The Dream (Chapter 2)

            The door to the roof was intentionally left open.  I stepped through it and closed it behind me as I slipped out into the warm tropical night air.  I heard a click as it locked behind me, but I was unconcerned. I would not be returning back that way.  
         Nice night.  
         The sky was cloudless and full of stars.  The gravel on the rooftop crunched beneath my feet as I walked to the edge and looked over the side.  It was a long way down, at least 10 stories, but I wasn’t jumping to the ground below.  My target was much closer, the terrace of the penthouse suite.
        I stepped off the roof and landed lightly on the deck near the hot tub.  It gave off a soft blue glow from the lighting in the water. I could hear the sound of the ocean below as the waves crashed ashore.   
        Ominous.  Nice place. A night here must cost a small fortune, but tonight it was going to cost a hell of a lot more than that.  

A curtain was pulled across the glass door to the suite, making it impossible to see inside.  I jiggled the handle.  It was locked, but that was not a problem.  The lock on the door was antiquated.  The resort security never expected someone to come from the roof.  A quick rake with the pick, a little tension and click.  The glass door quietly slid open.  I parted the curtain with my hand and slipped into the penthouse, closing the door behind me.  

The suite was dark, nobody was there, but I knew that before I entered the room.  I began to familiarize myself with the entire suite, to get the lay of the land.  The living room and dining room were combined.  It’s was a large, mostly open, space with few places to hide.  Luckily, the floors were carpeted; that made it easy to move silently.  The entrance to the suite was at the end of a small foyer with two doors, one on each side.  The door on the left was a powder room.  The door to the right was an entrance to a wet bar that opened up into the dining room.  The entrance to the large master bedroom was situated at the far end of the dining room.  A large luxurious looking bed dominated the right side of the room.  To the left side of the was the entryway to a ridiculously large bathroom with a massive jacuzzi style tub in the corner.  I got the strong feeling I had been here before, but I shrugged it off.  The powder room seemed to be the best place to hide.  It was an easy room to overlook, and would give me the ideal positioning to close off the only avenue of retreat.  Who the hell ever used a power room anyway?

My target, a Civire female, was a high ranking official within the Caldari State government.  She was married to a prominent Admiral in the Caldari Navy.  Unbeknownst to her husband she had been selling military secrets to the Gallente Federation.  Judging by the expensive getaway she was on, business had been good, but this little excursion of hers was paid for in blood; the blood of the agents who’s covers she had blown with her treason.
          Her betrayal extended beyond her disloyalty to the State.  This was a honeymoon suite, but the man she was hanging all over in the hotel bar downstairs, the same man she would be bringing back to her bed tonight was not her husband, he was her family’s chief of security.  Ironically it was the secret affair she was having with the security chief that led to the discovery of her transgressions against the State in the first place. 
         Normally she, as an important figure, would be surrounded by a small army of security and an entourage of staff, but not tonight.  To keep her affair secret she had slipped away alone, with her lover, leaving herself vulnerable.  Tonight her secret lover thought he would have her all to himself, but I knew better.  
        Tonight she would be mine.

I took up position near the door of the powder room.  The little room was nearly pitch black and my eyes took time to adjust to the darkness.  I left the door open just a crack so that I could see into the foyer.  Then I waited.   
         The wait.  
Sometimes the wait is my favorite part.  To feel the anticipation building, the blood running fast through my veins, the tension building and building eventually becoming so thick it could be cut with a knife.  But the tension was safe tonight...I had other plans for the knife.

I heard voices outside the door to the suite.  They had arrived.  I could hear her drunken laughter at something he said that I couldn’t make out.  At that moment I was, again, hit with a feeling of déjà vu.   
         Why did this seem so familiar?  
         Interrupting my thoughts, there was a clicking noise as the door was unlocked. I heard the sound of the door slam open.  They entered, she and her secret lover, making out drunkenly as they stumbled across the foyer towards the bedroom.  
        I could feel my heart rate increasing, my muscles tensing in preparation for what was about to happen, for what had to happen.  I felt like a snake coiled and ready to strike.  But not yet.  I silently took in a deep breath and let it out slowly.  
         It’s not time yet.      

I watched them fumbling towards the living room, still locked in a passionate embrace.  They might not even make it to the bedroom at this rate, I thought to myself, but suddenly they stop and she pulled away slightly.

      “I’m going to slip into something a little less formal,” she says to him softly. “Why don’t you fix us some more drinks?  He hesitated to release her hand, but did, and she slipped out of view towards the bedroom.  

