The Secret not Worth a Life

"Help Me! Somebody! ANYBODY!"

Bang, Bang, Bang!!! All Jason could hear was the growing clangor of gunshots. The loud, cold cracks scared him senseless, but all he could do was continue to run. Even with his long, lean, runner’s figure, he was tiring fast.

Bang, Bang!! Two more shots rang out behind him, but Jason had stopped listening by then. He was wrapped in a flood of his memories. At that moment all he saw, heard, felt, or sensed was his past. He realized at that moment, by some strange clairvoyant sense, that he would not make it out of that warehouse alive.

“This is going towards the light, right?” Jason thought to himself. He began to see the faces of his loved ones before his eyes. Then he only saw one, Alex. He suddenly stopped and broke-down crying.

“I never told her that I loved her,” he thought to himself. Then he said, louder than he realized, "Alex, you are my best friend, the only good, true person in my life, and I love you!"

At first, these words shocked him because this was Alex, his best friend since the first day of junior high. This was the girl that he would set up with his guy friends. They would then go on double dates together when he was with his current girlfriend at the time. This was the girl that he always knew had his back no matter what. This was the person he would always run to when he was in trouble. But he did not run to her this time, and that mistake, he realized, might now have cost him his life.

As Jason stood there battling these conflicting thoughts in his brain, he was caught off-guard by a voice from above.

"Aw, that's sweet. Are you trying to say your last good-byes to a ghost? Well, I hope you realize that you brought this upon yourself," said the chilling voice from the warehouse mezzanine above, "Goodbye, Jason Holloway. Oh, and your little secret will stay a secret forever."

All Jason could see were black spots. His vision began to blur as the pain began to sink in. In his last breath he mumbled, "I'm sorry, Alex."

The keeper of the detached voice looked down dispassionately at Jason’s body. He saw that there was no longer life in the teenager’s body. Most people would have been mortified by this sight, but not this man. He had been doing this type of work for 21 long years, and had become immune to watching death. If he got paid well and made someone happy about it, then is was worth looking at the lifeless bodies of so many people. The assassin took out a cell phone from his pocket. He had not even begun to dial a number before the phone rang.

"Hello? Yes, yes; Holloway is dead. Yes, yes, I know. Okay. Well, now your little secret is safe. So, when are you going to wire the money to my account? You promised $500,000 for the kill. Oh, he did say something interesting before he died. He said, 'I'm sorry, Alex.' Isn't that strange? Well, you better be in my account by the time I get back to my hotel."

Once the assassin heard the cell phone click shut, he knew it was to late to stop his inevitable demise. His eyes widened and his visage went pale right before the phone, and everything else, was obliterated. The former carrier of the voice had disappeared into a cloud of pick dust. The voice was gone and the warehouse was finally silent.
*~*
At that same moment, 3,000 miles away, Alexandra Summers was jolted awake by the clangor of her alarm clock. She hastily got out of bed, and hit the button of the clock until there was not a sound left in the room that obviously belonged to an American teenager. When Alexandra stood up, she just stood facing the mirror. She was amazed at how much she had grown up in the past year. She was currently standing at five feet, seven inches (a good inch over last year); had her flowing brunette hair in waves resting at the level of her stomach; had finally gotten her braces removed; and now had contacts. She felt really good about the start of her senior year, except for one thing: she had not had any word from her best friend, Jason, in over three days. She knew something was up because Jason would call her at least ten times a day, and usually see her more then eight times in a week.

“Well, if anything was wrong,” she thought to herself, “he would have come to me by now. Maybe it’s just new year jitters.” However, Alex knew there was something else that was wrong; she just could not figure it out. Jason had never been silent this long about anything. She knew that he was either in really big trouble or just had more girlfriend issues. Every time he broke up with a new girl, he would constantly complain about it, and he knew that it would tick her off.

“So, he’s okay. Right? Of course he is! Oh, you’re just being paranoid again, Alex,” she kept saying to herself. “I hope that’s all it is, just me trying to second guess myself.”
Then out of nowhere Alex heard the door bell ring.

“I’m coming,” she called from the door way.” When she opened the door, all she saw was a really enormous black suit belonging to a gigantic Caucasian man. He was wearing dark shades that almost covered half his face. To Alex, he looked like a strange cross between Agent Smith from The Matrix and Tommy Lee Jones’s character in Men in Black.

“Hello officer,” she said in the calmest voice possible. “Is there anything I could…um…help you with?”

“Do you know any one by the name of Jason Holloway?” he said in the coldest, stiffest voice she had ever heard.

“Yes, sir. He’s my best friend. Why do you ask? Is he alright?”

“I need to ask you a few questions, Miss.”

“What? What did Jason do? It’s he okay? WHERE IS HE?”

“The former Mister Holloway had gotten himself into some trouble, and we believe that you might have somehow been involved. Now, you need to come with me.”

“What do you mean by former? Oh My God? Is he…dead? What did you do to Jason? I WANT TO KNOW RIGHT NOW!!” Alex became stiff and pale. She suddenly fell to her knees, and could barely breathe over her sobbing. She could not stop the tears coming down her face.

“Like I said, you need to come with me,” said the dark figure towering over her.
Alex tried to run, but her body went numb. The stun gun in the agent’s hand had done its job and silenced her.

In a guiltless voice, he said, “Sorry Miss Summers, but this secret is above even my head. I just hope you don’t have to die like your dear misguided friend.”

He walked from the porch towards his van, with Alex still in his arms. He stared back at the quiet house. In his stone-cold heart, he started to feel some pity for the children. He realized that they did not know the severity of their involvement in this conspiracy. He also knew that he had a job to do, and he could not allow silly things like emotions get in the way. He just wished that this girl might be able to shed some light on what she knows, and maybe she could finally bring an end to this horrible killing spree by the government.

“This is not worth all these innocent lives,” he murmured to himself as he got into his van.