Guns

“Shit,” I thought to myself. The whole week I had been running a high fever, and I felt dizzy whenever I moved. I lay in my bed, and the small room seemed to be turning all around me.
There weren’t many situations in my life where I could say that I was afraid; but this was one of them.
My uncle was looking for me. Although we were both mercenaries and had killed many people together, he now had a good excuse to get rid of me and take my mother’s estate for himself.
He was sly. Only people like him could live for so long in a place like this. I had heard from a good friend of his that he liked to share drinks with the people that he was hired to kill. First, he would show up without a gun and pretend to be there on good terms. When he saw that he had gained their trust, he would smile and walk out of the bar with them, with his hand rested on their shoulder, and talking about how much better the world would be without any violence. As they made their way back, my uncle would snap a small pistol that he had strapped to his ankle and shoot them in the back.
He was tricky, but I had worked with him for too long. I knew his tricks, and I was just as determined to live.
As I lay coughing in my bed, some kind of commotion had come up near the entrance of the house.
My uncle had come, and he demanded to see me. At first, he came in with that friendly attitude of his, but quickly lost his temper when my mother and a couple of maids refused to allow him in. I could hear the sound of chairs crashing against walls and tables being turned over. The door to my room swung open, and I saw as my uncle pushed my mother to the ground.
He was drunk and I was sick - at least this made us even.
“Miho, how have you been?” he said, as he wiped his mouth and smiled. “My little nephew is sick, and I’ve come to give him a hug and talk to him, but the people in his house don‘t let me. If it has come to this, where my own family doesn’t trust me; then we might as well all be going to hell.”
He came near, and as he drew his arms around my shoulders, I felt a sharp pain go through my back. It was slow, and I could feel it tear away through the flesh. Somehow, he had brought in a knife and I hadn't been able to see it. It was too late for me. I shouldn’t have let him get so close.
“I would have let you live, even though I know what kind of person you are. But not this. My mother’s the only thing I have left,” and I shot him through the bed sheets with the gun I had hidden. His eyes became wide, and his face twisted into a wild figure of surprise. He reeled over, and fell to the ground. Soon, he stopped moving altogether. He didn’t cry, or yell out for anyone like most people did.
There we lay, the two most feared murderers in Mexico. It was over, I thought to myself, and a sense of peace took over the fragments of chaos that lay scattered through my mind.