Wrong Place (The Wrong Series) (14 page)

Chapter 14

Michael sat on top of a sandy hill in Afghanistan
with no one but his spotter. At this moment, this isn’t where he wanted to be at all. It is, however, what he had signed up for. He felt accomplished when he made it through boot camp. No one had believed that such a screw up like him would ever make it through boot camp, much less survive in a real combat situation. He used all of the doubt that people thrust upon him as fuel to make his dreams a reality. He not only made it through boot camp, but he was given the chance to be elite within his class. He was chosen to be a sniper. For the first time, he was accomplished, and people looked at him with a new sense of respect that he had only longed for before. He was no longer the broken boy who constantly needed Nathan’s help. No, now he held all the power in the world behind his scope. There’s one funny thing about that kind of power, though. It sounds great in theory, but once you’re there staring at some kid, who’s probably no older than you, through your scope and you realize that you hold the power to take his life right then and there, you may not want that power anymore. Michael had only encountered one type of person in this desert wasteland, and that was the broken kind. All men’s minds broke here after their first kill. Some of them grew to love killing their enemies, while others developed strange but understandable habits. They broke or turned around any mirrors in their sight, washed their hands constantly, screamed out in their dreams, and even at times grew suicidal. Which type of man will I be, Michael wondered while waiting for a signal.

“
There are two on our right,” his spotter said. Michael found the first target to his right. It was only a boy, a boy who was even younger than Michael. For a moment, Michael was overcome with emotion. The boy in his scope didn’t even look eighteen. He pushed all the emotion and all the doubt from his mind and simply took a breath. He pulled the trigger and watched the boy’s life expire in front of his eyes. On to the next one, he quickly thought while finding the next target. Another shot rang out and another dead boy hit the ground. A tear ran down Michael’s face as he heard his spotter say, “There’s one more on the left.”

When
Michael awoke, he was soaking wet from sweat, and he had tears streaming down his face. Why? Why that dream of all dreams, he thought to himself. He clicked the lamp on that was next to his bed and went straight to the bathroom. He turned the shower on as hot as it would go and got in. He scrubbed and scrubbed, but what he wanted to come off never would, regardless of how much he scrubbed. It was the dirtiest feeling you could possibly feel. You just hope that the water that’s boiling your skin and the cloth that you hold can somehow wash the stench of your own sins off, but unfortunately, it never does. As Michael exited the shower, his thoughts began to grow uncontrollably violent. Not toward anyone else, but instead toward himself. Nathan had always been there to help him through these issues before, but now he was alone. His current roommate didn’t understand. As a matter of fact, the guy thought he was crazy. Maybe on some level, Michael was crazy. Who can I talk to? Do I even deserve for anyone to try to help me through this, He wondered. No, I deserve the same fate as those people I killed, he concluded. After realizing how out of control his thoughts were growing, he retrieved some pills from a bathroom drawer. These were designed to help him work through what the doctors called post-traumatic stress disorder, but he knew the truth. There’s nothing wrong with me. I’m only haunted by the choices I’ve made, and I deserve to be haunted by them, he thought. Still, the pills did seem to make him feel a sense of peace, or at the very least, a numb feeling. He popped open the bottle and took two pills. In that moment, he looked up and saw his reflection. It was a pathetic thing to see, or so Michael thought. Here was this weak, broken person staring back at him, and it just didn’t feel like that person in the mirror should be him. The sight made his stomach turn. He threw down the pills and punched the mirror sending shards of glass to the floor.

“Is everything all right
in there?” His roommate called from the other room.

“Yeah
, everything’s just great!” Michael said in a sarcastic voice.

Many shards of glass had buried into his hand
, and he was bleeding pretty badly. He then covered his hand with a bath towel and walked back to his bedroom and grabbed his phone. He quickly ran through his contacts. Nathan’s here. Maybe he could talk me through this. No, I don’t really want to bother him and Sam, but I hate to bother Jess again, he thought. Finally, he gave in and made the call to Jess.

“Hey, Jess.
I’m sorry about calling you so late, but I really need someone to talk to right now,” Michael said desperately.

“I
’ll be there as soon as I can.”

The truth was
that this had grown routine for Jess. Jess was a nurse, and Michael had never liked hospitals, so anytime he had an emergency where he needed medical attention, he pretty much just called her. His dreams and fits of rage had grown more common lately, so he felt as if he were bothering her all the time. Jess didn’t really mind. She only wanted to see Michael heal somehow. She was always afraid that one day he was going to do something stupid that she couldn’t fix. She was afraid that she was going to come over and find him dead in that bathroom. God, how can she ever like you if she can’t even respect you, Michael thought as he got off the phone.

Outside of Michael’s apartment building
, Jacob and Trish sat waiting in their car. They were trying to see him to confirm that he was actually there.

“
So what do we know about this guy?” Jacob asked.

“He
’s a former marine and sniper. He served some time in Afghanistan, but then apparently he lost it. He was deemed mentally unfit to serve and sent home shortly after he got there,” Trish answered.

“So he was a
sniper who was broken by simply pulling the trigger. How weak can you be?”

Jacob scowled at the thought of such a weak person.
Jacob had always hated these types of guys. The ones who signed up to go do a dirty job and then suddenly grew a conscious when it was time to perform were pathetic to him. To him, they were not only weak, but something about them was also disgraceful.

