Maroon
I remember the night clearly when I first met Kashmere, she was so nice, and the funniest girl I had ever met. She was pretty, and when I found out the job for that night I couldn’t believe it. It had all been a set up.
She was innocent and made me laugh, and that was what made this job the most painful of all. I had never actually met the victim on other jobs, so maybe I didn’t care as much then, but now, it hurt.
Why had I ever done it? Why didn’t I just trade my life for her parents and stop Justin? Because he would have killed them anyway, the thought echoed in my mind, and I knew it was true.
I remembered when he gave me my first job when I was seven. We had been in California, and I had robbed a bank with him, killing anybody who tried to interfere. It was all for the money, and now, I was murderer.
“I don’t want to do this anymore,” I had told him as we drove to the restaurant. “I don’t want to hurt anybody.”
“It’s the best we can do for now,” Justin had told me.
“No,” I protested, “I won’t do it.”
“Why not? I would have thought you would want to kill, just like how your parents were murdered after they abandoned you.”
“How do you know if they were murdered or not?” I asked quietly, staring out the window.
“I’m a murderer, and every murderer can tell how someone was killed,” he replied. We pulled up to the restaurant and I waited outside…that was when I saw her. She had been so happy, and it seemed almost as if there was a fire in her eyes.
Then after we had followed her to the movie store, her laughter was like bells, making me smile. But now, I had taken away her world, everything she loved. Her parents, and now all the money from their will was gone, stolen. By me.
I walked down the dark streets, kicking a soda can as I went. We had come all the way from California to Nevada. The desert landscape seemed rugged and impossible to live in, but the gambling was incredible. I longed to sneak in there just once, but I always got caught.
I walked into the hotel where we were staying at; I pushed the 6th floor button in the elevator and watched as people came in to join me. I walked out onto the red, flower carpet and shuffled down to room 604. I slid in my key card and looked around the room, the lights were off so Justin was probably still downstairs gambling.
I plopped onto the bed and turned on the T.V. The news was on and a woman stood in front of a house, she was saying: “I’m standing here where last night, Mr. and Mrs. Gallant were murdered, while their daughter, Kashmere Gallant is in the hospital after sustaining serious injuries.
“Mr. Gallant’s body was found in the bathtub with blood smeared on the mirror and all over the carpet of the house, and Mrs. Gallant was found in the bed, with multiple gunshot wounds.”
A man appeared next to the woman and the woman held the microphone to his mouth. “What can you tell us about last night’s murder?”
The man replied, “I heard a lot of noise at first but I thought it was kids bein’ roudy, we get a lot of that around here, ‘specially in the summer. But anyway, so I ignored it. Then I hear screams, and I recognize Kashmere’s scream, so I call 911-”
I turned off the television. I couldn’t watch it; I just couldn’t watch what I had done. My mind flashed back to when I had shot Mrs. Gallant through the back after her husband had been shot in the bathroom by Justin. But Mrs. Gallant hadn’t been finished, she was writhing in pain, unable to scream so I-
I shook the memory from my mind and wrapped my arms around myself, hunching into a tight ball. “Why?” I whispered, crying silently. “Why did I do it?”
Maybe in further chapters it will be explained. Keep writing, you've got me eating out of your hand! 