Smolder

23

At three o'clock, Ash came out of his room and told me to gear up. I followed his orders, and we were off within minutes.

The whole thing was starting to feel like a routine, even though I'd only really been on one full assignment. So I wasn't nervous, thankfully. It was only half an hour to the place too, and I hoped that I wouldn't have to spend a night sleeping in the car and thinking up stupidly impulsive plans again.

The silence that had settled in between us was trepidatious. He was just being so nice to me over the past few days, and I was terrified he'd slip into his old ways at the drop of a hat. Yet every recent indication was farther from the truth. Then again, a late night conversation and some irrelevant kissing didn't really constitute as friendship. I reminded myself I was nothing more than a temporary resource.

Temporary resource. That's all I really was. Nothing more than a coat of protection for the battlefield that, once destroyed, wouldn't ever be repaired. The reality hurt, but I had to accept it. Staying alive was the goal. Convincing, surviving and killing had been narrowed down to surviving because killing him was out of the question with the threat of Alex's revenge, and convincing was fruitless from the start. Another plan, foiled.

"I was going to tell you my nightmare, wasn't I?" Asher said, snapping me out of my glum thoughts.

"Er, yeah," I responded. "You were."

"It was the same situation as before," he began. "When we went to find Alex. Except instead of the Stafford guy, I killed Alex and it was a lot bloodier and messier than before. And he kept begging for me to quit, but I couldn't, and the whole thing was just..." he swallowed hard. "Disturbing."

The scene rolled through my head again, victim replaced with Alex. The thought of even more spurting blood and Asher forcing a knife up through his own brother was enough to send an uncomfortable chill down my back. Vile, cruel what image his brain was torturing him with. "Same dream both times?" I quietly asked.

"Yeah."

I didn't speak after that. The whole ordeal must've been far more scarring up close than from behind a window pane. I mean, it was enough to give him night terrors that made him wake up screaming. And it was enough to let me know he actually did care about his brother, quite a bit more than previously thought.

"Hey, it's Halloween, isn't it?" Asher chimed in.

"I don't know. I haven't been keeping track of the days."

"I think it's October thirty-first. And a bunch of these nicer houses are decorated. Ha, I can't believe I almost forgot."

That meant it'd only been a month. One of five. Four left. Four more months, and I was out of there. I was still alive, barely, after every near death experience I'd somehow survived. Honestly I wasn't sure I'd make it so far after those first few days, but I still had a long way to go.

Asher stopped at a light and leaned back in his seat. "I have a proposition, Straw."

I crossed my arms, preparing for the threat to come, but he had a mischievous smile and playful spark in his eye as we started moving again. "What?"

"We go find somewhere to sit and eat, and then when the night rolls around, we steal ourselves some candy."

"From small children?" I questioned, shocked. "Are you completely heartless?"

"Not that heartless, god. The people who leave their candy unattended, we can take from those."

I bit my bottom lip in uncertainty. The irony in uncertainty over taking candy instead of taking lives was overwhelming.