Holding Onto Hope by Michael Anderle

Author:Michael Anderle [Anderle, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781649714435
Publisher: LMBPN Publishing
Published: 2021-01-25T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

Ben had no idea where the hell he was going.

He tried to keep his mind blank. When he thought about what had happened, he was furious, but guilt and shame waited offstage. He never let them into his thoughts but he knew they were there. They were waiting for their moment to strike.

It wasn’t until he was a few streets away that he realized why it all felt so familiar. It shouldn’t be, in all honesty. He had never assassinated someone and been thrown out by his crime-boss protector in the middle of the night.

But he had done what someone told him specifically not to do, only for the whole situation to go up in flames. After which he always—always—ran away. He picked up and headed to a new job, new relationship, or new remote village. Each time he did that, he told himself that this was why he didn’t want to settle down. People were simply too ridiculous.

And, the whole time, he wouldn’t let a part of him speak because it insisted that he knew this was his fault—that he was the constant. He approached every new job with hope but that grew slimmer every time. There was always the pit of certainty in his stomach that this would be exactly like the last time.

Of course it would. He was the problem and he couldn’t leave himself behind.

Now, he wanted to cringe at the memories of climbing mountains alone, staring at sunrises, meditating. and giving up his possessions. It turned out that you could do all the things that were supposed to give you clarity, but it was possible to do every one of them in bad faith.

He put his head down and darted glances to his left and his right as he walked. Sometimes, people would come to the ends of the alleyways or the shadowed windows to watch as he passed. Heffog was scarcely quieter at night, only more watchful.

The itching feeling at the back of his neck ebbed and flowed as he passed through neighborhoods. Who could say what it was—what tiny sounds or glimpses of movement the body saw but the mind couldn’t catch—but you could tell when you were somewhere unsafe.

Ben merely didn’t know how unsafe.

The sensation unsettled him constantly and he made a decision. The next time he was somewhere he wasn’t as afraid and there weren’t as many watchful eyes, he would look for a place to hide.

Time blurred and he wasn’t sure how long it had been before he found it. The sky was still black, but there was enough light from distant lanterns and streetlights that he could see the buildings around him. He crept up to one of them and looked in the window. The opening gaped in the wall, uncovered. His careful study showed the remains of a cloth window covering tied out of the way and now more rags and thread than actual cloth.

He couldn’t see anyone inside or hear the small noises of stirring or snoring, but he wasn’t foolish enough to walk into an empty building in the middle of the night.

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