The Innocent Target

Chapter One

Calculated, jumping off the fence, she swung her long legs a left and a right, landing on another surface that thumped a metal.

"FUCK!" She yelled. Blood was smearing her expensive black cocktail dress and the ache was like a syringe had been jammed in her skin repeatedly. She'd taken out the pocket knife that was stuck in there, and slowly rested against the smelly metal. Her breath caught her tongue and a cough erupted some puffs through her lip.

She rubbed her wound to the railing behind her, pressing the pain away. It was chilly and her body felt numb in all the places unnecessary. A tear fell down her cheek and she bit her lip. Suddenly, she heard footsteps and gasped.

"We got a body here." She heard a voice through a window. It was rough. She recognized a couple footsteps and held her breath.

Holding the knife in her hand, she braced by the window pane and scrunched her legs close. She felt the terror course through her body. She grit her teeth, waiting for something to happen.

Nothing.

The footsteps retreated and she shut her eyes, letting the cool air relax her. Something didn't feel right and she didn't know what to do. Her gun was out somewhere in the house and she was completely unaware of how to figure out the whole situation without finding her way back into the house.

Just as she felt the site to be clear, she looked through the window and gulped, opening it. Swinging her legs in very slowly, she slid in and her body shuddered at the sight of the dead lady. The blue of her eyes stated through her death and the gorgeous white gown she wore now scattered itself with droplets of her blood. She'd been shot in the stomach, then her chest and then straight between her eyes.

She held her breath and shut her eyes. A bite in her lip and then she walked out of the room. The dark wooden hallway was quiet. The green carpeted floor as if untouched to any misdeed. The lights in the hall, illuminating the path out but still a darkness loomed around. She need to find a weapon to arm herself. She hadn't been expecting this. Not an encounter. Yes, she knew she'd entered a dangerous territory but it was only to find someone. To find answers and figure out when she could leave all of this behind her and go back to her life, whatever it may have been.

She winced at her leg jerking slightly and that's when she realized that she'd been dripping blood everywhere. Moving to a wall, she ripped the edge of her dress and wrapped it around her thigh, bleeding carelessly.

"Its not that deep. Don't look at it." She assured herself and kept her feet moving, the small, almost harmless knife was in her fingers and though she'd suffered from it, she knew she wasn't strong enough to harm someone with it, "Don't look at it." She grunted the pain aside, almost stumbling to the floor but gaining composure.

Another set of footsteps sounded in a distance and she froze.

Looking for a hiding spot, she crawled behind the large vase by the wall and held her breath. A tear slid down her cheek when she heard another gunshot and smacked a hand on her lips. She was scared because now it was seeming the person she was here for, wasn't invited to the party and she was stuck in crossfire that wasn't hers to attend.

Blood squeezed through the cloth on her leg and she almost, childishly told it to hush and stay inside. Her hand laid on it and she put pressure on it. As footsteps retreated from where she was stuck, she snuck out and started moving, plastered to the wall. When the two opposite corridors by the end of the hall seemed clear, she took the familiar right one. She was sure, she'd come from here. Not the first step in and she saw the tuxedo dressed dead body laying on his chest a few feet in. Pressing a hand to her stomach to stop the bile from rising to her throat, she walked, choosing to ignore it. It was only that she couldn't it was only in her benefit because a gun laid careless under him. With a shivering hand, she sat on her toes and like a cat sneaking ahead for a bawl of yarn, she snatched the gun and checked for the magazine. It had four bullets left.