I’m thrilled with the help my assigned editor, Tyler, provided to clean up my story. I had loose ends and wayward sentences galore, but they were able to point me in exactly the right direction to clear things up. Adding a little context—why are these people just hanging out in the woods, huh?—and swapping some paragraphs/words/phrases got me to a pretty solid place. A couple of sweeps through, and boom. A giant improvement over the original unedited draft.
Thanks to the encouraging words from Tyler, as well as demands from my sister, I am considering ways I can expand this. I enjoy where the story ends as it is—the internal conflict of ‘what now’ turns to a new kind of partnership—but this feels like a good opportunity to try a new genre. We’ll see. Until then, enjoy this final version of my Writer in Motion short story!
Pros & Cons
It was supposed to be an easy job. Get in, get the goods, deliver, done. One final gig: The last hurrah before my retirement, a job to get The Life out of my system. Then, something…different. The whole deal: New name, new city, new gig.
Maybe a security guard post at a London museum. Or Paris. Crepes and café au lait instead of firearms and felonies. A life I could discuss. No more secrets.
I was so close. Just turn up at the middle-of-nowhere drop site, goods in-hand, and I’d be out of the game. Simple as that.
The Boss failed to mention a few key details.
One, the ‘goods’ were a person. Two, the person was my partner.
I just had to distract him so they could put the bullet in his head, that’s it.
Joke’s on me, though; His assignment was the carbon copy. Can’t have the two best players taking the playbook to the opposing team—or the authorities. Did professional courtesy mean nothing anymore? As if I’d risk my imminent anonymity by spilling trade secrets.
A prickle rippled across my skin. He was eyeing me again while feeding twigs into the campfire. The pieces crackled and disappeared into nothingness. Poof, gone, invisible. If only it were that easy.
I’d sooner punch him than shake his hand, but this? It was practically execution. We can’t claim honor, not in this line of work. A partnership, though—that’s a sacred thing.
I refused to make another pro/con list. If I made a list, it meant he was at least partially right. I couldn’t give him the satisfaction.
“We can’t move without being apprehended.”
“I’d like to see them try.” I scraped thin, rolling strips of wood from a stick, forming a useless point. Nervous energy had to go somewhere. Why not destruction?
“Take it easy. Rash decisions won’t get us out.”
“No, the only way out is in a body bag.” I stabbed my stick into the coals and examined his expression through a thousand dancing sparks. Staying in the game was its own kind of death. One year turned to five, turned to eight, nine, ten. A decade in, only to be pit against each other—kill or be killed.
“If we stick around to fight it out, we’re dead,” he said. Calm, considering. Calculating.
“The way I see it, we either end up dead or miserable. And you know I’m too much of a sadist to choose dead.”
“So, what’s your plan?” Not even a hint of sarcasm in his tone. He stared me down, an attempt to break through my tough exterior—to the pitiless soul beneath. He wouldn’t find anything there worth saving.
“Tell them I reconsidered, I’ll stick it out. What’s another ten years?”
“The rest of your life, in a gig like this.”
He wasn’t wrong. There was a 99-percent chance my life would be over in a few hours anyway. Nobody leaves The Life. I’d signed that agreement in blood: The Life before my life.
Silence curled through the camp, a stalking cobra waiting to strike. The scent of fire-crimped pine needles and a rustling of leaves carried on the warm summer breeze, thick and humid, not an ounce of refreshing cool behind it. And now, my prospects were as stagnant as the air. Fate or coincidence, who can tell anymore?
“I have a plan,” he said. “But, you’ll have to trust me. Quite literally, with your life.” He stared me down, eyes hard as ore in their sunken sockets.
Trust him with my life. I’m fairly sure it was already in his hands.
I refused to budge.
“Okay, then. Pro.” He hefted a hand up, one finger raised to the sky. “If I pull this off, you’ll finally believe me when I say I can plan ahead.” He raised a finger on the opposite hand. “Con, we could both die.”
“Pro, you getting caught would mean you’re finally off my back.” I raised an eyebrow at him.
“Definitely a con.”
“Not from where I’m sitting.” I allowed a sarcastic smile. It would be hard to play the part of ‘irritable tough-ass’ with something like feelings sneaking through.
“Con, you’d probably have to break my nose to make it believable.”
“Pro, I’d finally get to punch you, zero consequences.”
He tossed his stick into the fire, a chuckle mingling with the sound of firewood shifting and sparks rising from the pit.
“Pro, I have a place we can disappear. A hundred percent off-grid, untraceable. A little security I’ve kept under wraps. Con, you’ve never trusted me enough to believe I’d actually save your ass.”
It’s not that I didn’t trust him. He wouldn’t leave a partner behind—the job in Salzburg proved it. But, this was different… We’d only be partners until sunrise, then we’d see if the job’s trust held.
“In this line of work, you have one friend.” I jammed my thumb into my chest. “Trust anyone, get killed.”
“Cynic.”
I spread my hands, inviting him to take in the scene. “Exhibit A. Convince me it’s not a double-cross.”
He hitched his weight forward, leaned elbows on knees, and double-snapped his fingers, demanding eye contact. I obliged.
“We may not like each other, but we both did our time. We deserve out, and I’m tired of doing their dirty work. Maybe we learn to like each other. Maybe we kill each other anyway a year from now. But, maybe this could be an opportunity to start over. And, either we do it together or I give in now and take the bullet. I’m done playing the bad guy.”
I stared past the rising smoke toward the opening the ground team would come through. Just a few hours left to make the move. I wanted out, with or without this insufferable jackass.
He was growing on me, anyway.
“Tell me your plan. Then, I’ll tell you all the ways it will fail—and counter with a better option.”
