As soon as I make it into the quiet lobby the sound of a woman's shrieking makes me reach for my gun and jerk my attention toward where the sound came from. A girl I don’t recognize catches my eye as she runs toward me, her big brown eyes lighting her face up. “Oh my god! Are you hurt?” she asks once she gets closer, inspecting me closely.
She tucks her dark hair behind her ear and her eyes roam all over my body but I just stare back at her.
“Are you okay?” she asks, her eyes finally moving to my own and her full lips turning down some like she doesn’t understand.
I frown.
“Who are you?” I growl out, annoyed to have her in my face when I obviously need a shower.
“Oh … um …” she breathes out a ragged nervous breath while she continues to look over my body for the source of all of the blood on my clothing and replies, “I'm Ruby.”
She smiles, reaching a hand out and seems so happy and willing to shake my hand even though the dried blood on my hands and clothing should be a good enough reason for her not to. I stare down at her hand without touching it and she slowly retracts it, catching the hint. She keeps the unusually attractive smile on her face though.
“I'm new.”
“What happened to the old receptionist, Kelly?” I figure she’ll be able to tell me why the fuck she’s here instead of the person I’m comfortable with.
“I think she had her baby early or something. I usually work at another building, but I think I'm here until she comes back.”
I look her up and down once more and shake my head. “Stay out of my way, Ruby.”
She doesn't listen, just like I expected and quickly follows behind me. “Are you sure you don't need to go to a hospital, you must be hurt. There’s a lot of blood on you.”
I look over my shoulder and eye her harshly as Nathan opens the elevator door for me. “It's not my blood.”
I step into the elevator and I notice a faint smirk on Nathan's lips. He's obviously amused with her wide eyes and the way her pouty lips are hanging open. She doesn't say anything else, but holds my stare as the elevator doors close. If the sinister grin on my face isn't enough to scare her ass away, I know I'll have to figure out how to handle her some way or another.
Her over concern about me is weird and arbitrary as fuck, but as I get to my apartment, I can only assume it’s probably because of the amount of blood covering me.
It’s definitely not normal.
I hope she won’t be much of a problem. With a face as pretty as hers and the naughty glint in her eyes, I am sure she has plenty of things to occupy her time, but I have a feeling I’ll be seeing a lot more of her whether I like it or not.
MESSIAH — PRESENT
“Hollis needs us to get a body,” I tell Nicholai. “Think you can help me before you and Salem leave?”
“It’s fresh?” he asks, twisting around on the barstool to look at me, rubbing a hand over his low cut blonde hair.
“I’m assuming, since he just called me.” I chuckle, walking out of his kitchen. “Let’s go, motherfucker.”
He groans, but I hear him get off of the stool and follow me anyway. “You know Salem is going to be pissed if we pick her up with a body in the trunk.”
I laugh because I know he’s right, but we don’t have a choice. “She’ll get over it.”
We leave the townhome he shares with his little sister, and when we get into my Tahoe my mind goes to what Hollis left behind for us. He never gives me any details over the phone, just leaves them coded into a seemingly harmless conversation which typically sounds like we're talking shit.
I drive and Nicholai already has the music turned up and I’m thankful because I don’t want to talk, especially to him. He never typically talks to anyone other than Salem anyway. He’s good to have on my side, but we’ve never been close. I’m not sure if he’s close with anyone, honestly. He’s still my brother at the end of the day.
The warehouse we pull up to is one we use often enough for me to feel comfortable here. I pull the Tahoe into the back of the building and without a word Nic jumps out and lifts the metal door so I can pull through. He closes it behind me. I see the body immediately and I circle the truck around, angling the back toward the dead fucker who stole from Elijah.
He should’ve known better than to steal from us.
I get out of the car just as Nicholai walks up beside me and as the smell of death seeps into our noses we admire Hollis’ work. A single bullet to his head, a Hollis specialty, but the man’s face is mangled and I can tell Hollis had some built up anger when he beat this dude. I don’t know what he said, but it must’ve been bad, because Hollis wasn’t one to do extra shit.
“Dude got the works,” Nicholai laughs. “Hollis must be in a pissy mood.”
“I was thinking the same.”
We don’t say anything else as we clean up the area and it takes us less than ten minutes to bag the body up and get it into the back of the Tahoe. It’s not ideal to have a whole dead body in the back of the truck when I’m picking up Salem because she always says she can smell it in her hair for days. She’s just dramatic when it comes to dead bodies.
Once we are out of the warehouse I head straight for Preston’s gym where we dropped Salem off earlier. She hates it up there, but there was no arguing with the orders Preston gives. He always gets what he wants, and the pay is good, so we all do what we’re told. Not Nicholai, but he isn’t like the rest of us. He likes to push the limit.
“Call her and tell her we’re outside, I don’t want to go in,” I tell Nicholai and he pulls his phone out.
When she answers I can hear her loud voice through the phone telling us to come inside. “Why?” Nic asks, and I tilt my head against my headrest, not wanting to go in at all. “No, come on Say. I’m not coming in. Just come on.”
He doesn’t have to listen to her complaining about his orders because he hangs up before she can get to them and I laugh. Nicholai looks up at the gym and shakes his head. We only wait a few minutes before I see her and she’s already pouting.
“What the hell is she so fussy for?” I ask out loud. I know Nicholai doesn’t know the answer and don’t expect him to answer me.
“She doesn’t want to go tonight.”
I know what he means, and I drop it. I don’t always want to go on jobs either, so I can’t judge her, but our feelings never matter to the end game, in the end we’ll all do our job.
I won’t have anyone helping me toss the body pieces into the burner and Salem won’t have anyone telling her she doesn’t have to go. It’s just what we do to survive.
When the back door of the Tahoe opens, Salem gets in and the whining starts immediately. She must already see the body bag because there’s not much of a smell or anything. Maybe she can just sense death or something.
“Ah, what the fuck, you guys! You couldn’t drop it off before you got me?”
“Just get in and shut the damn door,” Nicholai says, not looking back at her at all. “You’ve seen worse.”
I laugh. “Hell, she’s done worse.”