The Hit

Chapter Eleven

 We stopped in a small town in Ohio for the night. It wasn't my favorite idea, stopping. But I hadn't slept in what felt like three days. I was going to get us both killed if I didn't get some rest, defeating the entire purpose of the unplanned road trip. I told Alissa to take the bed, I positioned a chair in front of the door.

 "Don't trust me?" She said.

 "Not just that, I don't want the door getting kicked in."

 "You think someone is following us?"

 "I know they are looking." I said, watching fear creep into her eyes.

 I sat there for a couple of hours watching Alissa toss and turn, she didn't fall asleep easily. When she finally did I closed my eyes and let the sound of her breathing lull me to sleep.

 I woke up with a start, looking at the bed missing the body that had occupied it when I had fallen asleep. Panic rose through my body. I scanned the room, catching Alissa's reflection in the bathroom mirror through the cracked open door. I took a couple deep breaths to settle my heart rate. I walked to the bathroom, slowly pushing the door open. Alissa did not acknowledge me and I didn't say anything. I just stood there watching her stare out the small window over the bathtub.

 "I thought about trying to crawl out." Alissa's whisper barely breaking the silence.

 "Why didn't you? You would have fit through."

 "Nowhere to go. You said yourself if I go home I'm dead. I'm too scared to run on my own."

 "Do you feel safe with me?" I asked, hoping the answer would be the one I wanted. Hoping by some miracle she would have suddenly come to trust me.

 She slowly turned around, a sadness expressed on her face that shattered whatever I had left of a soul. "Not at all." The words making me feel heavy, my face now betraying sadness. 

 "I'm sorry I got you into this."

 "If it wasn't you it would have been someone else right? Or have you been lying to me. Is this all an elaborate scheme to lock me up in a sex dungeon Ryan?" My name on her lips felt good, even if it was in such a negative connotation.

 "No, I haven't lied to you." She stared deeply into my eyes, as if she were trying to see my thoughts, trying to determine if I were lying to her now. "I just want you to be safe. Whatever you do after that is up to you. I don't expect you to trust me." It was true, I never expected she would, but I had hoped.

 "Well then you aren't to blame, but I don't have to trust you."

 "Fair enough." I said. "Let's get going then."

 "I'm taking a shower first!" I let out an involuntary sigh in response. She pushed past me and collected new clothes, still in the shopping bag. Then pushed back by shutting the door, quite literally, in my face. I guess I could use one too I thought, sitting on the edge of the bed and flipping on the television.

 Alissa took her time in the shower, she came out with her hair pulled back, held in place with a bandana. The latter another coup she had pulled off while shopping. The smell of her perfume was pleasant, almost sensual. I swapped rooms with her, making quick work of my own shower. I exited the bathroom to find Alissa intently watching television.

 "Do you like this show?" she inquired. I looked at the tv. Fox Mulder and Dana Scully were creeping through a dark building.

 "Do you?"

 "It's okay. I used to watch it with my mom, when she was alive."

 I thought back to when I had watched it. A short red headed kid in my unit in Afghanistan had asked his parents to send him a portable DVD players and the entire series. He received it a month later. We would all huddle around him on our down time. We got through almost five seasons before he was killed. None of us could bring ourselves to keep watching the series. "Yeah, It's alright" I said.

 I felt a little better once we were back on the road. The more distance we put between us and whoever was looking for us the better. I wondered who it was, or if it was the entire organization. It could be Anneka. As far as I knew no one had outright betrayed them before. I didn't even know how deep this went. For all I knew every major city we silently passed through could have been harboring an agent holding a file in their hands with our pictures in it. I also had no idea how my contact in Edmonton was connected to them. It could be the only connection was me, I had more or less found him on my own. On the other hand he could be the ringleader of the entire damn thing.

 "Would you like to listen to some music?" I asked Alissa, trying not to think too much about it.

 "You smashed my phone" she shot back.

 "I mean the radio, what do you like?"

 "Anything is fine" she said.

 I pointed to the stereo. "You pick."

 A Maroon 5 and half a Taylor Swift song later Alissa interjected into the music. "How much?"

 "A day, maybe we make one more stop to sleep."

 "Not to Edmonton dipshit." she chirped. "How much would you have been paid to kill me?"

 "Oh" I said shocked by the question. "A quarter of a million dollars."

 "Wow..." she trailed off. "Is that a lot for a... Is it normally that much?"

 "It would have been the most I ever made on one hit."

 "So why didn't you do it?" She turned in her seat, looking at me, waiting for the answer.

 "You didn't deserve it."

 She pondered it for a while. "Well I was having an affair with a married man, for money. I could have ruined his chance at the presidency. Doesn't that make me a bad person?"

 "You're a good person. It was just a mistake. He knew what he was doing and he knew what the consequences would be if he got caught with you. He is a bad person."

 "Do you think he is the one who wants me dead. I wouldn't have said anything."

 "It's hard to imagine a scenario that wouldn't be related to him. Gerald may not have said anything either, but we... I couldn't take the chance he would."

 A sort of recognition came across her face. She leaned back in her seat, but not against the door this time. She was clearly in deep thought, her fingers tapping along to the beat of the pop music. Cute.