Final Day--a Wired & Dangerous novella Read online

  Erick unwrapped his breakfast. “Thanks for getting us something to eat. Why do I look like a McGriddle kinda guy?”

  Tarr shrugged and took a bite, talking with his mouth full. “Just do.”

  The coffee was scalding hot, but Erick took a sip anyway. “You’re right. I fucking love McGriddles.”

  Tarr snorted a laugh. Erick took a giant bite of his sandwich. “How’d you sleep?”

  “Like the dead,” Tarr answered.

  “Yet you still woke up before me.” The clock said it was ten thirty.

  “I don’t need much sleep.”

  “I could sleep for another couple of hours, to be honest.”

  “I’m not stopping you.”

  “Nah, I’m more hungry than tired.”

  Erick finished his sandwich and balled up the wrapper. He missed the trash can by several inches. Tarr picked it up and threw it away when he tossed his own wrapper in the trash. Erick sipped more coffee and then swung his legs out of bed, remembering belatedly he was only wearing a pair of boxer briefs.

  Tarr glanced at him again, this time his gaze lingering just long enough that Erick began to wonder. Then he downed more coffee and said gruffly. “I’m going to shower, so if you want to piss, now’s your time.”

  Erick wrinkled his nose. “It’s going to feel great to put on the same clothes.”

  Tarr pointed to a bag in the corner. “I bought some underwear and a few T-shirts.”

  Erick perked up. “Really? That’s awesome, man. All right, let me go to the bathroom. I’ll shower after you. I want to finish my coffee first.”

  After relieving his bladder, Erick stretched out on his bed and turned on the TV. Tarr retreated to the bathroom and shut the door. The sound of the water turning on immediately filled the small hotel room. Erick flipped the channels until he settled on the Food Network. There was something about happy people making delicious food that put him in a good mood. Still, it felt weird to watch the cheery programming when he knew in the back of his mind what he’d be doing later.

  The water shut off just as the woman on TV put a casserole in the oven. Tarr emerged from the bathroom, and Erick’s mouth went dry, casserole and future homicide forgotten. He stared without shame because, while he’d admired Tarr’s broad shoulders beneath his T-shirts, it hadn’t prepared him for what the man actually looked like. Fair skin typical of a redhead, lightly freckled chest with a smatter of damp ginger curls. His hair was spiked and damp, dripping down the back of his neck. His abs were cut, V-line cutting above the low-riding white towel, which was so small it was like a miniskirt, showing off thick, muscular thighs.

  He was a work of art with zero ink. Just smooth skin and muscles. Erick wanted to connect the dots of his freckles with his tongue.

  Tarr sat down on his bed as if Erick wasn’t staring slack-jawed at him. With another towel he held in his hand, he rubbed his hair, and Erick was mesmerized by the way his back muscles moved under his skin.

  “What are you watching?”

  Erick snapped out of his fantasy world where Tarr dropped his towel, and Erick blinked to find Tarr staring at the TV.

  “F—” Erick’s voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. He took the last gulp of his coffee. “Food Network.”

  Tarr grunted and then stood up. He ripped open a package of boxers with his teeth and then slipped a pair on under the towel. Erick had to work hard not to lick his lips. Then Tarr pulled on his jeans and threw the towel in the corner. He scooted back on his head, propping himself up on his pillows, hands behind his head, without putting a shirt on. How fucking rude.

  “If you’re going to shower, can I have the remote?” Tarr asked.

  Erick wordlessly tossed it to him, and Tarr switched channels until he settled on an action movie on FX. “Gotta be honest, I’m surprised this hotel has cable,” he said, eyes on the explosions on TV.

  He’s evil, evil, evil, a murderer, Erick chanted in his head. Stretched out on the bed like that, big body at rest, relaxed, Tarr looked like a regular guy. Well, a regular guy who worked out a lot and could double as a Greek god.

  “What has this guy done?” Erick blurted out. He wanted to know. He had to know, dammit, because he had to justify this attraction in his head. He’d never been drawn to bad boys. Flynn was a sweet charmer.

  Tarr didn’t bother turning his head. “Why do you care?”

  “Because I care,” Erick insisted. “Does he have a family? Kids? Why does Angel want him dead?”

