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“There you guys
are.” Dante was lying on his car’s hood when they arrived to the
empty lot. Looking at his watch, he said “You’re late, what took
you guys so long?”
“We were trying
to find your ass.” Toni said as she slammed the door. “You could
have told us that you changed the meeting point before we
arrived there.”
“Yeah, but
having a kid give you guys the message is just so much more
noir.” He smiled.
“You have our
stuff, or not?” Allys asked, as she and John got out of the car.
“Yeah, I do.”
Dante said as he reached inside the car. “It’s all in this
package.”
He took out a
manila envelope, and opened the cover to reach inside. “So, tell
me, where are we all headed towards?”
“I’m thinking
somewhere in France,” John said. “We can hide out there for
awhile.”
“Hiding in the
beach under the sun, eh?” Dante chuckled at this. “Awesome.”
And as he said
so, a loud burst came out of the envelope. One, after another,
after another.
Allys’ jaw was
wide open, as well as Toni’s, as they both froze at the loud
noise still ringing in their ears.
The crunching
of the pebbles under John was the first thing that Allys heard
after the ringing, followed by a loud ‘flump’, as John fell face
first onto the ground, the blood staining the back of his shirt.
“Sorry, just
business.” Dante smiled as he approached Toni, who was still too
dumbfounded to do anything against him.
Allys saw
Toni’s body ricochet at the symphony of the bullets piercing
through her, yet she still couldn’t feel anything, with John
still on the floor, with everything going on.
And just like
that, Dante held the smoking envelope’s hole to her head,
looking at her with the slightest of smiles.
“Y-You…” She
started off, but couldn’t get herself to finish.
“It was either
you guys or me, that simple.” He replied simply.
“So you weren’t
just there...”
“No, I was the
ones that led them there.” Pause, a deep sigh. “I told them to
let you go, since you were a better lead towards John than
anyone else.”
“H-How could
you…”
“Like I said,
it was either you guys, or me, on the Yakuza death list.” With a
shrug, he continued. “I made my choice, and that’s all there is
to it.”
“You sold your
friends.”
“I’m just doing
what we’ve been doing for years,” He smiled again. “Killing
other lives in order to prolong my own.”
“We were your
friends.”
With a deep
sigh, he looked at her with a serious look, and held his arm
straight. “We’ll let fate decide this one, alright?”
She looked at
him, and he stared at her, a moment of silence as it all sets
up.
And the trigger
went off.
Her eyes
closed, the moment she was waiting for didn’t come.
Smiling, Dante
turned around, and gave himself a chuckle of relief. “Out of
bullets.” Walking towards his car, he walked with a slow and
relaxed pace. “I’ll see you around, cowgirl.”
And with the
slightest of waves, he drove away on his car, the dust clouds
drifting behind it.
Allys looked at
it, and could feel her breath heavily filling and emptying air
from her lungs.
Hurriedly, she
crouched down, and helped John lie on her legs. His heavy breath
matched hers, except it was weaker,
The blood was
seeping out of his wound, as he lied on the floor, his head on
Allys’ knees, wounded, looking up tiredly at her, looking up
blankly at her.
“John, you
idiot…” Was all that she could say, tears coming out of her,
trying hard not to sob, trying hard not to give up on him,
because that would just be so easy. “Damn it, where were you,
John? Where were you?”
Looking up at
her, he kind of smiled, and kind of looked faded away. “You’re
not wearing any make-up.” He faintly chuckled at this.
She had seen
all this before, in a dream, in a vision that she thought she
had changed.
“I’m sorry,
John, I’m sorry.” She sobbed, at her realization, at her
attempts to change anything. “I thought I changed it all, I
thought I had prevented all this from happening.”
“They knew
you’d take them to me.” He smiled still, weakly, chuckling a
little. “It was the natural thing for them to do.”
“I’m sorry, I
did know, I did know how this would end.” The tears were coming,
and she knew they weren’t going to stop anytime soon. “I had a
vision, I knew what would happen, I shouldn’t have tried to
change anything at all.”
“You didn’t
know,” He said weakly. “It sometimes doesn’t come true,
remember?”
“NO! I lied!”
She said. “It always comes true!” The sobs were coming, and oh,
she knows she won’t be able to stop them at all. “I tried to lie
to myself that I could change the future if I tried, that I
could stop fate if I wanted to.” Sobbing, to him, to her, the
whole world seemed to shake. “I thought I could. But I can’t.
It’s already been decided. It’s all been done already.”
John’s eyes
slowly closed, looking up at her, looking up at the skies.
“Don’t ever stop trying.” He said, weakly, almost a whisper,
smile in his face. “Because what else is there left in life?”
And with that,
he left her, and the eyes closed forever.
“John, John?
Can you hear me?” She asked, in a weak voice, as tears poured
down her cheeks, as everything was going according to plan,
according to her vision. “John, stay with me.” Her voice was
breaking up, cracking up, everything drawing to an end. “John,
don’t close your eyes. Don’t close your eyes, John.”
Everything
moved in synchronized time, the clouds, the sky, the birds
singing on the trees. For one second, everything seemed to make
sense, her, John in her arms, the pebbles’ cracking sounds. For
that one second, everything felt alright, as if nothing ever had
happened at all, as if they were all happy and pretty.
Happily ever
after.
Life went on
and on.
END
Written
by Tom Lin, 9/27/04 |
