All That You Can’t Leave Behind

A short story

Bob Rowlands hated traveling. It ran in the family, really, and that was a good thing. His son and his daughter never complained about staying home all summer, and his wife, well it was a case of opposites attract. She had been the popular girl in school, he had been the shy introvert who stuck to his books. And even now they couldn’t have turned out any more different. While he kept to a desk job in a company that sold used cars, she was a writer for a travel agency, being paid to travel around the world and write travel guides. Despite this, they’d been married twenty years now, and despite the occasional fights they had about her having to take a flight out so often, they were still together.

He never understood what other people enjoyed so much about moving about, seeing other places. What was wrong with where you lived? He didn’t believe in all the ‘Home is where the heart is’ nonsense. Home is a very physical thing. Though even if he had chose to believe that notion, the fact remained that he was already too far from home. The ones who meant the world to him were only now waking up in a house back at Salt Lake City to find him gone.

Which was why, as much as he hated traveling, he hated traveling alone much more.

Though, frankly, lonely was probably the last thing he could afford to feel right now, considering the stuffy atmosphere inside the Greyhound he taken. He hated buses. He hated sitting beside complete strangers, and he hated the noise a bus full of strangers totaled up to. One of his worst experiences had involved a particularly large man, bloated, reeking of alcohol and piss sitting beside him on a bus he’d taken east to Cheyenne years ago, back when he didn’t have a car or a family. The man had vomited on him, while the bus was still only halfway to its destination. He had sworn then that he’d never get on a bus again.

And yet here he was. Though the fact that the bus had left the station at about 3 in the morning meant that most of the passengers were still asleep, and thankfully silent. As he glanced at the Rolex his wife had gotten him on his birthday, he realized that the silence would be rather short lived, as their first stop would be due at 10.00 in the morning, and the sun was already starting to rise over the flowing red mountains outside the window on his right. So why wasn’t he sleeping now, while he still had the chance?

He leaned his head back against the white colored headrest, and closed his eyes.

His eyes opened barely a few seconds later. He just couldn’t sleep, not with the mechanical hum of the engine consistently droning in his ear, coupled with the 18-year old kid beside him who had fallen asleep with his mp3 player still on, the sound of electric guitars leaking through his less than expensive earphones. The grey leather seats were uncomfortable, and his had holes torn in it. And then there was the scent of cigarettes- from where he was sitting, which was the third row on the front, he could clearly see that the driver, a large bear of a man dressed in the standard uniform, was smoking. Wasn’t there supposed to be some rule about no smoking on the bus? And even without the noise, even without all of this, there was just too much on his mind.

When the cell phone in the chest pocket of his royal blue shirt started vibrating, he stopped blinking, allowing the phone to continue vibrating for the next minute or so until it stopped.

He caught his breath, heaving a long deep sigh as though he had just evaded someone who was out to kill him. Slowly, almost as though he didn’t want to know, he reached into his pocket and pulled the cell phone out-

Yes, it was her. She must have read the note. Was she angry? Was she upset? He could only wonder. What would she have said if he had picked up the phone? What would he have said? Would she threaten to leave him again? Could she? Now? He remembered her saying that she had to fly to Madrid this afternoon, would she still go along with it, now that he was gone? How about the kids? What would she tell them? Would she cancel the Madrid flight, or would she- no, that wasn’t even a question. As much as she loved her job, she wouldn’t leave the kids unattended.

He thought of calling her back. No, he couldn’t have that now. There was nothing he could tell her to make it better. Nothing that she would believe, anyway. He thought of text messaging her, to at least tell her that he loved her. But how would that sound in the light of things? She had after all accused him of sleeping with Linda from the office, who had also been one of their friends from school. Would she assume that he had run away with her?

In the end he typed in one word:

‘Sorry’

And upon sending it to her, he turned his phone off, not wanting to wait for a reply.

He shivered slightly. Despite the fact that his shirt was long-sleeved, he wished that he had taken the time to at least bring a jacket. It was nearing the end of autumn, no wait, in theory it was supposed to be winter today. And even in the bus he felt it. Perhaps the heaters weren’t turned up enough. Perhaps they weren’t turned on at all. Either way, as he took a quick glance around at the other sleeping passengers, he realized that he was the only one who hadn’t had the foresight to dress warmly.

Just as it seemed that the entire journey would pass on uneventful, the telltale sound of something exploding boomed across the inside of the bus, causing everyone who was asleep to instantly snap awake.

