Chapter Twenty

*Not edited*Not proofread*

Chapter 20– Carefully careless:

I've always had good common sense. Despite popular belief, I'm not an idiot. All because I spell, pronounce and read things differently than others, does not mean I lack knowledge. I am great with numbers, and science has always been a strong subject of mine. I'm good at drawing and I have a good memory... when I want to.

However, I am careless. Recklessly so. Jace has always warned me it will get me into trouble one of these days, and I seriously didn't doubt that. It isn't that I'm not careful— I am. I'm careful with staying under the radar, I'm careful when I'm doing things I'm not meant to be doing to avoid getting caught, I'm careful when I drive (in my own way), and I'm also careful when I torture people; as straight forward as it sounds, it's not. A lot of thought has to go into it. I need to be careful of what arteries are where in case I nick one and they die too soon.

I'm careful and careless at the same time.

Carefully careless, I like to call it.

But when it comes to cleaning up after myself, I'm not always great at it.

I'm a clean person. I shower at least twice a day, sometimes more if I feel like it, and I'm always washing my hands, even if it's just with hand sanitiser. I'm extra aware when it comes to germs and I don't go around touching (dirty) surfaces if I don't need to.

But when it comes to mess? I let Jace deal with it. I hate washing the dishes— sometimes I throw glasses and plates away if I can't be bothered to wash them up. I hate washing my clothes— again, sometimes I'll throw items of clothing away if I can't be assed to do a wash load. And I can't stand sweeping, hoovering, or moping.

Because, lets face it, the reality of the situation is, I wasn't trained to become a fucking house wife, I was trained to kill people. Two very different things. I don't know exactly what they was training me for, but that doesn't matter. What matters is, I was trained for a purpose that involved being good with my hands, light on my feet, quick with my decisions, and precise with a gun.

So, when I stare down at the body drained of blood and pale in colour, I grimace at the mess it makes, knowing I have two options— which are both as bad as each other.

I can either clean it up myself, knowing it would be a hard task and most likely half-assed. Or, I can call Jace and have him clean it up for me, knowing I'd have to listen to him scream and shout and withhold himself from strangling me, but also having the assurance that he'd leave absolutely no trace of evidence of what happened here tonight.

Which would I prefer?

I mull it over for a few more minutes, pacing back and forth in front of the corpse on the ground. It's around eleven o'clock, so while it's not exactly the earliest, there are still a few people roaming around and anyone could wander into the park and see me muttering to myself, suspiciously close to a dead man, with a gun in my hand. And although these basic humans are not the smartest, in my opinion, it wouldn't take them much to piece the parts of the puzzle together.

It would probably take them a while, but they'd get there.

"Fuck me I'm going to regret this," I sigh under my breath as I throw the gun on the floor and use my phone to pull Jace's contact up, reluctantly pressing the call option. I listen to the noise my phone makes as I wait for my overbearing housemate to pick up and become more anxious as the seconds go by.

"Kid?" The ringing is cut off by his groggy voice, making him sound tired. "You okay? What's up? Where are you?"

"Well obviously I'm okay, or I doubt I'd be calling," I roll my eyes. "And I got... held up."

"Lose the attitude," he warns me. "And held up doing what? Are you still at work? I thought you said you were on your way back twenty minutes ago? Have you spoken to Dakota?"

My head spins at all the quick fire questions. "No, I left work. And why would I have spoken to Dakota?" I ask, before thinking better of it and adding. "Actually, that doesn't matter right now."

"Then what do you need?" Jace questions me and I can hear him shifting around. "Is something wrong?"

"Well that depends..." I trail off, kicking the ground with my foot. My arm still throbs and aches, but it's the least of my concern right now as I plan on how to tell Jace what's just happened.

"On what?" He asks with suspicion, his voice low.

"On how you look at the situation. Some may say I've done us both a favour," I shrug nonchalantly, aware he can't see me.

He hums, urging me to carry on. "And what might other say?"

My eyes briefly dart over to the lifeless body on the floor and the pool of blood around it, before I focus back on the phone call. I don't usually have much trouble telling Jace about the mistakes I make, but I just know this one won't be going down well with him and I'm not exactly looking forward to the arguing. My head hurts enough as it is and all I want to do is sit the fuck down and forget about the day— or preferably the last couple of months. But clearly that won't be happening for a good few hours.

"Kid... what might others say?" Jace presses again, his tone stricter this time around and filled with a lot more suspicion. For a moment, I forgot he was even on the other end of the call.

"That I killed someone."

I decide to go right ahead and come out with it, knowing beating around the trees won't get me anywhere. I don't like dragging things out. I've always been the type to cut straight to the point and get things over with; things get done a lot quicker that way.

