Shot

Reese grumbles a little to himself, not happy with the way things have been handled by Con. “I guess you three stay there with Con until you get some information from Dirk. That way you’ll all know what’s going on, and if Con does anything stupid, it would probably take all three of you to take him down anyway.” He pauses, still thinking. “Once you’ve got some ideas on a location, if any, come back here and leave Dirk the way he is. Nothing he can tell the Agency after this will be news to them anyway. …Give me a call back when you’re headed this way. Thanks, Nate.”


“…There’s that abandoned school out on fifth that they use sometimes.” Dirk runs his tongue over the split in his lip, staring at Con, fear still on his face. “Not sure why they like it since it’s so close to downtown but…”

“I don’t care about your opinion!” Con slams a fist on the table, making Dirk jump. “I want facts, Dirk! Where else might they be?”

Dirk swallows hard. “I…I don’t know, man! There’s that shelter down by the rock quarry about six miles out of town…and I know sometimes they’ve met at that old place that used to be a restaurant out on Maple.”

“What else?”

“Sometimes I know they’ve gone down to the north side of the lake too, you know, where those vacant houses are.”

“What else?”

Dirk shakes his head. “That’s all I know!”

Con grabs Dirk by the shirt collar again. “There’s more, I can see it!”

“Alright alright! There’s a house, east of…”

Without warning, there’s the sound of a shot and breaking glass. Con is hit with such force it throws him back into the table before he sinks to the floor.

“Everybody down!” Jason orders, immediately going to his stomach on the floor, along with the others, adrenaline racing through his veins.

Dirk seizes the moment and jumps up from his chair, making a mad dash to the adjoining living room.

Still dazed, Con moves a bloody hand from his left shoulder and sees Dirk fleeing. Without hesitating, he grabs his gun that fell to the floor with him, and aims it at his enemy’s back.

Jason’s eyes widen. “Con, no!”

A second shot rings out.

Con’s gun remains outstretched as he watches Dirk slump to the floor after an instantaneous death.

Silence.

Jason stares at the scene in shock. Had he just witnessed his friend gunning someone down? Shooting him in the back, no less? It takes several moments for him to right himself from the floor, along with Wyatt, who is also stunned.

Con manages to sit up, wincing as he moves his left arm, the blood still coming.

Finally finding his voice, Jason glances over to him. “How bad is it?”

“Went right through.” Con grimaces as he applies pressure to the wound. “Must’ve been a sniper across the street. He’ll be long gone by now.”

“And now we’ve got a body on our hands.” Jason holsters his gun, throwing his arms in the air as finally his own irritation surfaces. “How could you do that, Con?! Now we won’t find out anything else, let alone the fact that you just killed Dirk in cold blood! What were you thinking?!”

Con grits his teeth as he pulls himself up off the floor to stand. “Go ahead, Jase. Tell me you would have handled it differently. Tell me that you would have sat here for hours on end talking nice to him and just hoping he’d make a slip of the tongue so you’d actually gain some information. Tell me you would have let him go alive after knowing where we were headed. Go ahead, Hotshot – tell me.”

Jason searches his friend’s eyes, a strange emotion rising. He didn’t even know what to think or what to feel. This cold-heartedness was something new, and it caused disappointment…anger…almost a fear.

Wyatt cautiously goes into the living room to check Dirk, finding him, in fact, to be dead. Something behind the window curtain catches his eye though, and he moves the drapery to the side. His eyes widen. A sawed-off shotgun had been hidden from view. He looks to the kitchen, revealing the weapon.

Jason sees the shotgun, then looks back to Con. If Con had not shot Dirk, or if he’d only given him a wound that wasn’t fatal, Dirk would have turned on them, and one of them might now be dead instead.

Con glares at Jason. “…And tell me that you would have let him shoot us all down.”

Jason swallows hard. There was so much anger in Con’s eyes…so much hate. Was there no remorse for what he’d just done, even if it had been for their own protection?

Wyatt interrupts his thoughts. “We need to go back to TJY, table all of these locations and pinpoint where we think is most likely Jamie is being held. We won’t know if Dirk was telling the truth or not until we look.” He nods to Con. “And you need Rick to take care of that shoulder of yours before you bleed to death.”

Con rolls his eyes. “I’m fine.”

“You just got shot!” Jason exclaims. “Stop trying to be a one-man army, Con! There’s nothing more here now. We have to work on this as a team and you know it!”

“I can’t go back to TJY. I quit this morning.”

“I’ve quit multiple times,” Jason counters. “Now come on…Nate, can you drive Con’s car?”


Carson’s eyes narrow at Jamie’s silence and he finally lets go of her head, shoving her back into the chair. His phone rings and he answers it, ending the call after only a moment, then looks back at Jamie. “Sorry, babe, but your boyfriend just bit the dust. One shot right to the chest. You can be glad it was quick though – he went down immediately.” He looks into her distant eyes, the anger building in his own. “It doesn’t get any better, Jamie, it only gets worse. The longer you stay quiet, the more suffering occurs.”

Leaning his arms forward on the backrest of his own chair, he’s quiet for several moments, just letting silence envelope the misery. “You remind me of my sister, you know that?” Something in Carson’s tone has changed. “Same pretty face…same attitude…but her silence didn’t get her anywhere but the grave. The Agency doesn’t pull any punches, and they follow through with their threats. I watched my family die right before me as they stood there, strong, just like you, only to die in the end, leaving nothing behind but a family to mourn their deaths.”

A scoffing laugh escapes. “I chose the route of survival. Work for the Agency or die – that’s my motto. Keep quiet or watch even more family die – that’s my incentive.” Carson reaches out to turn Jamie’s face towards his. “You think your silence shows bravery? You think it keeps your loved ones safe? No…” He shakes his head. “All it does is prolong the inevitable. I turned into this monster you see, just so I could make people like you talk. Why? Because the Agency is gonna win one way or the other. It’s too late for me to get out – you, on the other hand, have a chance to save yourself and your friends. Tell us what we want to know, and you’ll go free. It’s that simple.”

He stands up and starts to walk away, but turns instead to fill a glass with water and set it on the now-empty chair in front of Jamie. “Think about it.” Spinning around, he heads for the stairs.