Robert (Chapter 1)

1

Here I was, standing over two dead corpses. One of them laying on the wall with his head facing towards the ground lifelessly. With a ton of blood falling out his head from a gunshot wound. The other body with more holes in him than the ozone layer. Two different people, two different motives but the same fate, death...
And they were both caused by me.
I was probably standing there for about ten minutes before I realized I had to clean up and get my shit together. I cleaned off the blade of my dagger and put it back in it’s sheath. Then I grabbed the folders, important documents, my laptop and threw them in my duffle bag. I needed my gun out of the safe. I pressed the side off the painting so it can I.D match my thumb. It clicked, I opened the safe behind the painting and got my M1911 out of the safe with three fully loaded magazines. I took out my passport, $550,000, and a picture of me, Vanessa, and John. Yeah, I couldn’t forget that. I walked around the place at least twenty times wiping down my fingerprints and removing any evidence that I was even there. I was just about to walk out the door, then I heard something that made me stop dead in my tracks, a moan. I stopped and held my breath for a couple of seconds to make sure I wasn’t hearing things. I heard another one. I quickly pulled my M1911 from the holster and pointed at the body with the multiple stab wounds in it. It didn’t move at all. It just lied there in a pool of it’s own blood. I took a look at the other one, he started to move a little bit. I dropped my bag and immediately, got down and put my hands on his neck to see if he had a pulse. I waited for like five seconds, I could feel it but it was very weak. I really didn’t know what to do. Usually if any bullets hit you in the head you should be dead. Never in my life have I ever seen someone take a 12-gauge to the head and survive. 

I had to save him.

I ripped  some pieces of cloth from my shirt and put it around his right eye, and put some over his chest. He was bleeding really bad. I wrapped him up the best I could and headed down to the garage. I got in my black Dodge Challenger and zoomed out to the highway. I would have went to the hospital but they ask too many questions and that would lead me into more trouble. I didn’t have time for that. I was in a rush but I couldn’t gun it. There were too many cop cars racing in the opposite direction towards the house. I looked down at my watch it was 8:39 pm Thursday  it shouldn’t be that busy heading to North Arlington. In about half an hour, I made it to the abandoned apartment building, I was carrying him on my shoulder. I knew he was hanging on for dear life. I made my way to the back and rang the doorbell. I got no response through the intercom. I rang it again, waited 10 seconds, nothing. I banged on the door with all my strength. The guy on my shoulder was shaking really hard. Shit wasn’t looking good, he was going into shock and I was running out of time. As I was about to kick down the door, I heard the door open and the appearance of the man made me glad I didn’t kick it down or he would be unconscious and I would have made the trip here for nothing. “What is it?” he said yawning “I was just taking a nap and..”  “Listen I need you to help me out here, I can’t go into details now but you need to help me.” I told him. Then he took a look at the guy I was carrying. He opened his eyes wide in shock. “Shit, bring him in downstairs.” he said quickly. I carried him all the way to the basement area three flights of stairs later. I opened the door to a room and set him down on the table. “ I gotta go” I told him abruptly. “Hey Robert wait a sec,” he said as he grabbed my blood stained sleeve. “What do you want me to do?” Then after a moment of silence I put my hand on his shoulder and said “Anything and everything you can just please, save my son.”   
 
I closed the door behind me and walked up the flight of stairs towards the narrow, dimly lit hallway.  As I was walking towards the exit, I took a deep breath and took a very good look at the palms of my hands. They were no longer filled with light, vivid, colors of life but dark and dried up with blood. I tried to take another deep breath but I just couldn't do it. I felt like there was some type of weight on my chest holding me down. Then I fell down to the ground looking at my right hand. Then the tears came out of my eyes. I sat there with my hands on my face. I was crying, it wasn’t like I didn’t want to cry but not at that moment. My only son, most likely dead, because of my dangerous life. I didn’t know how I was going to explain this to my wife, so I got up wiped my face and headed out the door. There was a lot of shit to do. I grabbed my phone out of my pocket and called Vanessa, of course she didn’t pick up and the answering machine came up. “Hey Vanessa call me back as soon as you can its urgent.” I said. I got in the car and headed straight towards the hospital where she worked. I grabbed the phone again, I called the hospital. The secretary at the job told me that they couldn’t find her. I told her to give me a call back if they heard anything from Vanessa. I hung up the phone and this time I called Ray up. “Yeah”, he said. “John’s been shot” I told him. I was trying to hold back my tears. My voice was trembling. “Wait, which John?” he asked hastily. “Because I know we’re not talking about the same John here are we?” 
“My son.” The tears were rolling down my eyes.
“Shit, what happened? Is he going to be OK?” He was going to ask me another question but I unintentionally cut him off. “I-I-I..don’t know, he was hit pretty bad. I got someone working on him.”
“Does Vanessa know?”
“I can’t reach her Ray. Shes missing.”
“Son of a..” he said quietly into the phone. “Do you think they had anything to do with it?”
“Yeah, definitely” I told him. “The guy who shot John was asking for the dossier we found a few years back in Saudi Arabia. Next thing I knew, I heard a loud bang and...” Before I said another word, my phone vibrated. I looked at the CID and saw it was Vanessa, I quickly answered it having some type of relief until, I heard the deep voice of a man with a heavy British accent. “Should’ve left us alone, now thats two members of the Quinn family that has died because of you.” At that same moment, I arrived at the hospital. I jumped out of the car. The fucking bastard got to Vanessa. 
I ran into the front entrance, with the phone still in my ear. Then he said “I left her near one of the dumpsters in the back, near the emergency exits. If you’re quick enough, I think you just might be able to save her.” he laughed then hung up. I rushed towards the back of the hospital hoping for the worst but not anything worse than that. One of the security guards tried to grab me, but I shoved him into the wall. His partner grabbed my arm, I quickly twisted his arm, went behind him and kicked him in the back into a glass display the children made poster drawings for the doctors that worked here. As I continued forward, I had the feeling that I was going to arrive just in time to she her eyes close for the last time. I couldn’t let this happen to her. I ran into a few doctors and they tried to hold me back but I shoved them off. I turned the next corner and headed towards the emergency exit and got tackled by a guard. I went crashing towards the ground. When he got on top of me, I head-butted him straight into the bridge of his nose and heard a crack. Then I punched him in the temple and knocked him down. I quickly got up and headed towards the doors, dodging everything that got in my way. I finally made it to the doors and found a blood trail leading towards the doorway. With no hesitation, I busted down the doors and saw her, lying down next to the garbage bags lying down, lifeless. 
I ran to her, and knelt down towards her body, and held her up. She was coughing out blood, trying to catch her breath. She kept trying and trying to breathe or talk but I could tell the bullet  that hit her in her lung was preventing her from talking. I gently dragged my bloody hands through her hair. “Shh... Shhh don’t speak” I told her. She raised her bloody hand and place it on my face. Without her speaking, I could tell she wanted to tell me she loved me. I saw her shed a couple of tears, trying to smile. She tried to show me her once beautiful white teeth, which were now stained with blood.  I heard multiple footsteps coming towards me and I quickly snapped my head towards the doorway. “GET ME A DOCTOR!! QUICK!!” I screamed. I could feel her body shaking. I couldn’t tell if it was her trying to breath or her shaking from shock. I didn’t get a chance to say another word to her. I heard a loud bang, a couple of screams and felt a force fly right past my ear. Then, the last thing I saw was red and a hole enter my wife’s head.