Second Hand by Xen

Episode 1

The thrift store is always a great option, no matter how much money you actually have. They have good clothes, books, lollies, and hard drives. I like buying hard drives from the thrift store, you find some weird stuff on them sometimes. I once found a hundred bitcoin on a hard drive that I bought for two dollars and fifty cents. Long story short, that made me slightly rich. I go thrifting once a week, on Saturdays, 12PM, every week. If someone wants to hang out at that time, we go thrifting. It’s like a part-time job or something. I think in total I’ve made about a hundred fifty thousand from thrifting, plus the bitcoin. It’s a great activity to pass the time and you benefit from it most of the time. From my time thrifting, I’ve gained pretty damn good observation skills. I know a shady customer when I see one. I’ve memorised every employee’s name by just the sound of their footsteps, and their schedules. I know every item category by heart and they’re constantly changing, but I can keep up. And best of all, if we were talking in person, I’d already know your name, income and breakfast. This story starts at about midnight last night, just after Sunday. At a night club in Los Angeles. One of the most popular night clubs. The most important thing to note here is that I dress in mostly grey clothes, with a few purple streaks around my outfit, one in my hair and one on my shirt somewhere, I had to ditch the shirt later in the story. I got a table alone and ordered a few drinks, intending to get drunk to pass the time. People were blocking my view, but I managed to spot a slim figure trying to lay low while walking around to my table. I immediately picked up on this, and observed his figure. I could tell immediately that he’s trying to hurt me. Then I noticed the gun in his pocket; tried to kill me. I stayed calm and continued observing. I saw his walk, nervous and shaky. He wasn’t doing this on his own. There’s other people involved, that probably forced him to do this. My course of action was simple, spill my drink, let someone slip and cause a commotion, hopefully take him to the ground with everyone depending on how long it takes for someone to slip. Get away without drawing attention to myself. This way, I was able to get the amateur killer off my ass while getting out of that obnoxious club. Safe to say I won’t be going there for a long while. I returned home, and immediately went to bed. It was a long day prior and I needed rest from nearly being murdered.

Episode 2

There’s a note at my door. I don’t know what it is. It didn’t fall off my door. It’s not mine. Someone put it under my door. They know where I live. I pick up the note and read it: ‘Tonight. (a number scribbled out here) 11pm. Be there.’ I grin a little. I’m not showing up. I have a normal day aside from that, eating instant noodles, watching anime, until about midnight when I hear very loud knocking on my door. Gee I WONDER who it could be. As expected, the little guy that tried to kill me (who I will refer to as French fry cos he’s skinny) is at my door. Standing on either side of him are two large muscular guys that must be at least twice his height and quadruple his weight each. They’ve come to either kill me or talk. French fry tells me this and this only; ‘I’m sure you know why I’m here.’ ‘yeah obviously… why are you here’ I reply sarcastically ‘Don’t act like you don’t know’ ‘Okay… why are you here’ ‘I said don’t’ ‘no, you said don’t ACT like I don’t know. I’m not acting, cos I don’t know’ ‘smartass. Okay whatever, we are here to play a game with you’ I sigh heavily, expecting the worst. ‘We will come to your house at a random day next week to kill you. We won’t kill you however if you are expecting us on the day. Simple.’ Right big guy says. What an overused story trope. I sigh yet again and joke, ‘very well. I’ll be expecting you.’ One of the big guys laugh, the other keeps a straight face. Tough crowd. Now in order to understand why I was so confident here, you’ll have to get to know me a bit more. I’ll demonstrate using this example. For the next week, I’ll act normal, eating, reading… but I won’t go out. Not even to thrift. Then, on Thursday the next week, they show up. Of course, I’m surprised, but I don’t tell them that. ‘We’ve come… for your life’ The big guy on the left remarks, clearly expecting me to be scared or something. While yes, I am scared, I don’t show signs of fear. ‘You’re… You’re not surprised…’ ‘yeah no shit sherlock, I figured it out. I knew you would arrive today.’ I lean back in my chair, appearing relaxed. ‘How did you… know..?’ I sigh and lean forward in my chair. ‘When a magician performs a trick in front of an audience, no one learns how they did it. When a chef cooks a meal everyone likes, they don’t give everyone the recipe. So why should I, a skilled tactician, reveal my secrets just because you asked?’ The guy on the left looks impressed, the guy on the right is disappointed. Neither of them are suspicious of me. I’ve won. ‘Fair enough… I guess… we’ll go…’

