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Shot

Kendra Burns

    It started two weeks ago. Every morning at exactly nine a.m. a blocked number calls me. On the other end, a man with a rough shaky voice whispers, “I know what you did.” Every time it gets to me. My hands quiver as I try to steady my racing heartbeat. I know by now I should have called the police, but I just cannot seem to dial the number. It’s not like I’m terrified of what he could know. No, wait, that’s a lie.
    It hasn’t even been a month yet since everything ended. Ian Romanov had been caught, or at least that’s what I’ve been led to believe, and Mark is safe at home with his family. There is only a handful of people that know what I’ve done and up until two weeks ago that number consisted of three people besides myself. Alex had done all he could to dispose of the body.
    He had been one of Ian’s goons. I had walked in the abandoned warehouse hoping to just find Mark tied to a chair and no one around. Man, had I been wrong. The guy held Mark up against the wall, knife to Mark’s slender throat, smiling with untamed glee at the look of uncontrolled fear in Mark’s once big, innocent brown eyes. I had panicked. The man was speaking in Russian. From what Alex had taught me I gathered he was telling Mark that death was too good for his entire family.
    My heel clicked a little too loudly against the dusty cement. Both of them looked at me. He cocked an eyebrow up as to question which side I was on, Ian’s or Alex’s.
    “Rae, get out of here.” Mark’s voice was nothing but broken syllables strung together trying to form words. It broke my heart. The man removed the knife from Mark’s neck and pulled out his small handgun that I could barely make out from the distance. It took all my will to not freeze dead in my tracks. In the back of my mind, I could hear Alex’s words of how this was a bad idea having me involved. Yet I had insisted on coming. If anything happened to me, it was my fault. I can live and die with that.
    What happened next, I don’t fully remember. One minute he was pointing a gun at me, gunshots echoing off the brick walls. The next minute, both of us are on the floor, Mark screaming for me to get up. The other guy lay in a pool of his own blood. It was another few minutes before Alex and Gabriel burst into the warehouse, both dripping in sweat. Alex kneeled over me, a slight grin brightening his weary blue eyes.
    “Don’t worry about the rest of this. Gabe and I will deal with it.” Alex sounded just as tired as he looked. His calloused hand covered my eyes, casting me into dark blissful sleep.
    The memory drifts away as I lower my phone from my ear. The sunlight piercing through my light blue sheer curtains illuminating the barren area that I call my room. I push myself off my bed with determination in my bones. Whoever was on the other end of the line wasn’t going to get away with whatever they were trying. I won't be frightened so easily. With a deep breath, I’ve made up my mind to go talk to Gabriel. If anything he will be able to track the call and get his FBI friends on the case.

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