The doors to my little beach house were half-opened and I could see the light coming from the kitchen. I heard the sound of someone going through my drawers.

I didn’t have my gun and I could barely see because my whole face was still covered in blood after I crashed Dave’s car. The cut on my temple kept producing the crimson liquid and my head was pulsating under the pressure of what felt like thousand knives stabbing me in the brain. Adrenaline after the accident was gone and I was seeing double. I wanted to vomit urgently. I was done for the night, yet, here we were. Me, painted red, seeing two half-open doors and two corridors from inside of which two sources of lights were partially illuminating the dark hallways.

I clumsily entered the house and with the stealth of a pregnant elephant made my way through. I had no idea what to do, but sincerely hoped that the look of me will prove disturbing and terrifying enough to scare the burglar. There was no chance it was Fat Man’s henchmen going through my stuff, trying to locate the notes with coordinates to Turbot stash that they’d never find because I memorised and destroyed it. I pushed this thought from my mind. In the end, it wasn’t about the money.

“Where do you keep the bloody teacups, kid?” Ben’s voice jackhammered my head and I thought I lost it. I entered the kitchen and saw him meddling through my cupboards, his back towards me. Kettle put on the gas was reaching it’s boiling point and starting to whistle. I was about to pass out.

“Second from the window.” I slurred and dropped to the ground.

I woke up on the couch some time later to see him stitching up my head. I saw him clearly and my face didn’t feel sticky anymore so he must had stopped the bleeding and cleaned the blood.

“What are you doing here?” I said and he shushed me. —“How did you find me?”

“I never lost you,” he said and gave me a fatherly-like smile. Sorrowful and sympathetic.

He finished his job, and I wanted to get up on the couch but he pushed me back into it.

“Rest, you have a concussion.”

“You have a concussion.”

“You blacked out, fell to the ground and managed to vomit in the meantime. You were on autopilot,” he said, and I saw the puddle under the kitchen bar.  — “Go back to sleep. I’ll stay the night and keep an eye on you.” He didn’t have to tell me twice.

I woke up feeling like a newborn. I didn’t sleep well since the last two years and I felt well rested, despite that the head was still killing me. The slide doors to house’s veranda were opened and I saw that Ben left me two aspirins and a glass of water on the nearby table. I put them in my mouth and washed the pills down. I was thirsty like I never was in my life so I emptied the glass with one big gulp. I got up on the couch and saw that Ben cleaned the apartment from the sad results of my yesterday’s sickness.

“I see you did okay for yourself here.” Ben said when I joined him on the balcony. It overlooked the Atlantic and I felt the wind was picking up.

“Crime pays off,” until it doesn’t.

I sat beside him on the lounger, took a cigarette from the pack lying on the small table between us, and lit it.

“What happened yesterday?”

“How did you find me?” I bounced the question and Ben grinned to himself. I didn’t know I asked him about that yesterday.

I looked at him and he at me. He smiled at first but then saw the cut on my head he stitched yesterday and his mood darkened. He looked back at the ocean and I did too. The sun was setting and I jumped from my seat.

“Fuck!” I shouted trying to determine whether my brain was producing images that weren’t there. — “How long was I out?”

“Twenty hours or so,” Ben responded, glancing at the watch I'd presented him seven years ago.

My vision became blurry for a second but I steadied my nerves and rushed inside. I entered the living room and reached behind the couch cushion where I kept one of my guns. Ben followed, eyebrows raised and arms spread.

“Where did you park?” I asked while checking the magazine.

“Around the corner.”

“Let’s go.”

Twenty or so hours. Knowing Fat Man, he’d expect constant updates from Dave during the interrogation if not for a full-blown live transmission of my tortures. I shouldn’t have even come home in the first place yesterday but I was too concussion-high to realize it. By that point, he must have known that something was up.

We used the stairwell leading from the veranda down to the beach and proceeded back to the street. Ben didn’t ask, but I felt as if he knew more than I’d like, so he kept a close lookout. We made it to the car quickly and I told him to give me the keys.

“Forget about it, get in.” He was right. I was still in no position to drive. I took the passenger’s seat and Ben hit the gas.

We travelled back to the hotel where he was staying, and I kept watch to see whether or not we were being followed. We weren’t, but in case my state was too bad to spot any tail, Ben would know. He agreed that we were clear and I exhaled with relief.

We entered the lobby and I followed him to the hotel’s restaurant. We walked through the inside’s dining room and took up the seat outside on the long, ocean-view rooftop terrace. Waiter came up and presented us with the menus. Before he could tell us about the specialty of the evening, Ben kindly dismissed him stating that we’ll order the drinks first and the most surreal thing happened. Ever since I met him, he was a total and complete teetotaler, and here he was, ordering two scotches neat. The waiter took the order and disappeared inside.

“Ben, what’s going on?” I asked.

“You have some balls to ask me that, kid.” He replied and looked away and I could see that he bit the insides of his mouth.

Ben was watching the sunset now and I saw that he’s pissed off. His hands were clenched and I could hear the mental ticking noise of the bomb that was about to go off. There were people around us but at the distance that provided us with necessary space to speak comfortably.

“You disappear for over a year and don’t even bother to check-in once?” He was looking me straight in the eyes and I escaped from them and looked at the empty table. I felt like a little kid. — “I know what happened. I understand it. I really know what it’s like. I tried to give you space, but then I hear about all the shit you’ve been doing in Somalia and now here.”

“Precisely. You fucking know what it’s like. Don’t start with the lectures-“

“Shut the fuck up.” And I did because of how shocked I was. In the ten years we had known each other, I never heard him swear and I knew at that point that something was definitely happening. — “For nearly a decade I have drilled you, I cared for you, I invested in you only to watch it go to nothing because you lost someone.” I clenched my hands because I was in no mood to talk about it. He saw that. — “Think of her. Do you think she’d be proud of what her daddy became? The waste of space. A senseless murderer and cartel dog.”

I exhaled deeply and looked away. The sun was nearly gone and the ocean breeze that was always calming my nerves was gone too. I bit my tongue and Ben kept talking.

“I need you back. You’re burned, but it’s not the end of the world. I need you to take my place. I need you to forget about all this shit that you’ve dived into.”

I looked at him with my eyebrows lowered and could sense the tingling in my chest. He would never retire and all I could muster was this pathetic excuse of a joke.

“Why? Cancer finally caught up with you?” I said with the foolish grin and he looked at me with the saddest of expressions.

I sunk into the seat with my mouth open to mutter a question that never came. I just stared at him and moved my mouth like a fish trying to breath above the water. Everything was black but I could hear the response to my nonverbal question coming from the black void in front of me.

“Prostate. It already spread.”

“How long?”

“They say two, three tops.”

The vision was back and I wanted to grab him by the face and shout that he should have fucking put the finger up his ass once in a while but the waiter came to serve us the drinks. I finished mine within a second and asked him to bring the whole bottle.

I hid my face in the palms of my hands and rubbed my eyes. The sun was gone, earth kept spinning, and the stars kept dying above us.