“This is one that I’ll
enjoy making squeal!” he said with excitement.

At that moment
, a large van pulled up with a girl inside it. She got out and walked straight to Michael’s door. She knocked and then, after a moment, entered.

“Who is the girl?” Jacob asked
.

“I’m on it,” Trish answered while flipping open her laptop.

“How are you going to find that out on there?”

“If the girl is entering his house in the middle of the night
, it stands to reason that he knows her, and if he does know her, I can easily find anything I want to know about her through any social networking pages that he may have.”

“We
ll, what have you got?” Jacob impatiently asked.

“Her name is
Jessica Rogers, and she’s twenty-three years old. She only lives a few blocks from here.”

“I think
we have a way to make Michael tell us whatever we want him to,” Jacob said with a laugh.

*
* * * *

“Oh my God! Are you okay?” Je
ss quickly asked as she noticed Michael’s bloody hand.

“Yeah
, the mirror just kind of jumped out at me,” Michael said in a joking tone.

He had never known why
, but just having Jess near him seemed to naturally calm him. Two seconds ago I was ready to kill myself and now I’m making jokes, he thought.

“This isn
’t funny, Michael!”

“I know,” Michael
said while hanging his head.

“Look, I know that you don’t want to even consider this
, and I’ve talked about it a hundred times before, but I think that you might need to start talking to someone again. Not like me, but a professional.”

“I’m fine. Look
, you can just go if that’s what you came to say.”

“But I haven’t even cleaned y
our wound yet.”

“I’ll be fine
. I can clean it on my own. Just go,” Michael said and began walking back to his room.

“Stop, Michael. I
’m just worried about you. If you don’t want to do it for yourself, then please at least consider doing it for me,” Jess said while closing the distance between the two of them.

Michael looked into her eyes and saw all
of the concern and sadness that his own pain had caused her. How am I worthy of such compassion and understanding? Who am I to disappoint such a beautiful and magnificent creature, he asked himself.

“Okay
. I’ll go when all of this business with Nathan is over. I promise.”

Michael then hugged Jess. He was hugging her not only to show her that he cared about her
, but also because a part of him needed to feel someone close to him more than ever right then. After their longer than normal embrace, Jess said, “Now let’s get to work on your hand.”

After
Jess bandaged Michael’s hand and finished assessing his physical and mental condition, she determined that it would be safe to leave him alone. She told him goodbye and left.

“Hey
, I think that she’s leaving,” Trish said.

“I think we should f
ollow this one,” Jacob said.

“Why?”

“We’ll
make Michael come to us.”

“
All right. That’s actually not a bad idea,” she said while putting the car in gear.

They
followed Jess four blocks to her apartment complex and parked just a few feet away from her. Jacob stepped out of the car and began to walk toward her. After noticing the giant of a man who was walking toward her, Jess quickened her pace to her apartment. Then she heard a voice from behind her.

“Stop or I’ll b
low your head off,” Jacob said.

As she turned
, she saw the large man with his hand inside of the sleeve of his coat. He was holding something that she thought had to be a gun.

“I’ll scr
eam.”

“And when you do
, you’ll die. Now, this is how it’s going to work. I’m going to tell you what to do, and you’re going to comply, or you’re going to die. Do we understand each other?” Jacob asked with a grin.

Jess didn’t answer
him immediately. She was too consumed by fear to speak or even move. What does this guy want with me? What should I do, Jess wondered as she examined the man who may very well kill her soon.

“Here is a little
bit of advice for you. I don’t like to repeat myself.”

“I understand,” Jess
said.

“Good. N
ow walk to that car right over there and get inside casually.”

“
Where are we going?”

“You don’t ask
the questions. You just do as you’re told. Do you understand?”

With a simple nod
, Jess turned and walked to the small black car that she had been instructed to go to and got in the back seat. Jacob then entered the car, choosing to get into the back seat, also.

“Where are we going now
?” Trish asked from the front seat.

“We need to find a place to stay for the night. It nee
ds to be somewhere close to Lee Higgins’ apartment. He’s the one we’re going to see tomorrow.”

Lee
Higgins? Could he be talking about Michael’s friend, Jess wondered. As they drove to the hotel room, Jess began to wonder what would happen to her. Would she even be alive after tonight?

After arriving at the hotel
, Trish went inside and got two rooms. Upon getting Jess out of the car and escorting her to the front of the two rooms, a disagreement occurred.

“She’s
staying in my room,” Jacob said with authority.

“Over my dead body,” Trish quickly said.

It had bothered her that Jacob loved to torture and kill people, but that’s not why she didn’t want Jessica to stay with him. She feared what type of torture a sick individual like Jacob might decide to conduct on a woman alone in his room. The very thought of it sickened her, and she wasn’t about to just sit by and let something like that happen to any woman.

“You know that can be arranged! As a matter of fact
, I don’t know why I’ve dealt with you this long.”

Trish immediately pulled a gun from her side.

“Look, we can do things my way or see how messed up your face looks on this sidewalk. It’s your choice, Jacob,” Trish said in a much stronger and authoritative voice than Jacob had previously heard her talk to him in.

“Fine, h
ave it your way, but just know that when you pulled that little gun out you signed your own death certificate.”

After that last threat
, Jacob retreated into his room. Trish and Jess then entered their own room.