He could hear screaming from behind him as the bus started to shake as though it was about to topple over at any given second.

‘There are those who would kill you if they were to find out.’

He felt his blood run cold. Could this be what the Bernard Santiago was talking about on the phone yesterday?

As the bus came to a complete stop, just off the road in the middle of nowhere, he blinked. Sighs of relief came from the people who had been screaming earlier, while some others got up to demand what was happening. With a panicked look on his face, the bus driver got off to find out, coming back a few minutes later to tell them that the engine was completely blown, and that for now they were stuck here until help would arrive.

He did not know why, but he didn’t share in the open feeling of annoyance that everyone else in the bus seemed to show. Perhaps it was just that it couldn’t be helped- no amount of complaining would get the bus fixed, or perhaps it was just that he wasn’t that anxious in reaching his destination.

A phone call later, the driver told them that the company would be sending another bus in to pick them up soon, though it would probably be an hour or so until it arrived from the nearest town. In the meantime, sitting in the bus probably wouldn’t be such a good idea considering the fact that smoke was starting to fill the inside of the coach, wafting from the engine underneath. Begrudgingly, the people got out of their seats, heading out of the bus so that they could sit outside and wait.

The blonde-haired kid with the ponytail beside him was still surprisingly asleep, Bob noticed just as he was about to ask him to move aside so he could leave. Bob shook him slightly, and when that drew no response, he shook him harder.

It was when he was about to take off the boy’s earphones and shout when he noticed that the boy’s chest wasn’t moving.

-

The driver had had to make a second phone call, and when a vehicle came from over the horizon less then twenty minutes later, the people who were outside the bus saw that it wasn’t a bus but an ambulance, adding to the commotion that had already been caused when the driver had told the people outside about the boy who was lying in the bus, possibly dead. The driver had asked for anyone who would know anything about first aid, but no one had stepped forward. And while Bob wished that he could do something, in the end all he could do was watch. He was the only one left in the bus beside the dead boy, leaving the window beside him open so that he wouldn’t have to breathe in the smoke which was at this point, obscuring his view inside the bus.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t move- he could’ve easily slipped past the unmoving boy and went outside with the rest of the passengers if he had wanted to.

He didn’t.

For some reason, there was a kind of sorrow tugging at him that made him want to stay and watch over the boy. It wasn’t that he reminded him of his own children- it was just an unexplainable feeling of responsibility. The kid had seemed like a nice person when he’d first said hello in the bus before they left Salt Lake City. Now he was possibly dead. Bob had to wonder now if he could have prevented it if he had noticed it earlier.

When the paramedics declared the boy dead, they didn’t say why. Bob thought of asking, but he didn’t. He just watched as they whisked him away without looking back. One of them had asked him if he knew the boy. He just shook his head and told the truth- he had only just noticed that the boy wasn’t breathing, he hadn’t even talked to the boy throughout the journey apart from the simple ‘hello’ they’d exchanged at the start. They told him that the police would want a statement from him when they arrived at Phoenix. He just said okay. There was nothing to be afraid of anyway.

With the boy gone, he finally allowed himself to leave the bus, joining the people outside. They weren’t all sitting together in a large group- they were mostly scattered on the roadside, some of them sitting alone, some of the women forming groups where they talked quietly among themselves. Upon seeing him descend the steps of the bus, it seemed to excite them as they stole glances at him, pretending not to notice that he could see that they were talking about him. Did they regard him with suspicion? Did they think he killed the boy?

There were people who smiled at him, of course. But that’s the funny thing about the way things usually are. Throw a black spot on a white canvas, and the first thing you’ll notice is the black spot. The few miniscule smiles meant nothing to him, what bothered him was that they believed him capable of murder.

‘They don’t know me,’ he justified. But the truth was that lately, he didn’t know himself. It was why he had left. Because he needed to be fixed if he wanted be with his family. And so here he was now, marching towards a cure for a fictional disease that may or may not be there.

“I can’t let it happen again,” he’d told the man who introduced himself as Santiago over the phone yesterday.

“Which is why you have to leave, Mr. Rowlands, before things get worse,” came the reply of the dark, husky voice.

“Can’t you just tell me what’s happening?” he asked.

Silence. Hesitation.

“It’s…complicated,” came the reply. “I’ll explain better once we meet in person.”

