How I ran away

How I promised

Hands. They pull gently. I fight back not so gently. What seems like forever passes. And then they pried me off the body. The dead body. Dead.

                “Holly,” that brings me back. My name.

                “He died to save you, don’t waste it by crying,” it’s Dan. Funny that he cares. He probably doesn’t.

                I pull away from the body and turn to him.

                “Help me bury him,”

                He looks taken aback.

                “Now!” I say.

                His eyebrows are up. After a second he nods.

                The next few hours we dig. Dan lowers the body into the hole we dug under the shaft of sunlight that all but disappeared. We pile dirt over him. Dan says a few words.

                “From the few minutes I knew him, I could tell he was a good guy,”

                I would add more but there is nothing else to say. He was a good guy. He really was.

                We stand in silence for a few minutes. Me leaning on a branch as a cane. Staring at the pile of freshly dug earth. The rock I found as a gravestone. The flower I placed. A dandelion. All I could find.

                “You owe me money,” 

                I look up at him. His grey eyes are cold. Empty. No emotion. He sure knows how to ruin a moment.

                “Your job was to get us out safely, both of us,” I say. I have no money. Twelve was the one with the money. Now he’s gone.

                “We are out,” he says.

                I look at him. He raises his gun. Points it at my forehead, between my eyes. I wait for it to come.

                “Go,” he says. He lowers the gun.

                “Really?”

                “Don’t make me change my mind.” He says.

                I turn to limp away. As fast as I can. Before he does change my mind and my brains are splattered over Twelve’s grave.

                I look back, “will I ever see you again?”

                “Don’t count on it,” he says.

                I turn and walk away. The trees come between us. Even if I look back now I won’t see him. That was it. I left him from my life. Gone. I’ll never have to face him again. The cold man that may be warm. The cold man that let me live, defying direct orders. And I didn’t even pay him. In my mind he is evil. Kills for money. But I can't see the contract killer as evil in my head. He was good to me.

                That’s it. I continue walking in the forest.

                Light fades. Night brings in cold winds.

                My leg is paining me. I am hungry. I still walk. Continue walking.

                Eventually I had to stop. Getting late. Sun completely gone. The woods are dark by night.  Completely dark.

                I lie down. Let the bugs crawl up my skin. Let my body freeze to death. I just have one last wish. To avenge Twelve.

                I wake to a growl. To those glowing eyes. It is still dark. Still cold. My hands are numb. Leg in pain.

                But I can't set my mind on any of that. Because it is staring at me. It growls again. I bite back a scream.

                I’m staring into the eyes of a lion.