Page 18 of Traces of Her
“Shoulda thought about that before you tossed me to the fucking curb. Ya know?” he mocks.
“Are you fucking serious?” Charlie’s voice rises an octave.
Jared reaches behind his back, pulling out a gun and slowly waves it in Charlie’s face. “Uh, uh uh,” he smirks. “I know you’re not raising your voice at me.”
Charlie looks at me and I stare back, giving nothing away. There’s literally nothing that can be done in this situation except to play along with his fucked up games.
Charlie doesn’t believe in playing along, just like I don’t trust instincts.
So we both do our own thing.
And we both get fucked in the end.
Jared’s eyes slowly find me. “Ugh, I forgot you were in here too,” he says with annoyance. Then he squints his eyes, slowly stroking his chin. He stops and looks back at Charlie. “Give me all the shit you have.”
“What, are you trying to fucking rob me now?” Charlie asks incredulously. “No fucking way.”
Jared comes behind me, grabbing a handful of my hair and jerks my head back, pressing the gun under my chin. “Put all your shit in a bag or you’ll be wiping up her brains and putting her body in a bag.”
Charlie stands up, walking in front of us, looking at me with his eyes wide and that’s when I see it. He doesn’t know that I saw it, but I did. The hesitation that passed through his mind, his eyes. The choice of drugs and his livelihood over my life. He opens his mouth to speak and quickly slams it shut.
“Huh,” Jared mused, and I know he saw it too. “Wrong answer,” he says, quickly whipping the pistol away from me and pulls the trigger, driving a bullet straight into Charlie’s forehead. Within seconds, he drops to the ground and Jared puts three more bullets in his head.
I stand frozen in place, staring at Charlie’s lifeless form crumpled on the floor. Jared moves away from me, pulling a duffel bag out from under the bed and begins raiding the room. All the while, I stare at Charlie with mixed thoughts floating through my mind. I’ve encountered worse than his death before. I’d begun to trust him, about as much as I possibly could. And when it came down to it, he was still going to choose his business over my life.
“Yo, ghost chick,” Jared says, snapping his fingers from the doorway. “Time to fuckin’ go.”
I look down at the filled bag in his hand and back up to meet his gaze, raising an eyebrow at him.
He barks out a laugh. “You’re a fuckin’ witness now. If you wanna die now, we can do that. Or you’re comin’ with me.” He shrugs. “Hurry the fuck up and make a decision.”
I give him a curt nod. “Let’s go.”
“Good choice,” he says, leading us out of the house and onto the street. “One wrong move and I’ll put a bullet through your spinal cord.”
“Your threats mean nothing,” I cut my eyes at him. “I’m not a fucking idiot.”
He abruptly stops, narrowing his eyes at me.
“No, you’re not,” he says in a low voice. “And that’s the problem.”
His emotionless black eyes stare right through mine. “You’re a fucking problem.”