An impatience Bob had never known suddenly overpowered him then. Perhaps it was fuelled by the sight of his son playing basketball in the front driveway with his best friend from school. He remembered then that Matthew had a game tomorrow, and since his wife couldn’t make it, he had promised to come. And here, this stranger was telling him that he had to leave, all the way down to New Mexico (the alternative had been New York, though he would then have to meet up with someone else) to get his answers.

“Look, I don’t care what the fuck is wrong with me,” Bob growled. “I just want to know that you can fix what’s wrong with me.”

More silence. More hesitation.

In the end, the only thing Santiago had told him was that, “We can make it so that you can come home to your family without having to worry anymore.”

And while it wasn’t a direct promise for a cure, he decided then that it was good enough.

-

It was cold outside. So cold that he contemplated getting back into the smoke-filled bus. About an hour had passed, and snow was starting to fall on the open fields. It had an almost calming effect- like everything else was starting to happen in slow motion. The chattering of the bored people died down- a lot of people were stopping to watch and touch the falling snowflakes with a look of wonder, as though they hadn’t seen snow before. They probably had, Bob realized- it’s just that today was the first time they’d probably been out in the open when it actually started.

Christmas wouldn’t be so far behind. He wondered if he would be back home by then, and if they would accept him back if, no, when he did make it back. Last year’s Christmas hadn’t been very pleasant, owing mainly to another one of the fights he’d had with Emily.

“Well who am I supposed to talk to, Emily?” he’d shouted. “You’re hardly around when I need-

“It’s not like you couldn’t have called!” she snapped back. “What’s the point in having a bloody cell phone if you’re not going to use it?”

“Nothing happened!” he said, repeating himself for the third time that night.

“You mean nothing happened yet!” she said, staring at him accusingly with those hateful green eyes. They glowed maliciously in the candlelight of the room- candles that were meant for the dinner he had planned so meticulously. The children had already taken shelter in their rooms, like they always did when things got ugly. And things were as ugly as they could get then.

“If you’re so worried about my activities, then you should probably stay home more often! When you come home, I barely get enough time with you, and then you run off to some foreign shithole-

Her voice was pure venom. “You said back then, that my job wouldn’t be problem.”

“We were both stupid then,” Bob replied.

“So you admit it then? That you regret marrying me?”

He shook his head, sending the thoughts away. He would make this year better. He would make it back in time. Emily deserved that. The kids deserved that. While he had often made Emily feel like she wasn’t a good mother, at the heart of it, he often wondered if he himself was a good husband and father. Did he depend on her too much? Did he spend enough time with them? Now, in the face of the possibility that whatever it was that ailed him now would sever him from them forever, he realized how much they meant to him, and how they deserved so much more from him.

The second bus arrived just as he was beginning to feel as though he would freeze to death. The passengers anxiously scrambled towards the new bus with their belongings, like prisoners from a war camp anxious to be released. The seating that came with the tickets was shot to hell now- they could sit wherever they wanted, which was how he eventually found himself sitting alone just two rows from the last at the end of the bus, again beside the window. For a while it seemed like he would be alone, like the vacuum that the dead boy had left behind was cursed and no one wanted to confirm their fears that he had somehow been responsible for the boy’s death. He didn’t mind. All he wanted now was to get some sleep.

Again he found himself opening his eyes barely five seconds after closing them.

“Excuse me, do you mind if I sit here?”

The face staring back at him was that of a woman who, at first looked so much like Emily that he found himself flinching. She had hair which was the same shade of red, though it hung freely down her shoulders instead of being tied neatly. Apart from that, he skin was slightly tanner, and her eyes were dark brown instead of green. And despite the fact that she looked only slightly younger than Emily, she had lines on her face which made her look darker, more mature. The smile she gave him was one that appeared to be forced- in contrast to Emily whose smile could melt ice; this woman looked like the cold kind who would smile only if she absolutely had to.

In short, she struck him as a business class, high salary woman, though the clothes she was wearing betrayed that perception. Instead of a proper suit and tie which he decided she would look more comfortable in, she was wearing a plain white shirt which loosely defined her features along with a pair of tight, worn jeans. Held in her left hands, folded was a red hoodie which she had probably worn while she was outside. Why she would take it off was beyond him- the inside of the bus wasn’t really that much warmer.

He found his tongue. “Uh, no I don’t mind.”

Her smile widened, and for a second it looked like genuine gratitude. As she settled down beside him. “I’m sorry, I just- the person who was sitting beside me just now, the same person who sat beside me on the last bus was just…well, unbearable. He took up a lot of space, and he kept on trying to hold my hand.”

“Well then,” he said, finally finding the strength to smile. “Then you won’t have anything to worry about from me.” As he said this, he raised his right hand to show his wedding band.

Her eyes narrowed as an amused smile appeared on her face. The coldness was gone now. Almost as though she’d turned off a switch inside her which kept her that way. “Well, that’s strange. Married people rarely take buses. You don’t own a car?”

“I do,” he admitted. “I just…didn’t want to drive all the way to Phoenix. I’m meeting someone there before I head down to New Mexico.”

“Your wife is meeting you in Phoenix?”

“No, it’s someone else.”

Silence. Realizing the changed expression on her face, he quickly added, “No, it’s not another woman.”

“Is it some kind of business trip?” she asked.

The bus had started moving.

He leaned back, sighing. “I guess you could say that.”

The following moments passed in silence as she laid back as well. She produced a thick paperback novel from her backpack- it was a Grisham book, though he didn’t really pay attention to the title. She attempted to read it for a while, but then put it down all the same. He had to wonder why she even tried. The ability to read while in a moving vehicle, as far as he was concerned, was a gift. From the way she put the book down, it looked more like she was bored of it rather than because the bus was in motion.

“…How about you?” he found himself asking.

She looked at him, a questioning look.

“Single? Married? Boyfriend?”

She sighed, as though what she was about to say was the hardest thing to admit in the whole world. “Married.”

“You’re not wearing a ring,” he observed.

“…it’s complicated.”

He stopped there. He didn’t want to sound like he was prying. In fact he didn’t want to sound like anything at all. He just wanted a conversation to pass the time since he obviously wasn’t going to be getting any sleep.

They passed the rest of the journey without saying anything to each other. Oddly, he kept on finding himself looking at her. He had to admit that she did look attractive, but he tried not to think about it too much. And as he worried about her noticing that his eyes went back to her every so often, at one point, he realized that she threw occasional glances at him as well. It was like the both of them wanted something from each other- a conversation perhaps, perhaps something slightly more than that. But there was a kind of loneliness in them which they found reflected in each other. Still while it severed them from the ones they loved, it also formed a barrier between them, making it hard for anyone to form words.

-

“He ran into some complications. He won’t be able to meet you at the station just yet. Go get a room in a hotel somewhere and call me. I’ll tell him to come meet you there when he arrives.”

Just as Bob opened his mouth to reply, the call ended. Santiago had been panting when he’d picked up the phone, and he could hear shouting in the background. Bob knew better than to ask what was going on though. The man would probably just tell him that ‘It was complicated’ or that ‘he’d understand when he got there.’

‘Fuck complicated,’ he thought to himself. ‘Everything just fucking is that way.’

As he tucked his cell phone back into his pocket, he picked up the duffel bag which had been resting against his feet and started walking out the bus, down the stairs and into the sea of people who were swarming the terminal. It was late evening, and the sun would set soon. The scent of petrol and sweat lingered in the air around him as he made his way through the crowd, determined to find a hotel room as quickly as possible so he could just lock himself inside and fall asleep. While the thought of exploring the city itself to find a place to eat first had occurred to him while he was on the bus, now he decided all he wanted was to just sleep. Food could come later.

“Hey!”

He staggered back, feeling the slight push of the person who had just run into him. He had just found his way to one of the building’s exits, where a road with the promise of taxis and city lights waited just beyond the automatic double doors. Now this. He recovered and got a good look at the person who had just bumped into him.

It was her. The woman from the bus.

“Oh, sorry,” she said. “I took the wrong exit just now.”

“Wow, talk about coincidences, huh?” he muttered.

“Where are you headed?” she asked him plainly.

“I don’t know, really,” he said. “The person who was supposed to meet me won’t be arriving until tomorrow.”

“I’m about to go to a diner to get some coffee, then I’m heading to this cheap hotel downtown. A friend of mine runs the place, I could get a cheap room for you if you like. In the meantime would you mine joining me for coffee? I hate sitting alone,” she said.

He thought about it. What harm could it bring? He had time to spare anyway. Sleep could wait.

“Yeah,” he said. “Sure.”

She extended her hand, “I’m Sarah, by the way. Sarah Hunnigan.”

“Bob, Bob Rowlands,” he replied, shaking her hand.

