Promise to My Son

There is a part they don't tell you about being assassin. The casualities. The stray bullets you're unable to control. The innocent lives that get torn apart in the crossfire. Why should they? It's expected that you should already know. And you should. But it doesn't make it any easier when you're face to face with it. When it's no longer an abstract or a face on a piece of paper, but an actual living, breathing human. When you're standing over the target with a gun in their face and their pleading for mercy, and in the moment before you squeeze the trigger, you suddenly see your face looking back up at you in horror and every life you take starts to feel like you're killing yourself.

"Everything alright, mate?"

Assassins normally work alone. But some assignments require a team with you. Grunt and I had been on missions together before and so he was the first to sense that something was wrong with me.

"You're sitting awfully quiet there. I mean, you're always quiet, but, er..." He trails off. I continue to stare out the window at the small town nestled in the bosom of the hills. Many years ago we had done a mission near this exact same town. The town where it had all began. The place where the old me had been killed and where the new me had been reborn with a conscience.

The mission was complete, and the rest of the team were celebrating. I had snuck away from them, needing to be alone... I found a woman that I didn't love, but right then she could have been anybody. That night, I was determined not to think, only to feel...spurned on by a sudden sense of omnious urgency, I surrendered to her passion ... I felt like Death was watching me as I shuddered and released my tension, stress, frustrations, and worries into the warmth of her embrace. I gave her all of me physically. And when I rose from her bed, I had I left her with my legacy.

Grunt jabs an elbow into my side, jarring me from my head and back into my seat. "You're not going soft on me now, are you?"

Two women have joined our train compartment. Alena and Lexis. Also part of the team. I was so lost in my thoughts I hadn't even noticed when they came in. They are all watching me - Alena especially.

Grunt throws an arm over my shoulders, wringing my neck into a headlock, jock-style. "I already have enough trouble dealing with these two girls. I can't have you pussying out and jumping sides on me, mate. I need you."

"I have a child."

The confession stuns them all into silence. It's good. I don't want to answer any questions. Not right now.

I continue, and add, "It's a boy."

For some reason, this relieves me to say. The world is hard for everybody. But even harder for little girls. Especially in a small far-in-the-hills, out-of-the-way town. A boy would have a better chance of being somebody and making it out of there one day. I believe so.

I'm playing with my son, feeling more alive than I have ever felt while also feeling like I'm slowly dying inside. These few minutes out of every year are all I'm able to spend with him. Anymore, and I risk his life. Anymore, and I may not be able to leave.

The clock ticks me off with its constant tocking, and finally, it is time for me to go. 

I say to him, "Son, ask me anything, and I'll do it for you." 

All of a sudden, he looks at me with a solemness that only a child can have - that face where you want to laugh at how serious they look, but you can't laugh because you know that they're being serious, so out of amusement, you play along, suppress your smiles, and keep your face serious, too. He makes this face and asks, "Is it true that you kill people?" Before I can answer, he says, "It's not nice. You have to stop." 

"I will." 

He looks at me with suspicion. "Promise?" 

I nod. "Promise."

Across the train compartment, Alena's and my eyes meet, our minds probe, our hearts beat, but...in the end, our souls hesitate to connect, deciding that it is probably for the best that we leave things the way they are. She looks away, probably feeling betrayed, or probably wondering, after our own one night together, what it would have been like to be the mother of my child instead.

Hours later, I'm chasing one of the targets into a building. It isn't hard to keep up. I just follow the trail of blood leaking from the hole I had shot into his leg. He runs into a room; falls; begs, "Please. I have a son." In the half-light from the moon, shadows flutter over the window of his face. Like a message in the sand swept clear by the wind, the curtains rise into the room and blow kisses that wipe away his features so cleanly that all that's left is glass mirror.

I try to squeeze the trigger and shatter the reflection staring back at me into fragments, but another face is staring back at me now. My son, solemn and suspicious, looks up at me. His lips are moving. "It's not nice. You have to stop. Promise?"

I lower my gun. 

The target scrambles to his feet, shoes sliding as as he skids past me for the door. I walk forward, over to the windowsill, and look out. I listen to the cool, clear, chaotic night - the peaceful sounds of silence, punctured intermittenly by sudden almost melodious bursts of shots and screams.

Fom behind me, I hear, "Hey. You should have killed me when you had the chance, fool." A gun barks with laughter. A bullet bites into my flesh. It's ironic how much the shot feels like a literal stab in the back. Several more shots sting me until I stumble forward blindly and topple over the windowsill to the ground far below.

When I wake up, the streets are completely empty; completely silent. I wonder, Did my own teammates leave me here to die? Or did they just temporarily leave in order to pursue the people that did this to me? I believe the former, but I hope for the latter. A mild panic seizes me initially as I try to get up and can't. Fortunately, as time passes, I'm able to move my fingers and toes, so I know I'm not paralyzed. I roll onto my stomach. I drag myself through the streets. Somehow I recognize these streets. They are familiar to me. My son lives around here and I want to see him. One last time. Inch by inch, I crawl towards where I know he will be. Me - a broken figure, but still...I know he will be proud.

A figure materializes out of the dark. I don't know if it's friend or foe. I don't care. I pull at their pants leg and cough out the last bit of breath and blood I have left in me. I speak to them in a voice that comes out no louder than a whisper:

"Please...t-tell my son...I did it... I-I promised him...and I did it..."