Photo by Isai Ramos on Unsplash.
He didn’t look like anything she expected. The brown hair, the soft green eyes, calm features, and, most especially, the smile he sent her as he turned around. She momentarily forgot why she had a gun in her hands. His unsettlingly calm voice brought her back.
“Are you going to kill me?”
“That depends,” she said, taking a cautious step forward, trying to keep her emotions in check. “How did you find me?”
He leaned casually against the doorframe of the living room. “Surprisingly easy for you, Agent Lattimore,” he responded, straightening his black, button-up shirt and crossing his arms.
Her heart jumped. She’d been followed. “Who are you?” she asked, taking another step towards him. “What are you doing here?”
“Who am I?” he asked, pointing at himself. “It’s up for discussion. What am I doing here?” He looked down at his watch and said, “Killing time we don’t have.”
She raised her eyebrows at the mysterious intruder. His riddles were starting to make her mind spin. “Excuse me?” she asked as she tried wrapping her mind around his words.
“Like I said,” he continued, his voice now serious, which sent an involuntary shudder down her spine. He took a step. “We don’t have time, I can’t explain. You need to come with me.”
She cocked the weapon in her hand as he came closer. “Come any closer, and I’ll shoot,” she threatened, adrenaline pumping through her veins.
“Listen to me, Kacy,” he said, holding up his hands. “You need to trust me-”
She interrupted him, malice dripping from her lips. “Someone is out to kill me, and you expect me to just trust you?”
“I know what happened to your father, Kacy,” he said, which stopped her dead in her tracks. Her heart skipped a beat as he spoke, the sincerity in his eyes assuring her he was telling the truth.
She lowered the gun. “What do you know?”
He didn’t answer her. Instead, holding up a hand, his eyes darted around the nearly empty motel room. “We need to leave, they're coming,” he told her before he walked towards the window and peered out of the blinds. Her heart nearly plummeted to the floor.
“Who?” she asked, and suddenly, the man closed the distance between them and tackled her to the floor. A split second later, everything around her exploded into chaos. Bullets whizzed just above them, glass from the broken windows raining down all around them. Multiple cars screeched to a stop outside the motel just after the gunfire ceased. Kacy’s ears rang monotonously as a moment of silence pierced the air.
Then, the man got up, crouching, and held a finger to his lips. She stood up, ignoring the shards of glass piercing her palms as she heard car doors slam outside and people talking. The man pulled a gun from the back waistband of his jeans, and motioned her to follow him, glass breaking under his combat boots.
Every instinct in her told her to just shoot him and run, he couldn’t be trusted, but something else restrained her. “I know what happened to your father.” As she picked up her gun from the glass covered floor, she noticed her hands trembling, and forced them to stop, brushing her black hair from her face. Keep it together, she thought, reluctantly following the man through the motel room.
Behind her, someone crashed through the front door, tearing it from its hinges. She involuntarily jumped, but she spun around and effortlessly put a bullet in his head as others filed in behind him.
Her heart lurched as she felt a muscular hand grab her arm and jerk her to the side, out of the gunmen’s sight.
“Run,” her intruder said as gunfire erupted once again. They ran through the kitchen in the back of the motel and threw themselves through the back door. The alley behind the motel smelled of trash and mold, was littered with metallic, dented trash cans, which they knocked over as they fled.
“I have a car just around the corner,” he said, glancing quickly at her beside him. “If we hurry, we should make it.”
“Oh, really?” she asked, checking behind them for followers. “Could we run for our lives any faster?” she retorted between breaths, spotting some of the shooters exiting the motel. “Shooter!” she shouted, shoving him into a side alley just before more shots rang out.
She wasn’t sure how, but, somehow, they made it to his waiting vehicle.
“Get in!” he shouted, flinging open the driver’s side door and getting in, and she followed suit. The Charger roared to life as he turned on the ignition, and they sped off, leaving Kacy desperately trying to regain her composure.
“Get down!” The man put his hand on her head and forced her head down as bullets whizzed through the car.
Kacy’s world seemed to slow down. This can’t be happening, she thought, doing her hardest to control the shaking of her hands and the pounding of her heart, but she couldn’t.
How did this stranger know anything about her father? She knew nothing, and, apparently, he knew everything. She couldn’t suppress the resentment rising in her bitter, broken heart. If anyone knew anything, it should have been her.
She jumped as her intruder spoke up again. “I think they’re gone.” Kacy cautiously lifted her head and looked around them. They were driving on an abandoned road now, no one else in sight.
“Who are you?” she asked, managing to keep her voice steady. He took a deep breath before he responded.
“Wyatt,” he said. “Wyatt Lenz.” She searched her memory. That name sounded familiar. “Our fathers worked together,” he explained, keeping an eye on their surroundings. “They were partners, but Eric felt like family to us. It’s funny, though,” he said, averting his eyes from the road to look at her. She looked him directly in his eyes. “He never mentioned you.”
“What do you know?” she asked, keeping him on the subject.
“He didn’t die of natural causes,” he said, and she knew he was talking about her father. “When we were at his funeral, my father heard someone asking for Mr. Fortius. Fortius was their safe word. Before your father was killed, he was questioned by a man named Anthony Walker.”
She shook her head. “But he’s-”
“Head of the CIA?” he finished, nodding. Fury pumped through her veins as he spoke. Her father’s killer finally had a name. It was her boss.
“When your father was being questioned, he said to look for Mr. Fortius. By doing that, he alerted my father that they had been compromised.”
“To run,” she said. Wyatt nodded.
“So we did. He still found us. My father got me out in time, but he was killed as well,” he said, stopping for a brief moment to collect himself. “We’re the only loose ends left. Our only way out is to get rid of everyone who’s after us.”
Kacy looked at Wyatt, hatred and bloodlust bleeding through her eyes. “When I find Walker,” she said as Wyatt looked back at her. “I’ll kill him.”
Wyatt smiled. “Then let’s get started.”
ABOUT MR. FORTIUS:
I barely recall coming up with this little mini-fic. I don't know if there's anybody out there who even remembers Figment.com (which is now GetUnderlined), but I'm fairly sure it was a prompt/contest entry.
I posted Mr. Fortius in all of its unedited, unchanged, amateur glory. According to Microsoft Word, it hasn't been edited since April of 2012, and hasn't even been opened since at least August 2013.
This was before I really knew how to structure/plot (and lesbehonest, I still barely know how to do that.) My writing technique was dismal at best. Believe it or not, this was one of my best earliest works and, by best, I mean the least-cringey.
So, enjoy - I hope.
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