-

The diner they had found looked like it was probably the cheapest one in the whole city. It didn’t really matter- it was the first they’d run into when they left the terminal. The diner was almost empty, with only one or two tables occupied when they had arrived. The large woman at the cashier looked scary enough that it was possible that the people avoided this place because of her. Still, the coffee was decent, and so was the chicken sandwich he ordered, so he didn’t really mind.

“So, is this your first time in Phoenix?” she asked just after the waitress had left them with their orders.

“Yeah,” he admitted. And mostly out of having nothing else to ask, he continued, “And you?”

She shook her head. “Nah, I lived here when I was 15. Moved to Salt Lake City when I got married. Come back here often enough,” she said. “Mostly when I get tired of things there and I just want to escape back to a place that feels more like home.”

“Escape?” he said. “Like running away? What is there to run away from?”

She took a long deep sigh.

“Well, my husband, for one.” Seeing that he didn’t look at all surprised when she’d said this, she added, “I love him. I do, but lately things have just…changed.”

“How long have you been together?” Bob asked.

“Twelve years,” she answered. “And we used to have so much in common, we even work at the same place…which is why I find it ironic that work is what’s been getting in the way lately.” She trailed off, looking down at her cup of coffee before taking another sip.

When she finally looked up, she looked at him and asked, with an amused smirk, “How about that business trip of yours, eh? Are you sure you’re not running from anything either?”

He thought about it. Yes, he had left his family at home, but it was so that he could come back to them. Right? He was beginning to wonder. Maybe twenty years was too long a time to be together. Emily had said it the last time they had fought, again over her job. It wasn’t fair. Whenever she got tired of home, she could just fly off somewhere on a vacation-like job and forget everything. He, himself had been stuck there for as long as he could remember.

Maybe he did need to go out into the world after all. At least in order to get his thoughts straightened out about where things were heading, and how he could save his marriage and his children.

“It’s hard to say,” he admitted. “I’m running from my family, but I’m also running back towards them. See, there’s…there’s something wrong with me, and I have to get cured before I can go back to them.”

He noticed that she seemed to lean back slightly as he said this.

“Cured? You’re diseased?”

He shook his head. “No, it’s not like that. And I don’t think it’s contagious. But it’s…well, it’s complicated.”

There was that word again.

“Either way, we have something in common,” she said, after a few more moments of silence. Although she looked slightly disappointed that he hadn’t explained what he meant by ‘cured’, she smiled nonetheless. “We’re out here alone while the people who love us are back home. But we’re not here because we don’t love them, we’re here because we do.”

He didn’t really understand how it applied to her, but he nodded anyway, “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

-

From there, things went uphill. They continued talking about themselves for the next hour or so. Mostly about their marriages and their jobs. She was apparently a secretary at a law firm back at Salt Lake City. That was where she’d met her husband, who was a lawyer. He showed her the pictures of his children that he kept in his wallet, bragged about them like any parent would, and somehow found himself confessing his fears about not being good enough for them. Fears that she calmly pushed aside as she smiled at him from across the table and said, “I know we’ve just met, but I have a sixth sense when it comes to people. You’re a good person.”

Not knowing how else to respond to that, he just said, “Thank you.”

Things went progressively faster from there, like he was suddenly shoved into the back seat of a car and forced to watch the world pass by. Had he taken anything to drink? The details of what exactly they did or said at the diner blurred, along with the taxi ride to the hotel she had told him about.

As they entered the lobby, just as she was about to go and ring the bell at the reception, he found himself catching her left hand.

She stopped and turned back to look at him. It wasn’t a look of confusion. It was the look of comprehension. Like she had seen this coming- which was unfair because he hadn’t. Every step she took towards the reception, along with every step she took back to him holding a single key in her hand, was accompanied by thoughts of Emily, and the questions, ‘What are you doing? Why are you doing this?’

The questions were defeated the moment she locked the room door behind her. They didn’t even turn on the lights- the room wasn’t all that dark anyway, not with the city lights outside leaking in through the blinds, illuminating her ghostly figure as she glided towards him, holding his larger hands and drawing him closer towards her, backwards, towards the bed.

It started, as it always does, with a kiss. Her mouth tasted of caffeine, and the traces of alcohol confirmed that she, at least had been drinking. Which meant that he had probably had some as well back at the diner. It didn’t matter now, he realized as her smaller hands started unbuttoning his shirt- whether he was drunk or not, what would happen tomorrow, what he cared about the past, nothing mattered. All there was for him was here, and now.