He moved towards the foyer, towards my hiding place.  As he did I slowly pushed the door to the powder room forward making the crack I peered out of smaller.  He gave a passing glance to the powder room door as he moved.  I held my breath and tensed up in preparation to strike, but he looked away and continued on.  
        He didn’t see me. 
        I slowly let the breath out as he passed by, moving out of view.  I heard the wet bar door across from me creak open; the sound of his heels as he stepped onto the hard tile floor behind the bar.  

I reached for my concealed pistol, I had tucked away in a hidden holster.  Its steel felt icy cold to the touch.  Cold but intimately familiar.  I allowed the door to the powder room to open quietly, and I peered around the corner with the pistol at low ready.  In the darkness, I could see the wet bar door was wide open, and I watched as the security chief reached up into the cabinets to retrieve two champagne glasses.  His back was to me.  I brought the pistol up and around the corner and took aim.    
          I could take him now.  Part of me wants to take him now, but not yet.  It wasn't time yet.
       I moved silently out into the foyer, my pistol aimed for his neck.  I glided smoothly across the floor without making a sound and stopped as I reached the doorway of the bar.  I was very close to him now.  He continued to prepare the drinks, oblivious of my presence.  

The moment I’ve been waiting for, the moment I knew was coming; he put the two glasses down on the counter and turned towards me as he moved for an open bottle of champagne.

Now!

Pfffft!  The pistol gave off a quiet rapport. The dart hit him in the jugular just below his jawline.  A perfect shot.  It’s toxins rapidly pumped into his system. I moved just as quickly into the bar. He was looking right at me.  I saw his expression of surprise turn to horror in his eyes as I rushed towards him, my teeth clinched.  

I have you!  

His arm reached up to remove the dart, but his eyes rolled back into his head as the poison took effect. His hand didn’t even make it halfway to his neck before he lost consciousness.  I was there just in time to catch him.  I lowered his limp body gently and silently to the floor, a small courtesy, the least I could do considering what I was about to do to him.

I tucked the pistol back into its concealed holster, and in its place I reached down unsheathe a combat knife with a 8 inch long blade.  I sat it on the floor beside him for the moment.  My hands were ungloved, but this was intentional.  My fingerprints were the same as his.  I could touch whatever I wanted.  Tonight would be blamed on him, my unwitting patsy. 
        I crouched over him, reaching down to remove the dart from his neck.  I tucked it into one of my pockets, then quickly checked his pulse.  It was faint, an effect of the drug, but still there.  I grabbed him by the wrist of his right hand, and picked up the knife. I scratched a series of small cuts into his skin.  She will have put up a struggle, or at least that’s the conclusion the investigators will reach.  

In an hour or so the toxin would dissipate, and he would awaken.  He would remember nothing of me or the moments before he passed out.  An anonymous call will have been made to hotel security about noise coming from the suite and the authorities will barge in and find him alone, with the knife, and the bloody body of his secret lover; all the evidence pointing towards his guilt.  
          He could insist upon his innocence but who would believe him?  A man who slept with the wife of his employer of 10 years.  A man who betrayed the confidence of the role he held.  The role of one of the admiral’s closest confidants, an old friend, a trusted protector.  Who knows, he might even believe he really committed the crime.

I stood up slowly and peered over the bar, looking around in the darkness.  I could hear her in the next room.  It sounded as if she was shuffling through the dresser.  It seemed didn’t hear a thing.  

This was good.  This was the way it should be.  

    I moved silently into the foyer and skulked across the carpet of the dining room, moving for the bedroom with my knife in hand.  I creeped to the wall to the left of the bedroom door and peered inside.  I didn’t see her in the bedroom.  I peeked out a little further.  
Where did you go?        

There was a dim light coming from the bathroom.  It was faint and flickered occasionally.  She had lit some candles perhaps?  

Yes, yes, I can smell them now.  

I saw her shadow splay out into the bedroom from the bathroom. 
        There you are.  
I moved stealthily into the bedroom, sticking close to the wall as I inched towards the bathroom door.  My breaths came short and silent.  I could feel my heart in my chest as my body tensed with excitement.  There was no way out.

You are mine now.  

I moved quickly into the doorway of the bathroom.  As I entered I looked to the right, towards the jacuzzi. Nothing.  I spun to the left moving for the shower.  The curtain was pulled closed.  I quickly moved for them and swiped the curtain out of the way expecting to find her there, cowering.  There was no one there.  

What the fuck?   

“Looking for me?” her voice rang out behind me.  I spun around to see her clearly for the first time.  She was standing in the doorway in the candlelight, her arms at her side, looking right at me.  In my shock and surprise I nearly dropped the knife.

“I know you,” I said in quiet amazement, my eyes wide.

