My cousin the sniper

Chapter 1.1: Jess

(a/n: Same as chapter 1 but from Jessica's point of view)





"Dude she's not gonna call back, so just forget it." Jake said and chewed his burger


"She's probably forgotten it again." Amy tried to soothe me.


"Has she ever remembered your birthday?" Leo, my boyfriend asked. I shook my head. She had never, not even once remembered my birthday. She didn't even call me or text me, telling me she's sorry she missed my birthday. Not a word have I heard from her. This year, today was my sixteenth birthday (sweet sixteen - yeah, right) and my friends had convinced me to call her and ask for money. When I had finally worked up the courage to call her she had been very short, and then hung up on me when I told her I only needed ten dollars.


"She's probably working... she's working a lot." I defended her and sagged slightly. Leo draped his arm around my shoulder and hugged me slightly. He knew, I had told him everything about my cousin, he knew what kind of work she was doing.


Suddenly a tray packed with big mac, coke, fries and even ice cream slid in front of me on the table and I looked up. My friends were staring almost open mouthed at her, my cousin Jen, standing next to me.


         "Congratulations." She said and smiled and I smiled back. This was better than I had imagined. I had only imagined she'd show up with the cash, hand it over and then disappear. This almost made up for all the birthdays she had missed. She waved with a wad of one dollar bills in front of me.


"And Indrid sends his best, he heard you were in need of cash."


I grabbed the bills and stared openmouthed at her. Indrid had remembered my birthday? Another train of thoughts started to form in my head. Maybe she hadn't forgotten my birthday, maybe she had just been working and couldn't reach me? Then another thought hit me; does she work 24/7 365 days of the year?


"Who... wha... Indrid? He really sent me...?" I stammered and squeezed the money in my hand. Jen laughed. My friends were staring at us and didn't understand a thing. Now they'll see my family isn't all weak and frail and sick all the time. Some of the family is actually working cool stuff.


"So... you're working partners then?" I grinned at her. I knew nobody could put up with Indrid, only she. That's almost everything I knew about him. Sadly that's almost all I knew about my cousin too.


"Don't you start you too, I'm the only one he gets along with longer than three hours..."


"You've been confined with Indrid in over three hours?" I knew my eyes went wide as saucers.


"Who's Indrid?" Amy interrupted.


"He's this really cool guy... he's..." I started but then broke off and looked at Jen. She had started backing away. I wasn't sure I should tell my friends about Indrid.


"I won't prevent you from telling about him. Just remember, if you talk too much he'd probably have to neutralize you." She glanced around at my friends. "Then he'd probably dispatch everyone you've talked to, everyone you know and everyone you've had contact with. So I'd watch my mouth if I were you." She winked and then she was gone. Leo was hugging my shoulders and my friends were staring after her.


"Happy birthday!" Leo whispered in my ear and kissed my cheek. Then he stole a couple of fries and wolfed them down.


         I unwrapped the burger and split it in two and gave the other half to Leo as my friends probably regained consciousness and turned to me to get the gossip. Sadly I hadn't any gossip to share, not that I wanted to share anyways. The thing was I had only met her once before, if you didn't count the times before she had turned this ass-killer cool but then I had been too young to remember anything The only memory I had of her from when we were young was that she had wanted everything to be fair. I didn't know if that applied to her anymore.


My friends wanted to know everything about her and the cool guy named Indrid.


"Tell me, Jess, you can tell me." Amy whispered behind her hand loud enough for everyone to hear. I shook my head.


"Oh, come on Jess, she's your cousin for chrissake! She won't kill you."


I stared at Jake.


"You know she wasn't joking when she said Indrid would annihilate me if I told you anything."


"Surely she wouldn't let..." Jake started but then at the look on Leo's face he closed his mouth.


"But he can't know you told anyone, how can he? We'll all keep quiet." Gabrielle pleaded and got agreeing nods from everybody around except Jake and Leo.


"How did they know we were here then?" Jake asked Gabrielle and threw a handful of fries into his mouth.


Good question, how did they know we were here?