There's a small beat of silence before I hear Jace let out a sigh. It's calm, but I detect the annoyance behind it, however there's no anger. "Jesus Christ, kid, I don't have time for your jokes right now. Just tell me when you'll be home."

I pull my phone away in confusion and stare down at the lit up screen with furrowed eyebrows. The contact name is definitely Jace and it's definitely his voice that I recognise on the other end, however, the fact that he isn't freaking out at my confession makes me doubt the person I'm talking to.

"Peaches are...?" I ask as I bring the phone back up to my ear.

"Blue," he answers back straight away, letting me know it's one-hundred percent the Jace that I live with and not some impostor. "Little warrior, what's going on? Why don't you think it's me?"

"Because I just told you I fucking killed someone and you just brushed past it," I explain with confusion. "Why the fuck aren't you shouting at me?"

"Because I know you were being sarcastic." I can picture him rolling his eyes as he speaks with a matter-of-fact tone.

"No, I'm not. I'm being honest, Jace," I say with as much seriousness as I can, hoping he realises soon that I'm telling the truth. "The guard from the other day at The Ring followed me on the way home and tried to kill me. I'm literally bleeding out right now as we speak," I say into the speaker, my eyes going back to the dead guard. "I'm at the park by that barbers you go to."

Again it's silent as I finish speaking, but this one seems to be filled with tension. "Please tell me you're fucking joking," he pleads slowly, yet his tone is anything but pleading. It's more like he's warning me to be joking.

"No, the fucker shot me in the fucking arm," I complain, glancing down at my numb arm. I should probably take my jacket off because it's sticking to the blood. "And I'm pretty sure he grazed the top of bicep, too. Or maybe my shoulder. I really can't feel the difference," I mumble distractedly.

As I talk, catching Jace up on the situation, I can hear more shuffling on his end and the faint sound of his muffled curses. He sounds angry. Really fucking pissed off, but I also sense a bit of panic. Though, I don't reciprocate that feeling. Jace panics over the smallest of things, so it doesn't project on to me because I know he makes a big deal out of every situation.

There's nothing to panic about here.

"I cannot fucking believe you!" He seethes as I hear keys jingling, ensuring me Jace is on his way. "The one thing I ask you not to fucking d— oh God!"

The abruptness of his pause causes me to perk up after having zoned out of his angry rants. "What?"

"Dakota came looking for you earlier on!"

"Okay... so what?" I counter, wondering why that's relevant in this situation. "If you're worried that the person I shot might've been Dakota, then save it. It's not. I know what the guy looks like, Jace. I'm illiterate, not blind."

"No, R.A, that's not what I'm saying!" He exasperates. "Dakota came looking for you about five minutes before you called and I told him you was still at work. He went looking for you!"

My eyes widen momentarily. "Well why the fuck would you do that?" I shout back at him, now angry for a different reason. If Dakota left around five-ten minutes ago, then he shouldn't be too far away. I know a lot of people take the park as a short cut, so it's possible he could pass through and see me in the middle of committing a crime.

"Excuse me for not foreseeing you murdering someone!" Jace snaps back. I hear the front door shut.

"Well the possibility is always fucking there, Jace. You should've considered it!"

He makes an angry sound in the back of his throat. "Don't put this on me! If you weren't so fucking fucked up we wouldn't be in this mess."

"No, you of all people can't use that on me," I growl at him under my breath, my body shaking. "Maybe you should take a step back and look at the bigger fucking picture because the blame goes way beyond me."

"Kody?"

Oh no.

My body tenses up and goes so rigid the muscles in my arm flex and pain shoots down my whole body. I lower my phone from my face, ignoring Jace's frantic calls, and slowly turn around to find Dakota standing a few feet away.

___

Author's Note

Did you see that one coming? I did! What do you think will happen next? Any guesses?

*

So I won't bore you too much with this A/N, but I was busy wondering some things.

I'm really curious as to where everybody's from. And by that I mean what country... I'm not weird enough to want to know people's exact locations. I'm just intrigued to know how many people are in a different country to me. If you can't tell, I'm from England.

Also, do people read with the white, yellow-y, or black background? How big is your font? And you scroll down the page, or flick through the pages?

I know they're really random questions but they're just ones that have been bugging me for ages now, and I really want to know how everybody reads. I have a white background with a small font because for some weird reason I feel like the smaller the words, the better it makes the book, and I don't know why because there's no real logic behind it. I also scroll down the page, I don't swipe. I tried to get into it, but I just couldn't.

Anyways, sorry for the weird authors note. I just really am curious (: