My world is dog-eat-dog, and no two days are ever the same, but it’s thrilling, adventurous, and exciting.
I can’t imagine some kind of boring job. It’s just not me.
My thighs are starting to become a little tight. I've been running for an hour straight, and it's not as if the terrain is a flat plain. Nope. Uphill, down a slope, on gravel no less, so that makes rolling an ankle far too likely… Thankfully, I know to run sideways downhill.
The thugs hadn’t. One fell, and the other almost tripped over the first, but that little bit of extra time I’ve gained, I’m slowly losing.
I’m five foot even so although I have stamina and can run for hours, my legs are short. Which means my strides aren’t as long as I would like. They’re catching up to me because of something I can’t control. It’s not fair.
Life isn’t fair.
Honestly, I'm not even sure why they want to kill me. My best guess is that they're thugs employed by Garcia Sagen. He's the latest guy I brought in for the government, and he had been basically a small-time crime lord. It seemed to me he was trying to set himself up as a mob head, but a mob is not something the government is going to allow. I have to give Madelaine Downing credit. The leader of the Global Countries of Earth is willing to do anything and everything to try to stop crime as quickly as possible.
But mobs tend to have numbers, allies, and yeah, my guess is that these thugs are his. Garcia hadn’t been the easiest to take down. He had never been alone, and I hate to fake a call as a doctor to his wife about her sister to get her to leave the house so I could get to Garcia alone. Yes, I’m willing to resort to a bit a treachery to collect my bounties. It’s a lucrative job, and I make the world a better, safer place with every job I complete. Win-win.
A gunshot goes off, and I duck behind a boulder. Shit. They hadn’t been close enough to aim with any sense of accuracy for a long while now.
My breathing is a bit frantic and loud, and I force myself to breathe through my nose and out my mouth to help me calm down some. Once I can hear noises beside my swiftly beating heart, I glance around the side of the boulder.
The thugs are standing above me, bearing down, much too close for comfort.
No big deal.
I grab a rock and toss it to the right. The thugs aren’t distracted by it, but when I then toss them my hat, they shoot five rounds.
Another peek. My hat's been destroyed, all riddled with holes. They're decent shots.
"Not bad, Sagen," I mutter. A lot of thugs are wastes of space. Seems like these thugs might be a bit better than your average goon.
Doubt they can be reasoned with, but it's worth a chance. I'm no cowering, yellow-bellied wimp. I'm no shrinking violet, and I'm not a damsel in distress.
I'm a bounty hunter, and I hunt bounties. Just because there aren't active ones on these two thugs doesn't mean I can't pretend there are.
I hold up my hands. “Wait. Please. Don’t shoot.”
I lift my hands even higher, and another shot is fired. I bring my hands down, and I grit my teeth.
“You’re coming for me because of Garcia Sagen, aren’t you?” I ask.
I’m not stalling. Intel is always appreciated. Sometimes, a bounty hunter moonlights as an informant. There’s been more than one occasion in which I basically gave the government certain names, and they created bounties on the spot for them.
Easy money. I’m telling ya. Dangerous, yes, but who doesn’t love a little thrill? Plus, the cardio is so much easier to handle when you’re running for your life. Fuck treadmills.
“Yes.”
A thug bears down at me, his gun pointed right at my head. The boulder separates us.
I lift my hands again. This thug has a nose that’s clearly been broken several times. His teeth are perfectly straight and white, though.
The other thug comes into view. He has a bit of a belly, a layer of fat to cover his muscles. Both are far more winded than I am from the chase.
“Garcia Sagen,” I murmur. “You two his righthand men?”
They glance at each other. The heavier one also has his gun out, but it’s pointed at the ground, so I focus on the broken nose guy.
“You have to be, right? I mean, you’re so damn loyal. I’m sure he’ll be so happy that you’re such good lapdogs.” I widen my eyes and cover my mouth with my hand. “I didn’t mean it like that, boys. No. In fact… No. Well, maybe.”
“Maybe what?” Broken Nose spits out.
“You two wouldn’t want to take over his operations, do you?” I ask. “I mean, Garcia had been really busy. I bet he had you two running all over the place for him. You two know the ins and outs better than anyone but Garcia, am I right? You could take over the mob. Well, finish building it up because it’s not quite real mob level yet.”
“The hell you talking about?” Broken Nose asks. He jabs his gun against my temple.
“She’s right,” Heavy says. “It can be bigger.”
“It’s plenty big,” Broken Nose argues.
“Think about it. The bigger it is, the better it’ll be. More money. More power.”
“More women.” I shrug. “More everything, really. It’s a win for you two that I brought in Garcia Sagen. You two can be the new kingpins, the new head honchos. I bet with your two heads, you can do even better than
