kissed-by-moonlight by Rakhibul hasan (ebook reader for pc .TXT) 📕

between ear and shoulder as I struggled to unlock my front door. “Keep me posted.”

 

We hung up without saying goodbye and with my newly freed hand, I was finally able to get into my apartment with my bag of junk food still intact. It was Friday night, and I was ready to roll myself in my favorite blanket like a tortilla and eat until my self-esteem got off its high horse and came back down to earth. I’d noticed I’d been a little cocky about fitting in my size nine jeans again and figured a bag of bite sized Twix, a large Snickers, and two Danish pastries would put me in my place.

 

The second I stepped through my front door I knew something was wrong. When you live your life a certain way, when things are always in one place, it’s easy to notice change. Maybe someone else wouldn’t have noticed that my living room window had been opened recently, or the fact that my desk had been rifled through, the papers just a smidgen askew, but I made my living noticing details that others missed.

 

I went over to the side table stationed by the window and readjusted the lone orchid on the surface. I liked the leaves to face a certain way, so that when you looked at the plant from any point in the apartment, you’d be able to see the myriad of colors that made up its center. Someone, or something, probably the wind from the opened window, had disturbed the plant enough that it had been knocked crooked in its jar.

 

I didn’t appreciate it, but had expected it. You don’t work for powerful men without spiking the interest of their enemies. Luckily for me, I’d cleaned out anything of importance long before I’d started working for Evans.

 

Still, as I pet my orchid I looked out into the darkness beyond the window, and wondered if maybe, just maybe, the ones who’d been here earlier were still out there. Watching.

 

Just in case they were, I gave them the finger before turning away.

 

My nightly routine was a simple one. Strip and change into an oversized shirt I’d stolen from an ex-boyfriend. Put my hair into a bouncy top-knot and drag my blanket into the living room so I could watch TV until exhaustion got the better of me. After turning on the television, I plopped on the couch with my bag of junk food and gorged.

 

The best part about eating by myself is that I no longer had to worry about who may or may not be staring at me in unabashed horror. Some women snored, some were super clingy, and I was a messy eater. It may not seem like such a bad thing, but you say that to the many dates that had to witness me pick lettuce out of my hair or wipe ice cream off my forehead. For me food wasn’t just sustenance, but an artistic medium, and as I licked the desecrated remains of baked goods from my fingertips I thought to myself, “This. This right here is probably why I’m still single.”

 

That thought led to another.

 

“I wonder what Evans would say if he could see me now.”

 

I remembered the wild sound of his laughter from the meeting with Jensen and snorted. Wincing when strawberry cream filling went up my nose.

 

When I talked to the police an hour later, I kept that part to myself.

 

The part where I wasn’t shot because I was digging Danish out of my nose like I was searching for buried treasure. Whenever I see people digging up their noses in their cars or offices, I always wonder why they think no one can see them through the glass.

 

It isn’t blacked out or anything. It isn’t a two way mirror. You should automatically assume that anything you do can be viewed by the hundreds of people passing you by on the other side of it. At the time, I still wasn’t sure if I was being watched through my own window, and I certainly wasn’t about to close the blinds in case they were, since that would be a sign of weakness. So when I got food up my nose I ducked down on my couch without thinking to get it back out again.

 

That’s when the first bullet came through the window and took out my honey bun.

 

Granted, I didn’t know that at the time. I was giggling at something on TV and doing my best impression of an inch worm in my tortilla style blanket wrapping, so I could stuff my face into

 

an open bag of powdered doughnuts on the other end of the couch. My head was buried in powdered sugar, so I didn’t see the honey bun, which had been left on the coffee table, take the bullet meant for me.

 

I didn’t hear anything either. Just a soft popping noise that I attributed to the show I was watching. When I finally reached out of my cocoon to grab the honey bun, the last of his people and my final victory, all I could do was stare at it in confusion.

 

“This is a bun,” I told the room at large, twisting the wrapped sweet first this way and then that. “This is not a doughnut,” I continued, finally growing suspicious. “Buns…don’t have holes. Doughnuts do.” My eyes narrowed to slits. “There sheems to be a dishturbance in the forsh.”

 

Note: I don’t know why I talk like Sean Connery when upset. I just do. Deal with it.

 

The next bullet sent the honey bun flying out of my hands and into the heart of my television screen. I didn’t bother screaming, I just moved.

 

Growing up in a bad neighborhood, it was instinct to flip over the arm of my couch and onto the floor. Without the TV, the room was dark and I could see the red of the sniper’s light traveling unerringly in my direction. I was still wrapped in my blanket though, so there was this breathless moment of panic when I was unrolling myself that I felt, rather than saw, that red light blazing against the middle of my forehead before I managed to scramble free and lunge out of the way.

