Black Widow?
Episode 8
Shelby checked the time. It was almost 8 pm and she still couldn’t get any network. This was frustrating. Nicholas promised to get back to her at 6pm and now it was 2 hours away.
She couldn’t browse, couldn’t make calls, couldn’t do anything. She was so frustrated
. This would have been the best time to talk with Nana.
She watched Cynthia who was busy hanging her new window curtains. She was one of their cleaners, in her early forties.
“Cynthia, does your phone have a network?”
“No princess. We are all having bad network and it is so unusual.”
She shook her head. She nee-ded to get the tag back on time before the father would nee-d it. Well, what could she do. She just gr-unted and hvgged her pillow.
“I think coming home was a hvge mistake.”
Cynthia g@sped. ‘Why would you say that?”
Shelby sat upright. “I don’t know. Everything is just somehow. Nana’s death, Fabian’s new girlfriend, this stupid network! I should have stayed behind.”
Cynthia smiled. “I know you miss your Nana.”
Shelby whimpered. “More than you could ever imaging.” Shelby replied. “That was the only mother I had. It’s like fate doesn’t want me to have a mother.”
Cynthia moved closer to her and patted her on her back.
“How did Nana die again?” She asked. “Cos, the only message I had was that she had an accident. What monster would have hit such an old woman Cynthia? How can people be so cruel?”
Cynthia sighed. “Well, that is something no one can explain. I heard Fabian was the first to get to her and he tried taking her to the hospital but she died all the same.”
“Fabian?”
“Yea.”
“He loved Nana so much. It must have been so ha-rd for him.”
“Yea, it was. No one saw him for many days. I think he ran away, until your father found him and brou-ght him home.”
Shelby looked surprised. No one had cared to tell her that, not even Fabian.
“He ran away for how many days?”
“4 days.”
“Where did he go?”
“No one knew where he went to. He just disappeared.”
This baffled her.
. where could he have gone to? And why didn’t he tell her anything?
Seconds later, there was a knock on the door and Cynthia went to get it. It was their butler, Frank, an elderly looking man.
“plea-se, tell the young miss that master Fabian is at the lounge, waiting for her.”
“Okay thanks.” Cynthia closed the door and turned around to tell Shelby, but she was alre-ady wearing her sli-ppers.
**** ***
When she got to the lounge, she found him standing in the middle of the room, he was in apolo-shi-t and a pair of jean. At least, he wasn’t in suit this time.
His face brightened up as he sp©tted her.
Why did he have to look so handsome when he wasn’t even going to be hers?
“Hi Fabian, how was Paris?”
He smile and nodded. “It was good.”
“You wanted to see me?” She asked.
**** ***
For a while, Fabian forgot what he wanted to say and why he had come. She looked so stunning even in her white night robe and so natural.
“Yea. I just…” He started as she kept looking at him…
“Fabian?”
“Yea. I just thought. It’s been a while and I know I have been quite evasive lately. I just want us to talk and….”
“Good. Cos I want to talk to you too. I heard you were there when Nana died and I nee-d to know what happened and how it happened.”
The long shadows of the evening was fast melting into the gathering darkness of the nighttime. The air cooled and the crickets chirped consistently. The be-ds were silent and no one walked the street.
The darkness was so thick that the only torch in his hand seemed not to be bright enough to light his way. He was only able to see at most an arm’s reach ahead of him
. Ap@rt from the darkness and himself, all that existed was the wind of the January harmattan which kept blwing harshly throu-gh the cloak he was wearing into his skin.
He sighed as he walked further along the alienated road. There was no soul in sight and he wondered if all of this wasn’t a mistake.
There was no pas-sing car or bike everywhere was as silent as a grave yard. He hoped whoever his target was wouldn’t come out tonight. He prayed no one would show up but he knew that was a lie, they would always show up.
He kept on walking, with no idea of where he was going. All he knew was that, he would know when the target showed up. He could feel the weight of the gun in his pocket-It was a KAhr P9 double-action semi-automatic, developed in America, six inches long , steel and polymer construction – it weighed just twenty-five ounces, ma-king it one of the smallest, lightest pistols in the world. p@rt of his training was also to study guns, he knew about everyone of them and he knew that this one, was the most silent of them all, once sh0t, the victim would only feel a slight sting and then the poison would spre-ad fast, ma-king the death quic-ker.
The cold breeze blew into his eyes, ma-king his eyes sting so he had to bend his head slightly to one side, covering his head with his hoodie
. With the way everywhere was dark, he could figure it the time should be around some minutes past 2.AM.