“I…I haven’t done this in a while,” he panted as the first kiss ended. She had already taken his shirt off and was now proceeding to take hers off as well.

“It doesn’t matter,” she replied darkly. “I’ll steer you round the curves.”

And he let her. Maybe because it was the way he’d always really wanted it to be. Maybe because that way, it would feel less like his fault. Maybe because he just needed it. He thought of Emily, and he knew that at the end of this, there would only be guilt. But for now, thinking of her only brought anger. It was her fault that this was happening. If she had only been fucking home more often he wouldn’t be doing this. If she had only been there, he probably wouldn’t be enjoying this fuck as much as he was now.

He fell asleep, spent, with his arms tightly around her, savoring the feeling of her warm breath against his neck. He wasn’t completely immune- he did hate the fact that this was the best night he’d ever had despite the fact that he didn’t love this woman. Tomorrow, they’d say goodbye and never see each other again. Could he forget about her completely? When he finally reached home, would he be able to fuck his own wife without comparing her to this woman?

Still, they were only questions for tomorrow. All there was for him now was the warm embrace of sleep.

-

When she woke up, it was still dark. His arm was still over her. Slowly, cautiously, she moved out of his embrace, letting her feet touch the cold floor before she got up quietly. If he had been stirred by her movement, he showed no sign of it. Softly, she stepped over to the place on the floor where their clothes lay before putting on her shirt. She contemplated getting a shower first, but decided that it could wait as she reached for her backpack lying against the foot of the bed.

The item she pulled out of it, black, sleek and as cold as the room itself, was a gun.

She searched her backpack for the silencer, screwed it back on and pointed it at the man sleeping on the bed.

Nothing happened for the few silent moments that past.

Hesitation. She’d thought she’d gotten over it years ago when she’d gotten into this business. These people didn’t deserve pity. They weren’t even human.

Not that this man knew it. From what she could gather, he himself wasn’t aware of what he was. A rare case, but unfortunately it didn’t make it a forgivable one. Was he thinking of his wife when he had fucked her? She didn’t know, but she hadn’t been thinking of her husband –the only factual piece of the fiction she’d given Bob- until now.

Could it be that-?

No, it had to be lust. And while it would’ve normally disgusted her to think that she had gone to bed with him, no, it, he felt more human than even her own husband.

But he wouldn’t be for long, she realized. And to do him a favor, she put two bullets through his brain.

She blinked. His chest had stopped moving, but for all intents and purposes, minus the blood now leaking from his head, he looked like he was still asleep. She exhaled, sinking back against a wooden chair by the window, lines of light defining the sad look on her face as she drew out a cell phone from her pocket, dialed a number, and waited for the person on the other side to pick up.

“He’s dead. I just killed him. So? Did you run that background check I asked you to?” she asked, starting to pace around the room.

“If he is one of them, he’s not on our records,” came the reply of a male voice from the other side of the line. “Apart from that, he’s pretty normal, actually. Comes from Salt Lake City, married, has kids…”

“So he’s fresh, then?” she asked.

“Well…is he dead yet? You should check his body for scars.”

“No, there aren’t any,” she replied almost instantly.

“That was quick. I thought you said you just killed him. When did-?

-That’s not important right now. From what he told me, it was only starting. He’s above forty, Ryan. If he was born with it, it would’ve happened when he was a teenager,” she said.

“Well…there are isolated cases,” the voice replied. “But look, that’s not important right now. The point is you killed it. It deserved to die. A cleanup crew will be there shortly. Your money will be transferred into your account tomorrow. Just go get some rest.”

“Ryan,” she said softly, her eyes falling back to the dead man on the bed. “Where is my husband?”

“Still in New York, with the rest of us. Alive and well, don’t worry. We finished the raid, even caught a live one, and killed a few others, though about twelve of them escaped,” came the answer. “Don’t worry, Sarah. Wesley will be back home before you know it.”

And before she could respond, he’d hung up, leaving her alone in the room again, holding a gun in one hand and a cell phone in another. She put both down on the small coffee table beside where she was sitting, and closed the blinds, leaving the open bathroom door as the only source of light left in the room. Tears welled in her eyes as she made her way for the bathroom. She didn’t give a damn how well the raid had gone, or how many of them they’d manage to kill. All she wanted was her damn life back, back when it had still been about the money and not about ‘saving the human race’.

She closed the bathroom door behind her, and save for the small amount of light that seeped through from underneath it, the room fell back into darkness.