♠ A dead body ♠

Gun drawn, knives secured in all the regular places, he looked both ways before crossing the street then hid himself in the shadows.

The plan was genius in its simplicity. Genius or insanity. Approach from the back down the alley, hop over the wall, fuck shit up, rescue the woman, Lanseria, plane, beach, copious amounts of alcohol, die from either liver failure or sexual exhaustion with a smile on his face.

Alley first. So far so good as he kept to the shadows. He paused at the wall, steadied his breathing and listened. Nothing. No footsteps, no talking. He stood on his toes and peered over the wall. A smattering of tables, a lot of weeds but nothing else. Great. He climbed over and fell gently to the ground.

Instead of landing on a solid floor, the ground felt soft beneath his feet. He bent down to look what he had landed on.

“Who the fuck were you?” Judging by the state of the body under his feet, he hadn’t been dead long.

And he hadn’t died happy. Burst blood vessels. Bulging eyes. Foam crusted on his chin. Connor stepped off quietly but quickly, looking for the biggest patch of weeds to wipe his feet.

Should have brought gloves. And a mask. He wasn’t used to leaving home.

Movement caught his eye, reflexes dropping him into a crouch. Then he heard the coughing. Two of them, as far as he could tell. Bullet-proof vests. Military issue, not police. Same as the semi-automatics. He hadn’t seen one of those for a while.

But it was the coughing that worried him most. Shit, years of avoiding everyone and everything, complete mind-bending isolation, only to end up back in his favourite bar with the virus everywhere. And no rum to disinfect.

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Cheers.