Collateral

Rose examines the guy in the back of her van. He has a lot of burns, and his leg is bleeding, but he will probably be okay.

“Hand me that lighter, would you?” Rose asks Sophia.

“What are you doing?”

“Do you want him to bleed out or not?”

Sophia complies without saying a word.

After patching up his wounds, both drive back to Rose’s apartment in silence.

After Rose parks her car inside her apartment, they carry him to the couch.

“I can’t believe I am helping you with this.” Sophia scoffs.

“If you want, you can go home. He is not walking up for a while.”

“I am not leaving you with him. I don’t trust you.”

“Suit yourself.” But don’t stand around. Help me patch him up.

Sophia helps Rose Patch up the man’s wounds, and after half an hour, he slowly regains consciousness. He is clearly in pain but awake. Rose takes out her gun and aims it at his head.

The man looks at the gun, at Rose and back at the gun. His eyes are filled with fear.

“Please don’t kill me. I’ll do anything.”

“Who killed your partner?”

“I told you earlier, I don’t know. I didn’t even know he was dead before you told me.”

Rose picks up the chrome phone from her kitchen counter and shows it to him.

“Your buddy hacked so many devices to gather all this info. All the info you have on Mr Johnson’s contacts. Why? Was it just to find me?”

“Yes,” the man shakes in his seat. “Just to find you.”

“Who else is in the loop?”

“Nobody. We have Tom, Johnny, the five guards, and I. Nobody else knew.”

“Someone knew. Someone killed John to cover his tracks. And I wanna know who did!”

“I really don’t know.”

“You are useless.”

Rose’s heart races when she shoots him through the head, covering the wall with red paste.

At that moment, someone knocks on the door. Rose ignores it, but Sophia opens the door. My Johnson enters the apartment.

“I got your text, sweetheart,” she tells Sophia.

Mr Johnson casually walks over to Rose and puts a gun to her head.

“Drop the gun, Rose. No need to make this harder than it already is.”

Rose stands up and drops the gun. She is suddenly aware that she is still holding the chrome phone in her other hand. This isn’t good.

“Take a seat. You too Sophia”

Both women take a seat, next to the dead body on the couch.

“How could you two do this to me? Haven’t I taken care of you well enough?” He doesn’t sound angry. He is completely emotionless. “What were your plans after stealing the phone, Rose? Were you going to sell it to the highest bidder? Expose me? Tell me.”

He doesn’t leave time for Rose actually to answer the question.

“And you, Sophia? My own daughter. How could you cover up for her?”

“I didn’t know—”

Mr Johnson doesn’t let her speak.

“So now I need to figure out what to do with you girls.”

Sophia is shivering.

“If it were anyone else, I would just have put a bullet in both of your heads. He sighs. I am not an unreasonable person. And I am not unfair.”

Sophia starts pleading, but Rose stays incredibly silent. She keeps her eyes fixated on the gun.

He turns to Rose. “Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

“Are you stalking me? Are you stalking all your runners? Would I ever have found out if a hacker didn’t steal your information? How can you stand here before us acting all righteous and hurt while your transgressions are vastly worse than mine?”

Mr Johnson looks at her. “You are very clever.”

Rose wants to interject, but Mr Johnson doesn’t let her. He continues

“I guess we can’t settle this as reasonable people.”

And with these words, he shoots Rose through the heart.

Ellie wakes up from a gunshot. Damn. That gunshot sounded really close. She hears someone stumbling around in the apartment. Is someone here?

She opens her nightstand. There must be a gun around here somewhere. It is dark in her room, she can’t see. She doesn’t want to turn on the light, maybe the burglar will spot her being awake.

After rummaging around for a bit, she finds her gun. She keeps it steadily in her hand. Sleep-drunk, she stumbles into the living room. The light blinds her. She sees the silhouette of a man holding two women at the gunshot. The man notices her and aims his gun at her. Ellie shoots in the general direction of the man. She thinks she hit him cause he stumbles back and runs out the front door. The room becomes clearer as Ellie’s eyes adapt to the light. She notices that one of the women is Sophia, and the other is her mother. Sophia is holding a piece of cloth to Ellie’s mother’s chest. It is drenched with blood.

“Mom!” Ellie cries.

The colour has drained from her mother’s face, and blood drips out of her mouth. She looks at Ellie and displays a slight smile. She speaks, but her voice sounds weak.

“I will miss you, little angel. Will you miss me too?”

“Of course, I will miss you, Mom.” Ellie cries. “I love you.”

“I love you too, little angel.”

With those words, Rose’s head tilts forward, her eyes staring into nothingness.