JESSICA : N/A

HOUR 0 : 4:00, MONDAY, APRIL 20, 2122

DOCK 4 : BOAT 2 : HELLO

Exhaustion was burning a hole in my right side. Anxiety was burning a hole in my throat. Or maybe it was the other way around? Hard to tell when the combination was burning a hole in my skull.

Adrenaline had to be all that was keeping me going by the time I rounded the corner to my brother’s boat.

A random blonde woman was just kind of standing next to it, rubbing her eyes as she faced away from the sun, towards the open sea.

At least I had the visual part going for me since, so I tried to breathe softly enough for her not to hear my clomping approach.

Then she took out her phone. So I was covered on the audio front as well.

Quietly as I could, I circled around the boat so as not to get caught the instant blondie turned around. As I did, I couldn’t help but eavesdrop on her call. I mean maybe I could’ve helped it. But I didn’t exactly try.

“Heeey Unkie Mikey…”

A few seconds of silence in my left ear was covered by the earpiece in my right. “Hi Stephie! Did the job go good?”

And Stephie, apparently, answered in turn. “Yeah, we just got back.”

So then that meant Mikey was also known as ‘Unkie’, huh? No, wait, higher priorities.

So then that meant she was Mikey’s niece, huh?

“Well, don’t keep me in suspense. Hurry up and spill the tea while you come meet me at the pier.”

There was a distinctly incredulous moment of silence as I imagined Niecie staring down at her phone. “The… The pier?”

It took Unkie just as long to answer. “Yeah, sweetie. I just parked at Simmons Marina. Isn’t that where you wanted to meet for dinner after you got back from your thing? To, you know… Celebrate?”

“No… I definitely don’t remember-Wait, no! If you’re on the pier, then what in the fuck was that light just now? Did the marina get bombed or what?”

Munkie chuckled unconvincingly on the other end. “Sorry Stephie, I don’t know what you mean. I’m still in the parking lot, so maybe I just missed it?” His tone took a turn for the conspiratorial. “Tell you what, why don’t you head down to the pier and I’ll buy you some grub? You can run me through the whole day in person while Jameson unloads everything. I’ll even make sure he knows I made you not help him. You’re blameless. It’ll be aaallll my fault that you got out of doing any more work today.”

After that, all I could hear was muted mumbling from the other side of the boat as I made my gradual way aboard. I hoped their basically stagnant mutual doubt of each other would continue so I could just get James to undock and turn us right the fuck around. If there was one thing I now knew for sure, it was that ‘Stephie’ wasn’t who Unkie McPedoBitch wanted to fucking shoot.

The instant I’d heard him talk about reloading something, my first priority became getting James the fuck out of its effective range as fast as humanly possible.

The only reason I was going so slow now was to try and match my noisy climbing movements to when the fucker was talking. Good thing I had practice. James had never actually given me permission to come aboard. And he’d permanently banned me every time I did it anyway. But since when had that been an effective way to stop me from doing anything?

Nevertheless, or perhaps therefore, I was panting hard again by the time I made it fully onto the boat. I was not made for this parkour shit. That was for fucking sure.

Just as surely as no one was aboard. The fuck?

Looking around for any sign of life, I eventually made it into the cabin.

Oh thank god.

I tried to temper my voice to a whisper that’d be inaudible from where Niecie was still standing further from me vertically than horizontally at this point. “James…”

He was on his side, facing the wall. Not moving.

Oh god. Was I too late?

No. No, he was asleep. Wait. Hold on. Why, the everloving fuck, was he asleep, NOW??? James, how fucking shitty can your timing possibly be?

I moved to shake him. “James, wake up. We gotta-”

For the first time in my life, I could literally feel the blood leave my face.

James. He was shirtless. Except… A red dot.

It was slowly moving across his back.

I swung my head the other way.

Opposite the cot was a small window facing…

The pier’s hotel. There was a window there too. An open one. Even if the drapes were closed. ‘Magazine’…

Sunlight glinted off something at the bottom of it anyway. ‘Reload’…

I froze in place as I finally put it together. “OhGodOhGodOhGod-”

Slowly, as though afraid of startling the dot, which I kind of was, I moved my left arm between it and the window.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

The dot was on my hand now.

There was muttering in my ear. “What the…” Mikey continued in a louder voice. “Just a sec sweetie, gotta talk to someone. Head on down the dock and I’ll meet you at the end.”

While he lied to his niece, I scrambled to think of what to do. Any second now, the shooter-apparent could, probably would, just hang up and pull the trigger without even bothering to figure out what blocked his sights.

Fully panicking, I grit my teeth as I jumped between James and the window before doing my best to freeze in place.

My hands were stretched to either side. The heavy open coat hung below my knees, ensuring none of James was visible from the window anymore.

The dot moved wildly around the front of ‘my’ coat.

As it did, I couldn’t help but imagine what it’d feel like getting shot in each of those spots.

When it passed over my heart, I broke into a cold sweat.

Meanwhile, the muttering in my ear had only sped up. “What..? Just had him… Is that a tarp, or-”

Belatedly, my conscience finally caught up to my actions for the first time since I saw that dot on James’ back.

What the fuck did I think I was doing? This was stupid. So, so, so fucking stupid. Not the least of which because I still couldn’t think of a better way to handle it. Not only that, I was even relieved that my own shocked state had pushed me to act. God, even in retrospect, I was stupid.

