Ghosts, Matt Rogers [reading the story of the .txt] 📗

landing, he turned and looked back at King.

‘How’s that for a first operation?’ he said.

‘You bore the brunt of it,’ King said. ‘For me it was simple.’

‘If my ankle could flip you the bird, it would.’

‘You can do that yourself.’

‘But I won’t,’ Slater said. ‘Because you’re a damn good partner.’

He hopped away, disappearing from sight.

91

Slater’s bedroom door hung ajar by a few inches.

He saw through, caught a sliver of the room. Nothing seemed amiss.

He pushed the door open with one of the hiking poles.

The bed was empty, still made up. No sign of Alexis. The arc of Slater’s sweep meant he first noticed the two bullet holes in the sheets, followed by the considerable dark brown stain at his feet. It had been a thick puddle of red not long before. Somehow, the brown was uglier than the red. It carried old secrets, proof of violence, proof of a life nullified against its will.

He noted every square inch within his line of sight, then retreated and closed the door behind him.

There was nothing for him here.

He knew where she’d be. The mansion had bedrooms to spare, and they kept a couple of rooms made up on the off chance they had guests. Slater had always known none of their visitors would be regular guests. That wasn’t part of their life. More than likely they’d be those like Melanie or Elsa, victims seeking refuge. Victims of the eternal war between good and bad. It was a murky line, though. Everyone was good and bad in their own ways. Nothing in this world was black and white.

His face contorted as he hobbled down the hall. True to Violetta’s promise, the pain was hitting him in all its intensity. His vision wobbled, warping the walls, but he held it together. If there was anything he’d mastered in this life, it was the ability to endure.

He made it to the spare rooms up the back of the second floor. There were two positioned opposite each other, and he took a wild guess. Melanie would be in one of them, and Alexis would be in the other. He went right and tapped on the wood with the end of a hiking pole.

Three long seconds of quiet, then the door softly opened.

She stood there, green eyes boring into him, hair freshly washed and brushed over her forehead in a straight front fringe.

She looked different.

She said, ‘Are you okay?’

‘My leg’s been better,’ Slater said. ‘But I’m fine. Are you?’

‘I think so.’

He didn’t take his gaze off her eyes. She’d be unbelievably sore tomorrow morning — a byproduct of using muscles you’ve never used before, fighting for your life like you never have before — but that was nothing. Physical pain will pass if you recuperate properly and implement adequate rest and recovery.

Emotional pain hits different.

Emotional pain can last for the rest of your life.

But he’d been in her position before. He remembered his first kill like it was yesterday. He had a faint concept of what she was going through, but everyone was different.

He showed restraint. ‘Do you want to talk about it later?’

Sometimes silence was the best medicine.

‘I want to talk about it now,’ she said.

He said, ‘Alright, then.’

He hopped inside. The room was furnished with a bed, nightstands and a flatscreen television on the wall. There was a distinct lack of anything that could be remotely considered decorative. No paintings, no plants, no rugs.

They’d never given much weight to the theory that they might have visitors.

Alexis walked him to the bed and helped him stretch out, abandoning the hiking poles as he got his ankle elevated on a couple of pillows and slumped against the headboard.

It was the first time he’d truly stopped since King had come back to the house with the news that he’d met a stranger in need of help.

Slater would never grow tired of this sort of satisfaction.

True achievement. He could have died a dozen times over the last forty-eight hours, and still he’d gone back for more. He hadn’t stopped until the job was done. He could have rested earlier, packed it in and put his feet up, but all that would’ve led to was a profound sense of unrest. Do the job, do it right, do whatever it takes, and then, when it’s over, drop your guard and be still.

Finally, he relaxed.

The peace wouldn’t have meant anything if he hadn’t earned it through suffering.

Alexis could see him thinking all of this. She sat cross-legged on the mattress beside him, absent-mindedly running a finger over his chest and stomach.

Eventually he said, ‘That was always going to happen. There’d always be a first.’

She said, ‘It’s hard to process all the same.’

‘It’s supposed to be,’ he said. ‘We’re trying to do the right thing in a world where we need to kill people. It’s supposed to feel strange, sick, twisted.’

‘Do you still feel that?’

‘No. I’ve been doing it my whole life.’

‘Do you ever question what you’re doing?’

‘No.’

‘You ever think “Maybe that person didn’t deserve to die”?’

‘No.’

‘I think you’re lying.’

‘Believe what you want.’

‘I know you, Will.’

He looked at her. ‘And I know you. I know what you’re going through. I’ve been through it myself. It wouldn’t make it any easier right now for me to say, “Yes, I constantly question myself, and yes, I always feel like a monster, and yes, I’ve accepted that.”’

She said, ‘Is that the truth?’

‘Maybe.’

She said, ‘The guy I killed. He was a bad person. He was here to kill me, kill Violetta, kill Melanie, for Chrissakes. A teenage girl. He would have put bullets in the three of us and thought nothing of it. So he deserved to die. That’s the truth. That’s what I believe.’

‘You’re right.’

She cocked her head. ‘Sounds like there’s a “but” coming.’

‘But,’ Slater said, ‘in his world you were the bad guy.’

‘How is that possible?’

‘Everything we do is because of perspective,’ he said. ‘He was probably ex-military. Probably disillusioned by what he saw overseas. Probably came back hating the world, hating everyone, thinking