The Hitman's Last Job by Max Freedom Page A

from inside the dashboard.
With a few
adept movements and some muttering under Carl’s breath he soon got
the car started. The engine roared sadly into action and soon they
were away and back out on the open road. The highway stretched
before them in streams of light.
    “ So Mexico…. Are you sure?” she asked
    “ I think so,” he wasn’t sure at all.
    “ Have you been before?”
    “ A few times?” he didn’t elaborate and quickly changed the
subject. “So have you been outta Chicago before…. You know until
recently?”
    “ Nope. Not ever,” she admitted sadly.
    “ That’s a shame. But you can go anywhere you like now…” Carl
trailed off as he realized the ridiculousness of his statement.
She’d never be able to live normally.
There was an
eerie silence in the car and all that could be heard above the
sound of the engine was the heating as it pumped hot, dusty air
into the vehicle. Anna was looking straight ahead at the future and
couldn’t believe the things that had happened over the last few
days. She nibbled on a fingernail and shivered into her coat,
feeling the constant need to keep glancing at Carl as though he’d
disappear if she looked away too long.
    “ Hey. What’s up?” he sensed her unease.
    “ Just thinking…”
    “ About what?”
    “ About a million things,” she looked back to the road and all
the cars they were passing. She wondered where the people were
going. Were they in as much trouble as her?
    “ I hear ya kid. I got countless things runnin’ through my mind
too. We’ll be ok though. Just don’t look back. It’s not where we’re
headed,” and he reached a hand out and squeezed her
thigh.
She smiled
weakly at him with her thumb still in her mouth.
    “ But you gotta stop this,” Carl pulled her hand down. “Try not
to be so nervous,”
    “ I can’t help it!”
He couldn’t
imagine how terrified she must have been. He’d make things alright
for her soon though. They just had to get over the border.
The hours
passed by quickly and soon they were the only car on the road. Anna
was scared they they’d break down and not be able to get help or
worse… they’d be found by the Mob and have no method of escape. But
she calmed herself down eventually and dismissed her thoughts as
childish.
As she looked
into the darkness of the highway it seemed as though everything
came to a head, or rather, she was suddenly conscious of her
situation and the reality of everything hit her. For the first time
she was acutely aware that her father was dead. She surmised that
this was because the shock of the situation was eventually wearing
off and leaving her raw with emotion. She looked to Carl, her
saviour and her father’s murderer. She had given herself to him
freely but did she even know who he was.
He sensed her
anxiety straight away and looked to her:
    “ What?”
    “ I don’t know very much about you at all Carl Reiner…. If
that’s even your name,”
    “ Where did this come from, eh?” he seemed amused at her
befuddlement yet also offended. “What’s up? You can ask me anything
you know,”
    “ Fine,” she thought for a second. “You said I reminded you of
an old girlfriend, who was she?”
Carl shuffled
in his seat anxiously and felt a twinge in his back.
    “ She was… she wasn’t really anything,” he lied.
She looked at
him in disbelief.
    Jesus, this girl can already see right through me… He thought to himself.
    “ Listen. I wasn’t gonna say anything but actually…. Your
situation was so much like my old childhood neighbour. But she
wasn’t so lucky. Her father killed her,”
    “ Oh……” Anna didn’t know what to say about that. “That’s
terrible,”
    “ It was awful. It’s stayed with me forever. I always dreamed of
saving her, you know, but I was too late. But at least I wasn’t
with you,” he looked to her tenderly.
Anna felt
tremendously special all of a sudden. “Thank you,” was all that
came out. No words were good enough to