10: The Edge of the Knife

Are you joking? Are you being for real? Is this real, is any of this right?

I’m sorry, I must have misheard. You’re telling me that, in just a week, I got to go on a date with him, and also had to hear the details of his murder before it happens? Isn’t that a little too cruel?

I am chewing on the creased photograph, clutching my head in my hands, and rocking back and forth on my bed. My scar aches viciously. I’m seeing spots in the edges of my vision. I check the clock. Two minutes have passed since I stood up from the desk and curled up here.

Reason has no home in me anymore.

Maybe it’s time for plan B? If I kidnap him, he’s out of harm’s way, right? At least, I have no immediate intentions of killing him, life expectancy surely goes up by a few months at the very least. I jest, I wouldn’t kill him, but his life would essentially be over. Anything’s better than dead though, right?

Who says he’ll die though, right? Maybe he’ll cooperate?

No, that doesn’t add up. I cottoned on to what the leader was really going for. No one would be left as an eyewitness. Octavian would certainly press that panic button. It’s all a set up. The loud plan would start, and everyone would catch stray lead, right up to the manager, after he unlocked everything they couldn’t. I suspect members of the crew are meant to die, too. Something about their leader strikes me as too cunning for the holes in his plan, the neat little holes that don’t seem to jeopardize him whatsoever. My best guess is that he owes someone something absurd, and has settled on this as his way out.

No, Octavian is mine. You can’t have him for your blood money scheme.

I could, of course, slip what I know to law enforcement. But that has its own repercussions, not the least of which being my involvement. Investigation means searches, means the line I have to the surveillance cams gets traced. Even if their plan goes off without a hitch, it comes back on me. I look guilty as hell, tapped into the cams and getting involved with a teller.

All I can see this ending in is blood. Hence, the rocking, chewing, and now sobbing.

Right now, my best option is to do something really horrific. Obviously, if I go slit a crew member throat in his sleep, the plan gets called off, or at least postponed. The group gets discovered incidentally, I possibly get the finger for murder, I go away, Octavian lives.

The thought of what he thinks of me after that, however, stops me dead in the process. I can’t do it. It was one thing when we had never spoken, but now, I’ve come too far to lose him.

I sit up straight.

No, I’ve come far too far to lose him! Perhaps I do kidnap him, and I explain what was going to happen, explain that I found out through my shameful second job, leave out some of my other flaws, and we elope to some country overseas?

Now is not the time for witless fantasy. I need a real, effective solution, preferably one that does not end with him dead or irreversibly changed.

First, I sit down at my desk, and stare at the security footage. I need to cut this tether, this indulgent tie that over-involves me.

I comb through my library of viruses, my digital petting zoo. I need something totally obliterating.

This will do. I select the bug, and package it just right, and send it through my piggyback connection, severing my end as soon as it’s through. The rectangle blinks out, and I breathe a sigh of relief. My options are much better now. But depending on how impatient the ringleader is, the hit may continue even in the disarray the bank will be in once the employees show up and find their security breached.

So, phase 2. I collect the audio, and start snipping sections out and creating a far less complete version of my usual report. I grumble, and send my findings to the client, urging him to stop his partner before she does something she can’t come back from. See? I’m capable of diplomacy before violence! 

With any luck, the crew will be stalled without a key member. But perhaps the leader is on the verge of being abducted by some shadowy, criminal group for his debts, and won’t take no for an answer. So, phase 3.

He walks into the Café, and smiles at me before stopping at the counter to buy a coffee and a Danish. And then, an angel alighting upon the earth, he sits opposite me. We both seem to wait for the other to speak, before he takes first turn.

“I was almost afraid you wouldn’t be here.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

I give a very heartfelt, confused smile. My heart throbs at the moment of vulnerable elation in his eyes. I really have got to control my feelings better.

“Well, after the other night, I thought maybe you’d had too much of me, too quickly.”

How correct and incorrect of you! Too quick and too much, yes, unless your goal was to give me a heart attack from all the stress. But there’s never too much of you in my life for my liking.

“It wasn’t so bad. You did a very kind thing. How could I repay that by running away?”

Easy there. No need to lay it on too thick. The poor boy is already quite pleased. Ugh. Did I get too much sugar in my coffee?

“Well, I mean, if you think so. I just didn’t want you going home in all that. I’d worry.”

“Really, you’re too kind. Honestly, I wanted to apologize for not texting you more after letting you know I made it home. I’ve been… Shockingly busy. Really, work has been murder.”

I actually used another sick day, offering Jim quite a lot of consolation pictures as thanks, things I had saved for a rainy day.

He waves dismissively. I look away, eyeing my watch. Almost time. He takes a sip of his coffee and sits back, sighing.

“Well, enough about the past.”

I lean forward, gently letting my eagerness display. I bat my eyes at him, just once, blink and you’ll miss it.

“Um, yes. The future. I mean-”

Oh my gods. Really, it’s unfair to fluster so easily, only one of us should be a nervous wreck, and I’m the reigning champion. No fair. Now I have to hide my smile with a drink. He gathers himself.

“I was thinking, maybe we could actually plan to get dinner sometime.”

“You mean dinner, or breakfast?”

He flinches, before nodding.

“Whichever you like, morning or evening. You’re free on weekends, right?”

I hesitate. To transgress on Saturday would be tantamount to throwing out the rules altogether.

“My Saturday evening to Sunday evening block is usually unoccupied, yes. I have a weekly get-together with friends during the previous block.”

“That works, perfect! I mean, how do you feel about… Your breakfast, my dinner, Saturday evening?”

“I’d love it. I’ll still see you Thursday, though?”

“Of course.”

I really am pushing it. My heart is swinging against my ribs with no regard for safety. Once already, my vision has been wreathed in spots, but I’ve held on with sheer stubbornness. I will see this through. He checks his watch and winces.

“Oh dear, I’m going to be late.”

“Octavian?”

He looks up. My blush is very, very real, a byproduct of using his name in front of him. But it helps my purpose.

“If you’re going to be late anyway, why don’t you let me walk you to work? It’s not as if I have somewhere to be.”

Time seems to freeze. He stares at me, I do my best to stare back with just the right amount of enthusiasm.

“I suppose it couldn’t hurt.”

Very good. He avoided the voice crack that snuck up his throat nearly perfectly. I stand, gather my things, and, the image of courage, offer him my hand. As he takes it, my mind gives over to a mental shriek of delight that lasts the whole trip. He can probably feel my racing pulse, but his own is making fair competition. That doesn’t help much. This is fine, however.

My head swims, but I endure. My plan must succeed.

Every light in my brain is flashing, every wire is shorting out. My pulse is definitely surpassing his by leaps and bounds.

We make it a couple blocks. The bank is around the corner. I’m running out of time. Fine. One more push. As we round the corner, he turns to me, and gives a very, very nervous, happy nod. Of course, most of the nervousness is actually me. 

“This is it. Thank you for walking me this far.”

No turning back now. I turn and face him head on, and oh gods, I’m really doing it. I give him a gentle peck on the cheek.

“Have a good day at-”

I crumple. Lights out, fuse blown. Just as planned. I know him, I know exactly how he will react to someone fainting right in front of him. I’ve laid my trap perfectly. Calling out sick from work, pushing myself to my very real limits, and now, the final piece of the puzzle. A genuine lapse of consciousness from rushing myself without any preparation. Bravo and well done. The only real flaw in this plan is the sickening crack my head makes when it hits the sidewalk.