The Hitman's Guide to Tying the Knot Without Getting Shot - Alice Winters Page 0,82
and Aidan. Which was fine. I’d dealt with enough death for the day, I liked the idea of just staying out of it.
“It was as the adrenaline was leaving my body that I started to question if things were wrong. They felt weird. It just… I hadn’t been involved in something similar to this before. I’d killed people before, so I knew it wasn’t just that. But there was just this nagging feeling as if something was wrong. I brushed it off as being anxious about what we’d just done and assured myself that we were doing it to save others. Sometimes, no matter how awful it seemed, we were forced to have losses in order to keep innocents safe.
“Unlike Aidan, I was never offered money to keep quiet and I wonder if it’s because Hutson knew I wouldn’t have taken it or gone through with it. So instead, it’s clear he tried to keep me naive. And I stayed that way until my parents got ahold of me later and told me how anxious they’d been. How they thought that I might have died. How they were notified of the crash. But they never received notice that I was okay, unlike what Hutson had told me. When I reached out to him, he told me that reception was poor and while he promised me he sent something out, they must not have gotten it. If it was an excuse it was hard for me to dispute it. I had no way of communicating with anyone and had to rely on what he did and said. And if he said it was bad, it’s what I believed.”
“Did you ever question him after?” Leland asks.
“I… didn’t. And the reason why was I saw more and more of Hutson. I saw how cruel of a man he was, how heartless, and I began to realize that while there was probably a more peaceful way to do what we did, Hutson didn’t want peace. He wanted death. He wanted to hurt people. And that’s what we did. So that’s why I assumed that’s all there was to it. It’s quite clear now how wrong I was.”
Leland kisses my cheek. “I’m sorry. It’s awful to know you’ve been pulled into something someone lied to you about. It’s not fair you have to deal with the guilt of it.”
“Thanks,” I say.
“But keep in mind that you don’t know how innocent the men you fought against were. There was a reason they were quick to fight back.”
“I feel like they were protecting something, but I don’t have a clue as to what.”
“Do you remember any names or locations of the place?”
“Not really. Everything looked the same, and I was just going along with orders.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll figure this all out and put an end to it. I promise,” Leland says, and I know it’s true. Leland will do everything he can to get to the bottom of this. This time, I don’t have to face anything alone and I won’t be left questioning if I’m doing the right thing or listening to the right person. This time I have Leland by my side, and I know with him there to help and support me, I can finally put an end to it.
I lean into him as he tips my chin up and kisses me again. For a long time, we just hold on to each other, lazily kissing and just being there for each other. Sometimes, I feel like times like these are what get me through the harder parts.
Twenty-Four
Jackson
“I was promised pancakes and instead I received hockey pucks,” Leland says as he pokes at the rather blackened pancake.
“I… might have accidentally… maybe… forgotten about them,” I admit. “There are more coming! You don’t have to eat that one. I promise the others will be less blackened.”
He snaps off a piece. “Ahhh… I love the sound of pancakes breaking in the morning,” he says before nibbling on it. “Wow, I love the taste of death on my tongue in the morning, too.”
He tosses a piece to Cayenne and Sarge. Cayenne snatches it out of the air, then chews for a moment before hacking it up all over the ground in a wet chewed-up chunk. Sarge just sniffs his piece before recognizing it as radioactive and inedible. Cayenne goes back for round two, chewing on it a little longer before making the horrible decision to swallow it and then she even takes Sarge’s piece for a snack.