Hush (Discontinued)

9.2

An hour after midnight I could see Santa Clarita's Six Flag's Magic Mountain's changing neon lights kiss the roller coasters which snaked along the hill tops down the road to the Pacific Coast Highway that lined the beach of southern California. The night was warm because the day had been hot. The stars shot overhead as I opened the car windows so Brooke could breathe.

Some jazzy Sade played Smooth Operator. She seemed unable to operate her lips. She made a sound now and then, but ended each question she tried to make.

"Don't worry, it'll all be alright. I'm here to protect you," I said.

That was when her eyes lit up and she turned her face to me.

"What?" I said.

As though a revelation passed through her ears, she smacked her face. "I should have known."

I was pleasantly surprised and appalled by her sudden animation. "Should have known what?"

Her hands clouded her face. "I'm so stupid. I knew meeting a hot guy like you at the hotel was too good to be happenstance. My father sent you, didn't he? You were hired to watch over me."

I was stunned by her imagination. However, not knowing her father, I was pleased that her mentioned scenario could prove in my favor. Just go with it, I decided. "Alright, yes. You caught me."

Her hand smacked me in the face and the car nearly jolted off the side of the road. I reached the wheel back to center. My head throbbed. "What the hell!" I hit her back. Although not so hard, and in her full chest, because why not.

"I knew it!" she said. She started hitting the dash like a maniac. The moonlight passing through the window onto her face as the radio switched to Bobby Caldwell's louder jazz song Coming Down From Love.

The beach breeze entered the window's now as the mountains passed behind us. Along the horizon, battleships entered the starlight.

She shook her head in disbelief. "My dad, man. You can always count on a traditional father to try to control every aspect of your life. I thought becoming a nurse would prove to him I was responsible. But no." She crossed her arms.

"You're a nurse?" I said. That could explain why Jordan wanted me to stay close to her during my mission. Imagine what body parts she was good with. Maybe that's what she meant when she said she was "good with her hands."

"I'm getting my nurse anesthetist training finished by the end of summer. I don't really need it though. I was a medic in the Israeli Defense Force for two years to solidify my dual citizenship," she said, unimpressed with herself.

A smile stretched over my face. She seemed capable of taking care of herself. That idea lifted a weight off my shoulders. "Does serving in the IDF mean you're Jewish?"

She shot me a look like I was stupid. "No. It just means I'm Israeli. And I wanted medical experience. Israeli's so smart with their education."

Realizing I'd made myself seem ignorant, I decided never again to make the mistake of equating Israel to Judaism in conversation to Brooke. "So could you fix a bullet wound?"

"Duh," she said.

I had felt a little rusty in my medical training since the five years I'd been away from my community at ICE. I could use her help in case I needed medical help. I wouldn't dare go to an emergency room.

"Could you fix up a knife wound?" I thought about the back of my leg where the terrorist in Sweden had stuck his knife. I cringed at the memory of Jordan yanking it out of me.

"Do I need to repeat myself?" she laughed. "Duh!"

I bopped my head to the sound of Michael Jackson's Billie Jean. "I think you and I are going to be good friends."

"Well, good," she said, sassily. "Because that's all we are. Just friends." She could hardly convince herself. "You better not tell my father that we slept together. He'd fire you. And then he'd kill you."

I was glad to comply. "Agreed. As long as you pretend that you have no idea that your father hired me. I assume I'm still taking you home in the morning. I wouldn't want you spilling the beans to your dad that you know who I really am. I just want to be the close friend you met at the hotel." In truth, I wanted to be able to spy on her family to see if there was more to the story behind this girl and my meeting her at the hotel. It made me so angry to not know the purpose of my assignment. It felt more like a test of my competence than a legitimate job to benefit the American government. I would hold a grudge against Mr. Golem as long as I lived.

My anger dissolved when I felt her body shift over me. She planted a kiss on my face. "Thanking you for protecting me," she said.

And just like that, her hand was on my leg, and we were dashing like a bullet along the ocean. I would keep to myself the fact that I still had a job to do. And that was to find the man in the photo. Something tells me that man hired the hairy legged assassin to kill me.

Let the games begin.