  “You know, you don’t have to come if you want.” Tarr kept his gaze on the TV.

  “What?”

  “I don’t need you giving me this moral bullshit. I’m doing a job which, by the way, is because of something you did, and then we can get to my sister.”

  Erick was offended. “I’m coming with you so that we can get on the road as soon as it’s done. I’m not sitting in this hotel like a princess while you go slay the dragon. I can handle it.” Well, he wasn’t sure he could, but he wasn’t going to admit it out loud. “I just asked you a simple question.”

  With a sigh, Tarr picked up the remote and turned down the volume. “I don’t know.”

  Erick’s head began to pound. “You don’t know?”

  “No, I don’t. I rarely do. I have a job, and I do it.”

  “So you just kill without asking questions, like if the person deserves it?”

  “Yeah. In fact I do.”

  “How…” Erick was at a loss. Maybe he did want Tarr to show some humanity. Maybe he wasn’t hoping to hate Tarr. Maybe he was trying to justify falling for him.

  “Look, you can call yourself a gray hat hacker all you want. You can say you do good things. But we’re not much different. We do jobs for hire. And our jobs have consequences.”

  Erick’s hackles went up. “Yeah, but my job has consequences for bad guys.”

  Tarr stayed calm, which was a bit infuriating. “Bad guys? What are you, Batman? You’re not a judge or jury. You don’t get to decide who’s bad and who’s good. Erick, good guys lose and die, and bad guys win and live all the time. You can believe in karma or fate or whatever, but I don’t. I believe shit happens, and there’s no point, no reason.”

  Erick’s heart sank. If there was anyone who knew that good guys lose and die, it was him. “That’s a shitty way to live.”

  Tarr smiled, but it was sad and cold. “Never said it was fun. Day I realized that was the day I became a different person. I wasn’t born a hit man.”

  “So why do you do it?”

  “Why do you care?” Tarr sat up straighter. “What are you trying to rationalize in that skull of yours? I’m not a good person, but I’m not a bad one either. I’m just a guy who has skills that aren’t relevant to what you’d consider a decent job. But don’t sit over there and act high and mighty. Those bad guys you’ve fucked over have innocent families, and those good guys you so graciously did jobs for have skeletons in their closets. Life isn’t black and white, Erick.”

  “I know it isn’t.” Erick was over thirty. He wasn’t a kid. “But I still believe in karma. I believe in what goes around comes around. I have to believe the good guys win because, if I don’t, what’s the point?”

  Tarr shook his head. “There is no point. That’s what I’m trying to say.”

  “What the hell happened to you?” Erick blurted. This conversation was killing him. He wanted Tarr to believe. He had to believe. Erick had originally wanted to talk to Tarr to prove to himself that Tarr was a selfish murderer, but now Erick was grasping for any scrap of humanity he could find. A man without humanity didn’t save Erick, or his friends, or his sister.

  “The bad guys won,” Tarr spat. “That’s what happened to me. Now go shower, Erick. Pretend the guy I’m killing tonight is a pedophile if it makes you feel better. As for me, I don’t give a fuck.” He turned up the volume on the TV so gunfire and shouts filled the hotel room.

  Erick stared at Tarr, desperation, sympathy, and despair welling in his che
st. He didn’t have words to say or words to describe what he was feeling. He just knew it was a yawning pit of melancholy in his chest.

  Finally he rose and trudged to the bathroom. As he turned on the shower and soaped up his hair, all he could think about was, if Tarr said the bad guys won, had he once been a good guy? Had he once believed, and could he believe again?

  Chapter Six

  Tarr

  It was usually easy for Tarr to settle into work mode. To shut out everything, deaden his humanity, and finish the job. Today, it was a lot harder. He took a sip of his coffee as he stared out of the windshield, eyes on the back door of Dilly’s Bar for the second night in a row.

  Erick sat beside him silently. He hadn’t said much at all since that morning. He’d taken a shower, emerged wearing only a towel, and proceeded to lounge around in said tiny towel for hours. It pissed Tarr off because Erick was all lean, hard muscles and smooth, tawny skin. Not a blemish on the guy. His black hair had hung in his eyes as he bent his head, tapping away at his phone on the bed.

