecca started it, asking how Chase was feeling and whether he wanted to swap positions if his leg was giving him too much grief. Chase had politely declined, the pain having subsided to a dull throb, however he did choose to bring up and ask how Rebecca was feeling. This opened a whole new conversation Chase was not prepared for.

"I'm not great. Seeing Adrian and knowing he was alive really shook me. I- I thought I killed him years ago. I stabbed him in the heart. I watched him bleed out."

Her voice became erratic before it smoothed out into being solid and emotionless again. Seeing her so obviously broken, tugged at something in Chase, pulling up emotions he hadn't felt in a long time. Taking a deep breath, Chase turned his focus back to her story, listening intently on the words and the sound of her voice as he drove.

"You see I'd been hired to carry out a hit. It was the first offer I had received in a while and I was desperate. Gambling wasn't working very well at that moment as more and more people were cottoning onto the fact I wasn't necessarily playing fair. My options became limited and I wasn't getting by easily. This hit offered me a chance to earn millions. Millions."

She sighed and slumped back further into her seat, her grey eyes illuminated by the glow of the sun rising, yet empty and void of all emotion. There was no emotion attached to this event. It had made her numb and Chase could tell as he too was familiar with the feeling.

"I was ordered to remove the issue of a family who had borrowed too much money from a big mafia company and couldn't now pay a penny back. In a situation like this the easiest option is to do what they did. Kill the family and repossess everything they owned. I was just the tool they used. I wasn't expecting this hit to be any different to the ones I had performed before but it was."

Chase tore his eyes from the road for a split second, staring at her as she spoke, his mind reeling with questions. What made this hit different? What does it have to do with the guy trying to kill us? Who is Adrian to Rebecca? In that moment, Rebecca had turned her head as well, their eyes meeting.

"I'm sorry. I can't go into more detail. Not yet. If you had asked a few days ago I could have told you everything, down to every gory detail. But since I saw Adrian, I can't do it. It hurts."

Those words really shook Chase. When he signed Rebecca into a contract he was dealing with a cold hearted hitman. Now he was dealing with a young woman with feelings and a broken past that had resurfaced to haunt her. Letting the car fall back into silence, Chase carried on driving, relief filling him when he saw the turning he'd been waiting for. Pulling the car to a stop in front of a big country house, Chase turned to Rebecca only to find her fast asleep, the blanket slipping off her shoulders as her head rested against the window.