But this was fine. And it would keep being fine. It wasn’t like… Like it couldn’t get any worse or anything…

No, of course it could still get worse. Mikey could figure out what I’d just done. Or decide he didn’t care. And that he might as well just play it safe and shoot. But at the moment, he must not have understood what he was looking at. I had to work with that confusion. Had to make him think he missed his chance. Both our lives depended on it now.

Steadily as I could, I inched towards the window. If I could just activate the shutter…

“Hey there.” Niecie slowly, but just as steadily, made her way into the boat cabin holding a gun of her own.

I moved my now-frantic eyes to hers. “Um…” She was obviously on her Unkie’s side… But he’d just lied to her about pretty much exactly the red dot currently orbiting the center of my coat. I’d definitely heard him do that. Which meant… Oh fuck, they weren’t in on any of it together. Oh fuck, how long had I been quiet? Well… Say something! “Hi…” Something ELSE, fucktard! “Stephanie?” No small-talk, just stick to the important bits. “You’re… On James’ side, right? J-just stay back if you are.”

Eyes wide enough to look more like one herself than I ever had, the woman nonetheless projected a whisper as though not to scare a stray deer. “Yes.” She stepped closer. “That’s right.” She kept approaching, non-gun-hand outstretched. “My name IS Stephanie.” She wasn’t stopping. “I’m not going to hurt you.” Carefully, with unthreatening, purposeful steps, she closed in. “But there’s no one here by that other name.” Too close. “So now that you know you have the wrong boat…” Waaay too close. “I just want to know what you thought you were doing…”

Stephanie was still reaching towards me with one hand, palm-forward. Like she was afraid to provoke a burglar that… Ah fuck, she thought this was HER fucking boat, didn’t she?

And James had a fucking partner, didn’t he? That prick said he didn’t need a partner. He said he was waiting for me to graduate. Then, we could pull jobs together. But we couldn’t work as a duo if there was a third-Jesus, he was probably into her or something.

And Mikey was her… Unkie? Goddamn Soap-Opera bullshit…

Suddenly more angry than this situation really allowed for, I tried to rein in just how much I’d prefer this bitch not to exist at all. “Okay, look.” For the hundredth time today, I mustered all the confidence I could manage while freaking right the fuck out. “Just… Just stay right there, okay? You touch me and James dies. And neither of us want that, right? So just work with me here and-”

In record time, Stephie’s expression turned from caution to frigid resolve. “No.” Now she was looking at me like I was a rabid animal. She moved her other hand to steady her gun. Okay, that pretty much sealed the metaphor.

Well, it was understandable, I guess. She’d just found a strange girl with tattered, too-large clothes, standing spread-eagle over her… Lover? As though a mental projection of her life flashed before my eyes, I inadvertently used all of my adrenaline-fueled mental horsepower to analyze her as a prospect for James.

Pretty cute. Clearly not a total moron. Loyal… Too loyal for my liking just now.

James could do worse. He’d done worse…

Wait, no! Whether she technically passed that low bar of a test or not, it didn’t change anything! I still needed to get to that shutter.

Gritting my teeth, I started moving again. Except my body felt like it was made of lead. Oh fuck I really had just used all my adrenaline for that, hadn’t I? God damn it, I needed to keep moving-

With a flick of her thumb, James’ girlfriend or whatever released her gun’s safety. “STOP!!!” She adopted a louder, deeper voice than she’d used so far. Oh shit, she was actually ready to kill me, huh? And she was still getting closer.

Obviously not knowing to avoid it, Stephanie stepped slightly between me and the window. No… She could die if she did that. Which I wouldn’t necessarily mind.

But they put laser sights on all sorts of things. Like rocket launchers. So we could ALL die if she did that.

What… What should I do?

She was getting closer.

What could I do?

Closer.

Was there anything to do?

As soon as she got close enough, I reflexively smacked her hand away, gun and all. “FUCKING… STAY BACK-” Having over-thought myself into a panic, I’d already responded before I consciously processed that there was anything to respond to.

But my voice was far too loud. Movement far too fast. A lot of things far too… A lot of ways.

Clearly surprised by the suddenly aggressive motion, Stephie really did step back. But that was no-doubt just shock at what she saw as an outburst on my part. So at first, she was confused. Then she was angry. Then only screaming.

The window shattered.

My stomach tightened as my foot fell to the floor, abandoning my in-progress step towards the window.

Something was… Pulling me backwards?

Another tightness. In my shoulder this time.

The tugging was harder though, pulling me another two steps back.

Now it was coming from my opposite arm. Whatever was pulling me backwards was too strong. But I had to get to the window.

I moved forward. Or at least I tried. Instead, I started to fall.

My stomach tightened three more times, somehow all at once.

The pulling was so hard that it lifted me off the ground and threw me backwards.

Meanwhile, someone set off a fireworks display in my chest.

Stephanie was still screaming.

The way I fell backwards, I realized all at once that my upper body and head were draped over James.

Head foggy, I stared straight ahead.

No… That was above. To the wall behind where I was standing.

There were bullet holes in the cabin… Six of them.

And Blood. Wait. Why was there blood?

Oh. It was my blood. Not his. That was fine. Because even in my current state, I could still count.

So I counted. All the way to six. Six new holes. In… The wall… Six…

I wanted to laugh.

Instead, I began to cry.

Or at least I began to try.

Instead, I began to die.