Episode 3

I’m playing a game in my room when I hear a quiet knock at my door, so I open it. On the other side, I see a rather shaken up, short and skinny kid. His clothes torn and him bruised and bleeding in several spots. I notice a wound in his leg that looks a bit too large to be just an accident. ‘th-there’s mail for y-you…’ he says, terrified. I stand over him with my usual stern face, which I think terrifies him further. So I kneel down, relax, and soften my expression. And calmly command him: ‘who sent you.’ He starts shaking even heavier. ‘th- the..’ he looks around nervously. I pull him into the room with me. ‘There. You’re safe in here. You can say anything without being shot again. If anyone threatened you, it doesn’t matter in here, because I can’t and won’t do anything to you. Who. Sent. You.’ He squeaks, impressed with my ability, but also somehow more terrified. He’s on the verge of tears at this point. ‘th- the mafia… they s-said to deliver the m-mail and not t-talk to you…’ he squeaks out. ‘The mafia, huh? That changes things.’ I smirk ‘what’s your name, kid?’ ‘I- they told me not to say…’ he looks away swiftly. ‘I don’t care what they said,’ I lean in closer to him and ask again, ‘what is your name?’ ‘C-Chris...’ ‘Very well. Chris, you stay here. You are not allowed to leave under ANY circumstances. If someone knocks on the door for you, do not answer. If anyone breaks in,’ I toss him a gun and grin, ‘shoot them back.’ He practically screams as the gun lands in his lap, but I cover his mouth just in time. ‘Careful, they’re listening. It’s unloaded. There’s ammo in practically every drawer in this house. Load it when you’re ready, but before they come in. All you do is aim on the top and shoot with the trigger.’ He nods, still shaking. I grin at him. He does not grin back. ‘I don’t appreciate you making fun of me, you know that? Saturday. 12:00PM. Your favourite thrift store.’ I grin, ‘looks like this little shit did his research’

Episode 4

‘Make sure to take notes. I don’t know what they want but judging by the notes I can assume they’ll be cryptic about everything.’ I slide him the stack of large notes, and he immediately pockets them, and nods. Without a word, he walks directly to the opposite corner of the store. I begin ‘scanning’ the shelves looking for deals. A few minutes later, I see a large man in an okay looking suit walk in through the door and slowly circle about a third of the store, occasionally glancing in my direction. I see another walk in and do the same but in a different location. I text the employee working there to stay silent no matter what happens. She looks at me and nods subtly. Not subtle enough, I reckon. A smaller figure opens the door next, and discretely makes his way towards me. ‘You the bitch?’ he looks at the shelf I’m looking at. ‘You’re the bitch, I’m the kid you’re looking for.’ He grins, but doesn’t grin enough. I follow up with ‘what did you do to the kid’ ‘Which kid’ ‘The messenger’ His eyes widen momentarily and immediately he conceals it with a smirk, ‘let the past be the past, kid’ I cringe. I don’t even hide it I just visibly cringe. ‘What, something I said?’ He looks not concerned at all. ‘Yeah… yeah, something you said…’ He changes the topic right away, ‘You’ve seen too much, you know’ ‘What possible significance could that have’ ‘You survived a bounty. A pretty damn large bounty,’ he smirks, ‘damn even I was impressed.’ ‘You were the one that tried to kill me,’ my eyes widen. ‘And I’ll do it again. I’ll kill you.’ I turn to look at him, and smile, realising something incredible. ‘What exactly do you get out of this?’ ‘You’ll be off our back. That’s a good thing’ ‘Why’s that’ ‘You’re too observant. You notice small details. Things that anyone else would miss.’ ‘No shit, get on with it.’ ‘The stuff we hide from the public. We had a perfect thing going until you showed up and started leaking all of it.’ Without missing a beat, I turn my whole body to face him. ‘Stop me then.’ He pauses. He reaches for his gun. I hide my panic. ‘Very well. Let this be the end of… whoever you are’ He points his gun towards me. I don’t even flinch. ‘Shoot me.’ … ‘Come on, shoot me!’ ‘Keep your voice down,’ He goes quieter ‘Cos you know what I noticed? I noticed that you can’t kill me. If I die, you know that I’ve got people that know me. If word gets out that I’m dead, I’ll have them leak everything I know. Everything. So come on and shoot me, if you want your everything ruined.’ His face darkens, ‘elaborate.’ ‘I have connections. I know a lot of people. About half the contacts saved in my personal phone all know everything you’ve ever done. Every breath you’ve taken, every step you take. Every person you kill. I’ll leak it all and you can’t even blame me because you know what I’ve said here and you know you can’t do anything about it.’ I notice his face change as he thinks. He lowers his gun, and leaves without another word. One of the men that walked in earlier walks up to me. ‘You could’ve worded that more efficiently, but it was impressive I’ll give you that.’ Both men walk out. I continue thrifting. About 20 minutes later, I head up to the front desk. There’s no one there. I check behind the counter, and see her, lying on the ground, a pool of blood surrounding her. I immediately run to where my spy was watching. He’s dead too, but no pool of blood. Only a note. ‘You may have connections, but my connections have power that you don’t. Keep running, little bitch. Your time will be up soon…’