Dante takes up a patrol, canvassing the house every thirty minutes. He eventually checks out the attic but never notices us hiding in the far dark corner, covered in a dust sheet.
Early Hours Of This Morning
Dante finally falls asleep on the sofa, having partaken in the drug-laced whiskey Cruz left out for him. As the pills came from his own stash, it would be assumed he consumed them himself if Vincenzo orders an autopsy.
Several others grin when we explain this, watching the screen raptly. Cruz changes the six screens to one, making it easier to watch as things unfold. Cruz forwards it again, as I explain how after Dante was asleep, I painted Cruz’s face first, turning his handsome features into a skeletal one that would match my own when I was done. We dressed in loose-fitting black clothes, and I attached a cape to the back of Cruz’s hoodie. He looked like Death himself, and in Dante’s drug-addled state, our haunting looks would only add to the delusion.
We slip downstairs and make a hammock out of sheets, sliding Dante into it before carrying him upstairs and laying him on his bed. While Dante sleeps, I attach a heart monitoring bracelet to his wrist while Cruz removes a pouch from his pocket and takes out a tiny piece of paper, which he places under Dante’s tongue.
“LSD?” asks Trey, and Cruz nods at him. Cruz forwards the movie again while our on-screen selves wait for the LSD to kick in.
Cruz sets up Amazon’s Alexa, getting it ready for its part to play while I get a drone ready, one that has flashing lights and other lighting tricks. When we’re ready, Cruz takes out the pouch again, this time pulling out a syringe full of adrenaline, and injects it in Dante’s leg before we back into the shadows of the room.
Right on time, Alexa lets out a long, low creepy moan, and Dante sits straight up in bed, gasping, a hand over his heart. He looks around, his terror evident even in the darkened room. When all is quiet, he lays back down, eyes fluttering closed. Alexa then starts up again, this time, whispering haunting messages. Dante jumps out of bed and falls to the floor, the effects of all the drugs making him ungainly.
Tessa giggles when he falls out of bed and Rebecca shushes her.
Dante crawls around on the floor, patting the carpet as if he’s looking for something. He’s mumbling to himself, eyes wide, looking for all the world like a demented person. The drone rises off the floor, black and silent, before moving through the air to hover several feet above Dante.
Star-shaped lights shoot out of the drone to decorate the room, giving the effect of being in space. Dante starts making gasping noises, clutching his throat. “I can’t breathe!” he gasps. “Where is my suit?”
The room once more bursts into laughter as Dante’s trip leads him to believe he’s in space without oxygen.
He scrambles across the floor, pounding on the walls of his “spaceship,” begging them to let him back on the craft. The night vision cameras pick up every terrorized moment, every ragged breath, every look of fear.
I switch off the star lights, making Dante curse in the corner he’s holed up in. Alexa changes the whispers to gunshots, and Dante dives to the ground as red laser lights scout the room, looking for their target.
The bracelet on his wrist beeps. His heart rate is up to one hundred and fifty beats per minute.
Cruz pulls himself to his feet, stalking forward out of the shadows, looking like Death himself. Dante screams, begging for his life, as Cruz comes toward him then melts away, seemingly disappearing into the darkened corners.
The bracelet beeps more frantically. One hundred and seventy beats per minute.
The gunshots and lasers go quiet, the room preternaturally still. Dante takes a shuddering breath, looking around, then screeches when he looks at the ceiling.
We don’t know what his acid trip was showing him, but whatever it was, it made him wet his pants, I explain.
“No,” Dante wails, flinging his arms over his head. The bracelet beeps again. One hundred and ninety beats per minute. He practically tries to climb the wall to escape the nightmare of his mind.
The bracelet beeps frenetically, now reaching two hundred. Dante starts gasping, a hand over his chest. His pupils are blown out, terror etched across his face as he falls to the floor, his gaze never leaving the nightmare playing out on the ceiling.
Dante takes his last breaths, then goes still.
Jase turns up the lights, most of us blinking against the glare. I tell them how after he died, we quickly moved him back to the bed before lividity could settle in. We rearranged his features, making him look peaceful. And then removed all traces of our presence from the house. Cameras came down and we put the attic back to the way it had been. We had thought ahead and brought gloves with us, so we didn’t have to worry about fingerprints. Once everything was back in its place, we went back through the tunnels and quickly got out of the area.
“Where is the tunnel located?” Trey asks, pulling his laptop out from under the sofa.
“Outside Kowalski’s Bakery on the Upper East Side.”
“I’ll make sure no cameras in the area picked you up.”
“Thank you.” He nods, already immersed in the screen.
Eric stands up, pulling a piece of paper out of his pocket. “Nate and I have some news to share too. This morning, we received a job notification. While our clients tend to stay anonymous, this one wasn’t shy in sharing his name. We’ll need to discuss this soon, as it might be an opportunity too good to pass up. In the meantime, we’ve accepted it.”
Dread slides down my spine. I know one person who would contract a hit without bothering to hide their name. Eric hands Trey the kill order, and it gets passed around until it reaches me. Fingering the piece of paper, I read it once, then again, wondering what Vincenzo’s motivation could be. Is it only a coincidence it happened on the same day we killed Dante?
Target:Ricardo Z. Martinelli II
