Free Don't Kill The Messenger by Joel Pierson

back to Stelios’s warning—I might be the danger that Rebecca has to avoid. But then I remember his other warning: She needs you. And you need her … You will. Soon.
    Could Rebecca be the key to my surviving this assignment? Stelios seemed sure, and there is certainly no dissuading her from wanting to join me.
    “You can come with me,” I tell her, and before her reaction can escalate to full childlike glee, I tack on the conditions. “But I want you at a safe distance. I don’t want you by my side for this one. Five hundred feet away at least. Maybe more.”
    “Okay,” she says, “but close enough that I can come help you if you call.”
    “All right. Just, please don’t do anything risky. I know this all sounds very adventurous, but you have to believe me that I would give anything for this to be my last one. Never to have to do this again.”
    She absorbs the significance of that in silence. Maybe she has been romanticizing it a bit. And why not? On the surface it sounds glamorous and exciting, rushing in at the last moment to save people from a horrible fate. It’s an honor. Maybe I should feel honored, but I don’t. The first three or four times it happened, it was incredibly exhilarating. After that, it became a chore, then a duty, then a burden. It’s well on its way to curse. And tonight it may very well be the death of me. Thinking about it, maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to wish for this to be my last assignment. If it goes the way I think it will, that might just be the case.
    It’s a unique feeling, thinking that you may not live to see the next day. As I make my way north to Atlanta, the thought is very much on my mind, and it is not pleasant. It might be different if you’ve been suffering from a horrible, painful disease for years, but when you’re relatively young and in good health, the possibility of not seeing tomorrow’s breakfast is laced with dread.
    The mind tries to temper the feeling by going over your life so far, pointing out all the good things you’ve done and the lives you’ve touched. But the thought of impending death keeps sneaking in, to undercut those achievements and taunt you with its …
    “What are you thinking?” Rebecca asks.
    For the record, I hate it when people ask me what I’m thinking. If I wanted them to know what I was thinking, I would be speaking instead. But the day has had some tense moments already, and this is no time to be unpleasant, so I simply say, “Nothing important,” though it couldn’t be further from the truth.
    Actually, Rebecca, I’m thinking that there’s a better than 50 percent chance that I’m going to be killed horribly tonight, and if I’m supremely unlucky, you will be too. On top of that, even if I do live to see tomorrow, I’m on a cross-country road trip with a woman who makes me feel uneasy, because I’m used to being alone. And I kind of like being alone, but now that you’re here, I realize how desperate and pathetic I feel for wanting to be alone, because you’re smart and friendly, and oh yeah, beautiful and young. But stray wildlife and homeless people and Greek fishermen are telling me I shouldn’t fall in love with you, which I could very easily do with little to no provocation. And in the part of my psyche that books all my travel arrangements to hell, I’m trying to figure out if there’s a loophole to the not-falling-in-love moratorium that would still let me fuck your brains out and just end up being pen pals.
    “Now why do I think you’re the one who’s lying?” she asks pleasantly.
    “I don’t know. Maybe you’re psychic too.”
    “You think so?”
    “I was being facetious, but hey, why not?”
    “Maybe I am psychic. You know, sometimes I know who’s calling on the phone even before I pick it up.”
    “So do I, Mysterio. It’s known as caller ID.”
    “I mean without looking at the caller ID, ass-basket.”
    “Such language from a delicate young lady. Okay, psychic girl, dazzle me