When he was younger, this would have been the perfect time to call Nana to cover him up with a blanket, but since he started his training, he hadn’t even seen her or heard from Shelby. It was a torture. He wished he had never grown up. He had just one dream all his life, for him and Shelby and Nana to travel to a lonely place and live as one big family.
He had been slee-ping peacefully in his training room when all of a sudden he had been blindfolded and tied up. He knew what it meant, he had seen when they c@m£ for the rest of his team.
He was hurled into a van right before something was injected into him and he lost consciousness. By the time he c@m£ around, he was alone on the road, with no blindfold but just one thing, a short gun and a Bluetooth around his ear. Shortly after he heard a strange voice-
“Kill the first person you see on the road. Remember, failure means death. Keep walking, it’s ahead of you”
That was all, and the call ended. Since then he had been working for more than forty minutes and he was getting tired. Thinking of when he would get to see Shelby and Nana again was the only thing that had kept him going. Her dad had said once he pas-sed, he could go spend a vacation any place of his choice and he planned to take Nana with him.
Suddenly, he saw a figure ahead of him, waiting at the middle of the road. Immediately, the hair at the back of his n£¢k stood up.
He peered into the darkness but he couldn’t really see very well, his bloody torch was just not seeing clearly.
He couldn’t tell if the figure was facing him or facing the other side but he knew it was a human being.
Suddenly his Bluetooth c@m£ alive again. “Now that is your target. Go ahead and shoot, you have just one minute. Failure to do that –you know what it means.”
He could hear his heart beating ra-pidly as he stared at the figure ahead of him. In the grip of the silent panic, he caught a slight movement overheard as if the person was bending to pick up something.
quic-kly he aimed his gun at it….he could feel his adrenaline level rising up as he c0cked the gun…
The figure was still ma-king some movements—he wished he or she could just keep still so that this could be easy for him….something told him to walk closer but he was unable to raise a leg. He was as stiff as a board-
“I gotta do this to be able to take Nana and Shelby away from this place, if I don’t do this I would lose them both..i gotta do this..this is bad..this is murder..what would they think of me when they find out..no they wouldn’t find it…maybe after this I could run away and never come back….” All these thoughts turned his br@in into a mental soup of conflicting instructions…
“Shoot Fabian, you have five seconds more….”
He took another breath….”no, he couldn’t..he woulnd’t..”
He was lowering his gun down slowly when he realized there was a movement as if the person was trying to bend and pick something, It could be a gun, immediately, he fired…he saw the light smoke, dancing out of the mouth of the pistol…he had fired.
Breathing heavily, he lowered his gun and from nowhere, he felt a vibr@tion in his pocket. He never knew he had his phone with him all along.
He was still trembling like a leaf in the wind when he brou-ght out his phone, it was Nana….quic-kly, he picked it-why would she be calling him?
He picked-he at first didn’t hear anything….
“Hello, Nana…” The sound he heard was like that of someone writhing in pain and then some kind of echo and the breeze of the wind. For a while panic gr!pp£dhim and for no reason he rushed to the figure in front of him with his torch.
The person was lying on the ground, writhing in pain, there was a plastic mask covering the victim’s face. He pu-ll-ed it off with shaking f!ngersand g@sped as he saw his Nana. Herl-ips were sealed with tape, and hands and legs were bound up so she could either be standing rigidly or lying on the floor.
Fast, he pealed out the tape and freed her hands, while she looked at him horror.
“Nana, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know, I’;m so sorry, Nana.” He cried, putting her head in hisl-ips as he sat on the ground, tears flooding his cheeks.
Gingerly, Nana brou-ght her wrinkly hands to his cheeks and smiled….
“It’s okay, I forgive you…Black Widow got you, I thought they would at least free you.”
Fabian g@sped. “You knew about them?”
She nodded weakly. “Yes I….” She coughed blood. “I have been living there for…”She coughed more blood…for more than twenty years so….I know….”
“Nana, plea-se don’t die…plea-se , plea-se…”
“Listen to me very well…take Shelby away..both of you, run…” She coughed more blooad…”I forgive you my son….”
All of a sudden she su-cked in air and gave one final sigh……”
“Fabian…how did Nana die, plea-se tell me the truth….”
Fabian snapped out of his thoughts at Shelby’s request…he realized he was beginning to have tears in his eyes again. Slowly, he reached out a hand to her cheeks and ca-ressed it softly…
Then he sighed. “Shelby, I ki…..”
“Hello Baby, missed me in Paris?”