Page 47 of Wandering in Darkness
What the fuck is even happening? Are these guys just really fucking bad criminals… or are they simply inexperienced? But why? Why are they doing this, then? And why is Grayson helping them? And since I’m already asking questions, why does Ned have those photographs in the drawer?
His phone starts ringing and there’s a few seconds of silence.
“Are you going to answer it or just stare at it?” Emma asks. “Put it on speaker.”
“I can’t stand his voice!” Ned slams something down on his desk. “This is Ned.”
“Ned…” a man says.
When he doesn’t say anything more, Ned bites. It’s apparent the man is wanting to string him along and Ned is playing his game. “You got what you wanted.”
“Did I?” the man asks.
Ned hesitates, and my nosy ass really wishes I could see what’s going on. It’s so unfair that I can’t.
“I wasn’t there,” Ned says, voice cold. “But I told you the kid came with a bodyguard. Did your guys not deal with his guard?”
“I’m very pissed. And you don’t want to deal with me when I’m pissed. You trying to make a mockery of me? You trying to fuck with me? We’ve been over this, Ned. You want to keep your head, then you do what I fucking say.”
“You seem to think I can read minds and know what the fuck is going on,” Ned snarls.
“What’s going on is that my men were assaulted by people who took Elena’s son back from them.”
“Did your men not even tie him up or incapacitate him? Did they think his bodyguard was just going to sit there and watch you take him?”
“What’s even funnier is that they told me there wasn’t just one man buttwowho assaulted my men. And the second was your guy, Ned. You fucking with me? Do you think I’m a fucking joke?” he screams.
“Why the fuck would one of my men try to get Antonio back? I think you’re confused.”
The call ends and the room is quiet for a bit.
“Ned,” Emma says, sounding upset. “I think we need to stop. I know… I know we want answers. I know we want to feel like we’ve donesomething. But all we’re going to end up doing is wind up dead. What the fuck then? What have we accomplished if we all end up dead?”
And that’s the moment a huge crash sounds around me.
NINE
CAL - PAST
I sit up from where I’d been positioned before my rifle and jump when I realize that there’s someone behind me. “Fucking hell. I guess I’d have been dead ten times over at this point. I had no idea you were there,” I admit.
Grayson laughs. “What can I say? I’m light on my feet… I’m stealthy as fuck… I’m, uhh… just that good. Or maybe you were concentratingveryhard.”
“It’s because Lt. Allen is asking the impossible,” I say, looking off in the distance where my last shot landed. “For that distance, he really needs someone better.”
Grayson doesn’t seem convinced as he shakes his head. “Nah, you can do it.”
“I’m not sure I can,” I counter. “What if I fuck up? I mean, maybe if it was a completely still day with not a speck of wind and the target never moved, I could make it. But once you add in target movement, a small target, and wind…”
There’s a pair of binoculars in my bag that Grayson stoops down and picks up. After the first job that Lt. Allen asked me to do, he’s called a couple more times over the past two months with a job for me. Most of the time it’s simple things, and as of yet, he hasn’t actually needed me. I’ve been there in case things went wrong, and thankfully, every time they’ve gone right.
“You only have to shoot if things go wrong,” Grayson says. “I have faith things are going to go just fine. Lt. Allen generally has a pretty solid idea of how things are going to go down. It’ll be okay and you probably won’t even be needed.”
“I know…”
He peers through the binoculars for a minute before lowering them and raising an eyebrow. “Excuse me, can we rewind? Like why was I even trying to reassure you? Not only did you hit the target, you hit the center. What in the world was all of that ‘You need a better gunman, I can’t do this, blah blah’ nonsense?”
I’m trying my hardest not to grin because I feel like if I do, he will just use it as confirmation that he’s right. “I only hit it because there’s no wind today.”