“You killed me,” she said in a deadpan voice, her pale face expressionless.  She wore a white satin negligee.  I suddenly understood why this had seemed so familiar to me before.  
I hadn't just been here before, I had done this before.  

“You killed me here,” she repeated as she pointed to a spot on the hard tile floor a few feet in front of her.  She continued to speak, seemingly speaking my thoughts as my memory of the incident flooded over me. “Afterwards, you prepared the entire suite to make it look as if he had done the crime.”  She paused for a second. “He woke up in the bedroom where you left his body.  He really did think he had killed me.  Even he fell for your deception.  And in his anguish and guilt he threw himself off the terrace.  He died on impact.”

“I remember,” I said softly.

“He had children, you know.  Just as I had children.  I had a boy and a girl.  Their names were,” she stopped to correct herself, “their names are Joseph and Carly.”  She paused again.  A tear was streaming down her cheek as her expressionless face turned to one of pain. “They are growing up without their mother because of you.”

“Carly turns 8 tomorrow,” I said quietly.

“I won’t be there to see it.” She sobbed.

“No...no you won’t,” I said gently, my voice trailing off.  I walked over to the spot on the floor that she had pointed to and crouched down beside it.  Blood seemed to boil up out of the floor forming a small pool which continued to expand.  I could see my reflection in it as it spread.  My face was cold, without emotion.     

“I won’t be there for any of their birthdays.  I won’t get to see my children grow up.  To see them succeed, or be there to pick them up when they fall.  I’ll never see the people they grow up to be.  You...you took that from me,” her voice cracked with emotion as she spoke.  

I slowly stood back up.  I stared at her, expecting to see a look of hatred in her eyes.  It would have been understandable considering the future I denied her, but there was nothing in her face but pain. Pain and sadness.  “Forgive me?” I asked quietly, almost in a whisper.

“No!” she replied, in tears.  

I nodded my head slowly.  This too was understandable.  I didn’t expect any other response.  “I know you don’t owe me anything,” I said with a whisper.  I took a step towards her before continuing, “but I have a request of you.”

“What?” she replied, tears streaming from her eyes.

In a quick sudden motion I lunged for her.  She flung out her hands defensively as she fell backwards off balance.  I grabbed her left wrist, my foot lodged into the doorway for leverage. She spun around as I jerked hard on her arm, pulling her into me.  My body slammed into hers as I shifted my body forward, my momentum continuing forward again. I released her arm and with the same hand reached around grabbing her mouth.  She screamed but it was muffled as my hand pulled tightly over her lips, jerking her head sharply to the left.  I let her feel my full strength.  My right hand came down swiftly with the knife, sinking the blade into the flesh of her neck just above her collarbone.  Her scream continued but there was no sound aside from a sickening gurgle, as what would have been the scream sprayed a bloody mist from the open hole in her throat, her larynx slashed.

“This time stay dead,” I hissed into her ear through clenched teeth.  I held the knife firmly in place.  She tried to struggle against me, her arms flailing in the air in an uncoordinated display of sheer panic.  I pulled her further into bathroom, holding her tightly against me, and dodging her hands as they attempted to claw at anything they could grasp.  
          As we rotated I could see our faces in the large mirror across the room.  Her tear soaked eyes, filled with terror, fixed on mine in the mirror.  There was a wild expression on my face, the anger and excitement was readily visible.  I looked more like a wild animal than a human being.  I felt more like a wild animal than a human being.  A wave of energy coursed through me, and as I felt the strength draining from her body I felt...alive.

“Shhhhhh,” I hissed into her ear. “It will all be over soon.  Don’t fight it.” Secretly I wanted her to fight, I enjoyed the struggle.  The arterial blood sprayed out into an arc with her every heart beat.  The gurgling noise continued as she struggled for breath.  She let out a noise that sounded like a low moan from the hole in her neck.  I could make this faster for her but part of me would rather she bleed out slowly onto the bathroom floor.  Such was the fate of traitors.  Perhaps such a death would discourage the ghosts of my past from daring to haunt my dreams again.  

She was getting weaker now, her arms settled down at her sides.  I removed the blade and shoved it into her again, this time right above her sternum at a downward angle towards her heart.  I felt a snap as the blade sank in.  Blood flowed down her chest to the hard tile floor below.  The puddle at our feet grew ever larger.  She went limp in my arms, cold from the blood loss.  I let her limp body slide to the floor, the knife still sticking out of her.  I stood over her, looking down at her lifeless body.  Everything began to fade as my conscious mind began to reassert control.   

I felt alive.  I am alive.  The dead don’t dream.  The dead don’t feel anything at all.  

I was awakening...