The Enigma's Anomaly

The Inevitability of Getting Shot

"I hate not knowing what comes next," Gerard says quietly.

"How do you mean?"

"I just hate that there's no way to predict what's actually going to happen in the end. For all I know I'm going to die tomorrow and that's just an utterly terrifying thought. I don't want to be dead. No one does. I mean, it's a terrifying thought. We don't know what there is after life, if anything, but it just feels like it's going to be soon. I don't want it to be soon. If I'm going to be honest with myself I want to wake up and know that I'm not going to die. It's never really a certainty, no matter what precautions you take, but of the people in this room, I'm the most likely to die. We both are," Gerard says.

"You're so negative," I tell him trying to be lively, but I don't really know how. It's grim. Everything is just really grim, and dismal. It kind of feels like the night before war or something. You don't really know what tomorrow is going to bring, but it's likely going to be bloody.

I feel like it's the end of days, but it's only me, and Gerard who are on the brink of life. The apocalypse is literally on our heels, but only for Gerard and myself. There's no way to express the guttural fear in my stomach. I don't know that I've ever felt so helpless in my life. It just feels like my life is destitute and crumbling dramatically to my feet. I don't know what this is all leading up to, but I feel like I'm going to lose everything. I don't want to lose everything. I want to be alive, really. I just don't want to be dead, because that's so final. I'm not ready for the curtains to close, I've only just met my scene changer and I need to hang onto him.

In a lot of ways I feel like my life is only just beginning and that's what makes it so scary to think that it'll end soon. No one wants to die. Not even people who think they want to die. Because no matter who you are or what you think, death is frightening. It's daunting and ever ascending, which only makes it that much more absolute.

There's no such thing as fearless and I'm afraid of death. Maybe I wasn't a year ago, but I am now. A year ago my life wasn't in jeopardy though. Isn't it funny how we only see things clearly when we're about to lose them? We only understand the gravity of the things around us when we're about to lose them, or have already lost them.

When I was drowning, I understood the importance of just about everything around me. It's a caustic thing to assess, but a near death experience was one of the most educational things for me to ever go through, because it made me understand why I have to cherish what I have. I have to cherish every breath, and every day of life, because I only have so many days.

I want an infinite number of days with Gerard, but all odds are against me. I've pissed off people of a high caliber, and there's no turning back now. The only way I'll ever be safe now is if Banks is rotting in a prison cell or six feet under, but that's almost impossible to imagine now. The police can't afford to arrest him, on the off chance that they don't have anything resolute to hold against him which means that they're branding Gerard and I as dead, as well as Mikey.

We've been left off for dead, marked by the reaper, and there's nothing the police are willing to do to stop it, which means the only person with skill and motivation to do anything about it is... me. I don't want to be the last resort.

It's one thing to kill a person because someone hired me to, but it's another to actually be put in a place where there's no way out, but to kill a person for my own gain. The more and more I think about it the more it sinks in that I'm going to have to kill Banks. I don't want to. When I killed people, I killed people I didn't know, people who couldn't influence my life. I've never killed someone who could be traced back to myself, and I really don't want to. I don't want to kill anyone. I really don't. It's not that I'm afraid of being caught, because I'd probably deserve it, but it's such a different thing to kill someone with actual motive.

When I used to kill people, I didn't know them. It actually felt like I was just the means, like a weapon, because it never really felt like I was the murderer. It stings the same way of course. It still feels like I'm a bad person and that I'm a murderer, but it wasn't the same feeling exactly.

If I were to kill Banks that would make me the shot caller. That's a whole different place to be. Assassins, while we are killers, we're just the executioner. When you're an assassin, the death will be carried out no matter what you do. You're just the means. If a person hires an assassin they will do anything to get their target dead, so it's a different feeling in their shoes then the assassins. I am a bad person for killing someone, but the client is worse, because they are ultimately the one behind the death.

The assassin is just the gun. Worthless without ammunition. A gun does nothing without intent. The person who hires the assassin, they're the bullet. I may be the person who pulls the trigger, but it's the bullet that kills. The bullet is put there by a third party and at the end of the day, that person is most at fault.

I know I'm a bad person, but I still believe it to be true that my clients are worse. It's never my aspiration that buries a person, which means that I'm not as much to blame when a person is killed as the one who called the shot.

I can't be the shot caller. As funny as it is, I can't kill Banks. I can kill a person I've never met and know nothing about, but I can't kill a man trying to kill me. My soul is already damned to hell, but if I were to make the decision to kill Banks then I'd lose myself along with it. An assassin will go to hell, but a person who hires an assassin goes to a special type of hell. The hell reserved for child molesters and people who talk at the theater.

"You've been looking off into the distance contemplatively for like ten minutes. You okay?" Gerard asks.

I blink a few times and find myself still in the bar standing next to Gerard.

"How childish is it to say that I'm afraid to die? I can't send the thought away that I'm not ready for it. I haven't had enough time, Gerard. I haven't had enough time to see shit! I haven't had enough time to get to know you. Or really, myself. I don't even know who I am."

He looks down and frowns at his shoes for a long moment without a word. It's all so awful right now. Being with him should make me feel so much better, but I can't help being afraid of the fact that I won't be able to be near him, because he'll be dead.

"I know what you mean, Frankie. I'm not happy about it, and I'll never really be ready, but if I have the opportunity to save you in exchange for my own life, I need you to know that I'll take that chance."

"I don't want you to," I tell him.

"But it's not your decision to make, is it? It's my own decision, and I will not let you die for me or because of me.

"You're so fucking stubborn," I say and the recalcitrant look in his eyes proves my point. I'm starting to get annoyed with how resilient he is. It's really sexy, I'm not going to lie, but it digs under my skin.

"You love me," Gerard says with a wink, and it feels abnormal in this tense atmosphere, but it's still nice to not take things with a little bit of humor.

I mean, we have at least a day of almost guaranteed life I'd guess, so there really doesn't seem to be a point to spend it so restlessly.

I roll my eyes at him and say, "I do, but I don't know why."

He beams at me widely, and the fear almost seems to wash away. Gerard's smile is probably the cure to the common cold or something. It's at least a very effective antidepressant.

"Boys," an unfamiliar voice says from behind me and I turn to see who it belongs to.

I think I now understand what it's like to have a heart attack.

He looks just like Gerard drew him. Strong jaw, dark hair, light complexioned skin that looks trapped against the bones in his face, stretching sharply over a set of firm cheekbones. His eyes are as they were in my dream. Dark, and inflamed, almost carmine red. His whole appearance is to be expected. Callous and heartless.

He is a tall and strapping man, actually. Almost statuesque and he gives the appearance of strength with only his stance. Looking at him you can truly see power radiating off of him. He's a silver fox, but an evil one at that.

So this is Banks. The faceless enemy. The man who wants everyone I love dead.

"I'm going to ask you two to please follow me," Banks says.