Page 150 of Under Your Scars

I don’t know why she suddenly started having these nightmares. She hasn’t had them consistently since November. The worst part about not knowing what triggered them is that I have no idea how to stop them. I have no idea how to help her, and I hate feeling helpless when it comes to her.

It's almost like I’m stuck on the opposite side of that glass cage from her. Reliving the worst few minutes of our lives right there beside her.

She has dark circles under her eyes, and I can just see it in her demeanor that she wants nothing more than a good night’s sleep.

I help her to the sink, but she’s so tired that she can hardly lift the toothbrush. My throat burns as I watch her brush in slow, uncoordinated strokes. When she’s done, I pick her up and carry her to bed to tuck her in again. She stares at the space above her, almost like she’s in a trance. I crawl into bed next to her and pull her tight to my side. She wraps her arms around me and whimpers once before the tears start falling again.

I use one hand to draw mindless patterns on her back with my fingers and use my other to unlock my phone.

I open the search engine and look for the closest local pharmacy. It’s not far, less than ten minutes away.

I kiss the top of her head and sit up. She grabs me frantically, her eyes darting around my face in a silent panic.

“Where are you going?”

I run my thumb gently along her cheekbone. “I’ll be back in thirty minutes. I promise.”

She lets me go, and I leave the bedroom to go downstairs to my workshop.

Elena made me promise to stop killing, and I haven’t been, but the Silencer isn’t any less useful to me. I still go out and use his presence to intimidate information out of people.

But it hasn’t gotten me anywhere.

Frank Valenti vanished without a trace, and if something else killed him before I did, I’m going to raise him from the dead just to kill him again.

The thing about the Silencer is that he doesn’t need to kill to put the fear of God in someone. Just because no one’s found a body with red duct tape in two months doesn’t mean they aren’t out there, and that fear is more than enough to make up for the lack of bloodshed.

Before I put on my mask, I crack my neck and stare at myself in the reflection of a blank computer screen.

“In and out. We’re there for one thing, got it?” I pause, waiting for an answer that never comes. I chuckle to myself. “Quiet tonight. That’s a first.”

The parking lot of the pharmacy is dead quiet. There are four cameras surrounding the small white building, one on each side. The one closest to the door is easy enough to take out with a well-aimed bullet.

The sound of that gunshot will have lowered the property value of the apartments across the street, but a broken camera is a lot less shocking than a body.

When I was at MIT, I spent a lot of my studies learning how security systems work. At the time, security was Reeves Enterprises’ specialty. It still is one of the main pillars of the company, and our biggest source of income globally.

Fortunately, it’s one of my specialties too. I could break into the Pentagon with a glowstick and a ballpoint pen if I had to. A pharmacy? Child’s play.

I shut off the security cameras inside with a jamming device I stick into the computer at the checkout desk. Then it’s literally as simple as searching through the walls of medications behind the pharmacy counter until I find what I’m looking for.

Eszopiclone. Sleeping pills.

I reach for the bottle but freeze when I hear hushed voices. I squat behind one of the lower shelves. In the distance, between the breaks in the racks of medications, I can see two flashlights approaching the counter. Two men in ski masks stare at the opened security gate separating the pharmacy from the rest of the store. One of them scratches the top of his head.

“I don’t like this,” he whispers. “What if there’s someone else in here?”

“Then unload your nine into them! Idiot. So long as they haven’t taken the hydros, I don’t give a fuck if there’s someone else here.”

“But the camera outside—”

“Shut up and start looking.”

The two of them jump over the counter and start wandering up and down the aisles of medications.

Okay. No problem. Just let them take the painkillers and leave.

I shift behind a different rack when one of them turns down the aisle I need. He starts casually observing all the bottles and chuckles to himself when he grabsmybottle of pills.