 

The next shot took a nice little hole out of my hardwood floor, exactly where my head had been, and discarding the last of the blanket, I army crawled into my kitchen and huddled on the other side of the refrigerator.

 

I was scared.

 

Really, really scared. I let myself have a minute or two, let my head rest against the cool side of the refrigerator, before I acknowledged the facts my brain was throwing at me.

 

 

 

1.The shooter had a silencer and probably night vision, if they way they could find me in the dark was any indication.

 

2.They were methodical. They’d waited until I’d gotten home and settled down before taking a shot at me.

 

3.They probably weren’t the same people who had searched my place. If they had been, what had been the point of leaving when they could have simply laid in wait and killed me then?

 

4.I was suspected of being a domestic terrorist. There were Feds parked outside of my building.

 

That was all the encouragement I needed to make a run for it. Keeping low, I headed straight for my front door. I grabbed the doorknob and screamed when the next bullet had it shattering in my hands. I jerked back, but just as quickly reached out again. Sticking my hand in the gaping hold that had been left behind, I threw the door open and practically fell out of my apartment.

 

Then I ran, and I didn’t stop running until I felt fresh air on my face and pavement beneath my bare feet. I searched the street, eyes darting, searching, for the one car that had been there consistently for weeks now.

 

There.

 

Dark windows, perfect paint job despite the neighborhood, and parked close enough to see anyone who comes or goes.

 

My heart soared.

 

I don’t know what I would have done if the two men I’d startled hadn’t worked for the FBI. Maybe I would have crawled into their backseat anyway, made some new friends. But luckily, the agents who glanced first at one another and then at me, seemed happy enough to have me there, despite the fact that their cover had been officially blown. Since I sure as hell wasn’t going back into my apartment, I buckled my seat belt and smiled.

 

“You boys wouldn’t mind giving me a lift to the police station would you?”

 

They looked at one another again, and the one in the driver’s seat shrugged.

 

“Not like we’re doing anything else.”

 

His partner shook his head in disgust.

 

“I don’t think this is what Elijah meant by ‘watch.’”

 

Starting the car, the first man looked over his shoulder at me. “You got any of those tasty cakes left?”

 

To the mutual disappointment of all, I shook my head.

 

Human flesh is an endless wonder to me. Food or fucking, it doesn’t matter. I’m always hungry for it.”

 

—David Finland

 

 

 

Chapter Six

 

 

 

 

 

“Why would someone want you dead, Miss Conners?”

 

I groaned against the surface of the interrogation table and tried not to start cursing. They’d asked the same question more than a dozen times now, but my answer had yet to change.

 

“I don’t know? My charm? Good looks? Winning personality? The possibilities are endless.”

 

The Agent sitting on the other side of the table put his hands up in a show of surrender.

 

“No need for snark, love. I’m just trying to get the full picture. This was a professional job. They had the money and the training-”

 

“But not the aim,” I interrupted lightly.

 

The Agent grinned and his fingers intertwined as he leaned towards me.

 

“Maybe he had the aim,” he said, voice as low as if we were co-conspirators. “Maybe he had the shot, but never took it. Maybe, the only reason you’re still alive is because they have a reason to keep you that way.”

 

I leaned across the table as well, my own voice lowering to match his. “Then I guess the question you should be asking is why would someone want me alive but scared?”

 

“That,” he sat back, “is an excellent point.” Picking up his pen, he began to twirl it between his fingers. For the first time since the two agents had brought me in, the questions took a significant change.

 

“How do you like working for Gabriel Evans, Miss Conners?”

 

I stiffened, but answered easily enough. “Don’t know yet, it’s only my first day.”

 

“Only your first day and yet you’ve already met the CEO and President of A.I.” His brow quirked. “That’s pretty impressive for a newbie.”

 

Crossing my arms over my chest, I bit my bottom lip and shrugged. “Just lucky, I guess.”

 

“I think it’s a little bit more than that.”

 

I glared at the agent, displeased with where all of this was going. I’d come to the police station because I hadn’t known what else to do. I’d expected to have to make a statement to a police officer, and that had indeed been the case. I hadn’t expected to be detained by the same men who’d given me a ride in the first place.

 

It was nice getting to know the agents who had been watching me since the car bomb, but I would have appreciated a full night’s sleep much more. Especially since I had work in the morning.

 

The man in question had been the first agent. He was as tall as his partner was short, and he was blessed with ink-black hair that seemed to fall in perfect waves. It matched his Arabian good looks. There was something about him that seemed out of character with the severely starched lines of his suit and easy manner.

 

His partner was a lot older. A sour-faced man with gray hair and glasses that seemed too large for his thinly jawed face. He was just as carefully dressed, but he seemed stiff and uncomfortable in his clothes. As if he would rather been in jeans and an old t-shirt than a tie and pressed