  He didn’t even want to like the guy, let alone be attracted to him. Tarr had originally chalked Erick up as a vapid joker with a big ego, but Erick was more complicated than that. He was maybe a little naive about how he viewed the world, but Tarr had been like that once. Maybe that was what drew him to Erick. He reminded Tarr of how he used to be. He reminded Tarr of what he wanted to be but knew he could never be again.

  Bad guys won and good guys lost all the time. There was no karma, no puppet pulling the strings to ensure a happily ever after. Life was a series of events without purpose. Depressing, right? Well, that was in Tarr’s head. Shitty place to be.

  Tarr didn’t want to see Erick be like him, but he worried that, the longer he was in this job, he’d learn. And then he wouldn’t be the guy he was, happy with a quip always at the ready. That was the thing about good guys. They thought some higher power was on their side. That even if they died, it was for the greater good. And it wasn’t. It just fucking wasn’t. Good guys died and were buried, and there was no purpose.

  Tarr rubbed his face. Christ, he needed to finish this fucking job and disappear. Go to the Bahamas and fuck some tourists.

  He truly didn’t know what the guy did to make Angel want him dead. Tarr didn’t suspect he was a great guy if he was at this bar every night, but that was only his guess. He had memorized his picture and knew to find him here at this bar. He knew to take him out and call Angel’s men to confirm the kill and take care of the body.

  Erick could sit and stew on his moral high ground. Tarr didn’t have time for that bullshit. He had a job to do.

  It wasn’t that late, only ten at night, when the back door opened and a white man walked out. He wore jeans, dusty boots, a flannel over a T-shirt, and a plain red ball cap. He pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket—Marlboro menthols—and Tarr straightened up. Erick caught the change in Tarr’s position and squinted out the window.

  The man raised his head, and Tarr got a good look at his face. Goatee, dark eyes. And when he lifted his hand to light his cigarette, the skull tattoo on the back of his hand was clearly visible.

  “Bingo,” Tarr whispered.

  “So that’s him?” Erick asked.

  Tarr didn’t answer, only checked his handgun to ensure the silencer was attached. “Stay here.”

  Erick’s eyes were huge in his face. “Wha—are you sure?”

  Tarr rolled his eyes. “Stay the fuck here, Princess.”

  “Look, maybe—”

  The back door opened again, and they both froze. A girl walked out wearing a short skirt and tank top. An actual girl, as in a teenager. If she was over eighteen, then Tarr would shoot himself in the foot.

  The man spoke something to her, and she wobbled a bit on her feet, like she was drunk or high. Or maybe just tired. Then she dropped to her knees. The man lowered his jeans, and Tarr looked away.

  Erick’s eyes were closed, hand over his mouth.

  “Happy now that you know he’s a piece of shit?” Tarr asked.

  Erick turned to him before opening his eyes. They were big and warm, despite the pain in them, and Tarr never wanted to look anywhere else. “No, I don’t feel better,” he said.

  “Yeah, me either.” He swallowed. “I’m sorry, Erick.”

  “Nothing to be sorry for.”

  “Well, to be fair, if I wasn’t what I was, you wouldn’t be sitting in this parking lot on a mission from Angel.”

  Erick smiled a sad smile. “If you weren’t what you were, then he would have just killed me, and I’d be swimming with the fishes now.”

  Tarr snorted a laugh. “Who still talks like that?”

  “I’m trying not to cry or leap out of this car and beat the shit out of that guy.”

  “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll kill this guy, and then I’ll call a friend of mine and get him to check out this bar. There are probably more girls where she came from. He’ll get them help.”

  Erick was staring at him like he was a hero, which was fucked up. “Yeah, that’d be great. I’ll help out with some money.”

  Tarr nodded and then risked a glance up. The girl had risen to her knees. The man opened the back door to the bar, shoved her inside, and then lit up another cigarette. Tarr opened his car door and crept out. “Be back soon.”

  “Good luck,” Erick said softly, eyes on the mark. Tarr shut the door and made his way along the side of the building in the shadows.

  The mark—Paul Brewster—leaned back his head and blew out a puff of smoke. Tarr crept along the building, out of sight. The good thing about this location was that the back door wasn’t soundproof. The country twang of a singer could be heard from inside the building, helping to disguise Tarr’s soft footfalls.

  Paul didn’t see the end of his life coming. With his jeans still open, smoke leaving his lips, he dropped to the ground, a bullet in his temple from Tarr’s gun. Tarr dragged him into the shadows and kicked him onto his back. He took a picture and texted it to Angel, who responded with we’re good.

  Tarr blew out a breath and walked back toward the car. He didn’t look back. The fucker raped underage girls; like Tarr gave a shit that he was rotting in an alley. See? Fuck Erick for making Tarr even think about why the guy had to die. Tarr wasn’t judge and jury, but now he was out here making judgments because Erick was in his head.

  Erick didn’t say a word as Tarr put the car into gear and drove away. As they left the parking lot, one of Angel’s men pulled in to take care of the body. Tarr didn’t acknowledge him. That mission was done. Next mission was up. A personal one.

  They were driving for twenty minutes before Erick said, “I had a speech prepared. Like, hey Everett, I’m sorry you had to do this.” Tarr flinched at his real name, but Erick kept going. “And how I didn’t look at you any different and all of that. But I guess I’m not sorry because that probably felt good to take out that piece of shit.”

  “Don’t know about good,” Tarr said. “It was a job. I still wouldn’t have killed him regardless. I knew that, and so what does it matter that I felt justified when I was going to do it anyway? If you do something terrible and find out later something good came out of it, it doesn’t change your original intention.”

  “Are you trying to convince me to hate you?” Erick’s tone was challenging. The dude wasn’t going to drop it.

  “I’m not trying to convince you of anything. I guess I’m tired of you trying to search my soul for good shit to justify whatever you need to in your head.”

  “Why did you save Jock? Why did you try to protect me?”

  “Because I owe Jock.” Tarr spoke through gritted teeth, tired of this fucking conversation. “And because I didn’t want you in my way.”

  “What happened when Jock saved your sister?”

  “He took a bullet for her.” Tarr slammed his hand on the steering wheel. “Because I failed to protect her from enemies looking for me, but Jock was there. We weren’t even really friends then.
We kind of had this mutual respect because we’d seen each other in passing on some jobs. Most of the people in my kind of work won’t put their neck out for nobody. Jock did. Since then, my sister has moved and changed her name, and I’m not going to fucking fail again. Okay? Knocking you out was a means to an end to save Jock. Killing that man back there was a means to an end to get to my sister. Now we have a new car and we’re solid, so fucking drop it. Okay?”

  He could see that Erick didn’t want to drop it. His jaw was clenched tight, and his eyes were fire. “Fine,” he said finally, leaning back in his seat and crossing his arms.

  Tarr drove on, and the more miles they put behind them, the more he felt a bit bad for yelling at Erick, but for fuck’s sake, he was tired of this. He wasn’t sure how to talk to him again, so he threw out a peace offering. He glanced at Erick. “How’s your head, by the way?”

  Erick’s expression softened, and he ran delved his fingers into his hair at his crown. “Fine. I washed the cut. Probably could have used stitches but it’s not bleeding anymore. Who cares about a scarred scalp?” He dropped his hands into his lap. “Think Angel would still want to kill me if we came into contact again?”

  “Ehhh.” Tarr made a face. “I’m going to go with ‘It’s probably best if you avoid him. For the rest of your life.’”

  “Man, we repaid him for a boat with a human life. What more does the guy want?”

  “I can guarantee you that boat meant more to him than most humans. Next time, just kill one of his men. You’d probably be better off.”

  Erick wrinkled his nose. “No thanks.”

  “You hungry? We can stop and get something, then continue on the way to your buddy in New York for the supplies.”

  “Yeah, let’s do it.”

  They drove out of Philly, and on the way, Tarr tossed his gun into the Delaware River.

  * * *

  Tarr

  Tarr was cautious. Erick had directed him to a small town in upstate New York, then onto some country roads, and then down a gated path. He was currently making his way down a long driveway. At the end? A mansion. A mansion lit up like it was the Fourth of July—lights everywhere, people moving about in the windows. Some were outside smoking and drinking. Just…people everywhere. Most of them were wearing next to nothing, in a diverse mix of gender pairings.