Run With Me Read Online Free PDF Page A

at
him as a few long moments pass.
    It's enough.
    He dials the number and I can
hear it connecting in the silence of the room. It rings once, twice,
three times, then clicks to life.
    I can hear a voice on the other
line. It's quiet and I can't make out the words. Then Kitty's cousin
speaks: “hey Kitty, errr, how you doing?”
    More muffled sounds.
    “ Yeah, just calling to see how
you are. We haven't seen each other in a while...”
    I can hear her cutting him off.
She sounds confused.
    “ Seriously Kit, a guy can't
call his fav cousin once in a while. What's up with that....”
    He glances up at me and shrugs
his shoulders. There's a look on his face of “what the fuck shall I
say...what the hell am I doing”. I lift my hand to my neck and make
a slicing movement. Cut it off.
    He frowns deeper and fumbles his
words a bit.
    “ Ah hey Kit, errr there's
someone at the door. I'd better grab it, OK. I'll call you back...”
    He hangs up and breathes out.
“Dude, what the fuck is this.” His voice is rising now, his anger
brewing.
    “ Hand me the phone.” I say
casually.
    He shakes his head, so I lift
the gun once more, stepping towards him.
    He shrinks back again and holds
up his cell. I take it from him and slip it into my pocket. Then I
turn and walk back towards the door. He's behind me, spouting more
words of confusion as I pull on the handle and step back out into the
doorway. He doesn't have a clue what's going on. He doesn't have to.
    I'm back in my car in a moment,
pulling my own cell from my jacket and dialing. It rings and picks up
quickly.
    “ Rick,” I say quickly, “it's
Colt. I need a favor.”

Chapter 4 - Kitty
    Kitty

    It's quiet. So quiet I can hear
the rustling of leaves in the trees outside the house. It's dark too,
the stars and moon blocked by a swamp of heavy cloud, fat with rain
and ready to spill.
    I stand at the window and look
out onto the street. There are a couple of parked cars silhouetted
against the dying light, sitting in driveways outside large houses. I
can see a thin light flickering in the distance, a TV playing behind
thick curtains. Further down the road are more dots of yellow,
spilling out from inside windows. There aren't many houses on this
street, only a few littering the long stretch out of town. It's
somewhere I used to love coming to as a kid, when the bright lights
and booming sounds of LA grew too much. A haven, that's what it
always was.
    And it's a haven again now. But
only for tonight. I can't stay here.
    I step away from the window and
glance at the bag sitting to the side of my bed. It's unzipped and
there are clothes mashed together within, essentials hastily thrust
inside . I had no time to fold, no time to organize. The whole thing
was a rush, a blur, a nightmare that I can't wake up from.
    I can still see the image of
Tara's lifeless, bloodied body. It's like it's been etched onto the
front of my eyeballs, a vision that I can't escape from, one that
haunts my waking thoughts. Her pretty face, locked in a permanent
expression of fear, of pain. The last thing she must have seen makes
me feel sick. A man, a gun, a flash of light, then eternal blackness.
    I know it should have been me in
her place. The thought causes a swell of guilt to rise up inside me.
It wasn't a break in. It wasn't a case of random murder. It was a
hit, one intended for me, and Tara took the bullet in my absence.
    I've been wondering how they
knew I was there, how they'd known that I'd witnessed Michael Carmine
pulling the trigger on that kneeling, begging man. I should have
turned and walked away. I should never have been there in the first
place. And now, Tara's dead. And it's all my fault.
    A crack of thunder makes me jump
slightly, breaking the silence of the room. Almost immediately I hear
the sound of heavy rain begin to crash down on the roof. It grows
quickly loud as the heavens open and empty themselves out. I look
back to the window, where the black sky is now filled with