A Sister's Vow

She held a gun with blood on it. That was the last time I saw her.

I had known Rosie since childhood--her family moved right next to our house when I was a ten year old boy. Her dad ended up working for the same company that my dad worked for, and her mom stayed at home like my mom did. Her only sibling, Mark, was 11 then--3 years older to her.

It took no time before the two moms would chit-chat every afternoon after lunch, and we, the kids' gang as they would call us, would invent new games every day.

Time flew and I got my first kiss from Rosie when I wished her 16th birthday. I was 18 then, still that was the first time I kissed a girl. I couldn't remember what happened next, other than the fact it all went pleasantly dark after that.

We dated each other regularly after that. Life was going just like a dream, until the day it turned into a nightmare.

Mark, her brother, was found dead at age 21 in mysterious circumstances just outside the chocolate factory he worked at. He was strangled to death by a rope.

Our lives changed overnight. Rosie wanted to be alone all the times and turned weak and pale with every day. She wouldn't allow me in her life anymore. She had just one goal of her life: to find the murderers and get them behind the bars. She said her brother's soul wouldn't rest in peace until that happened.

Rosie wouldn't meet me, and I was giving her all the space she needed. Love is all about giving others space when they need it. So I honored the distance she was keeping with me. But I kept visiting her parents. Mark was like a brother to me. I felt like I took a part of their grief on me that way.

A month after Mark's passing I learned from Rosie's parents that she had joined the same chocolate factory Mark had worked for; she hoped to find out what had really led her brother to his fate.

I was worried for her. I knew her well. She was not going to stop her investigation until she reached the murderer. I was sure that the murderer would know this sooner or later and go after her. So I called her and thankfully she agreed to meet me.

We met for few minutes at what once was our favorite coffee shop. She wasn't quite the girl I had known all those years. She seemed lost in her thoughts. I could gather from her that she had been developing new friendships at work to make people confide in her about what had led to Mark's murder. I warned her that the murderer likely knew about her investigation. I reminded her that her parents needed her more than anyone else. But she seemed firm in her mind.

I saw her off to her car. As she drove off, the fear of losing her made me sweat for a moment. It was then that something hit my head hard and I lost my consciousness.

When I regained my senses, I found myself in some sort of a store room. It probably was still the same night. The room was pitch dark. I couldn't see much except that I was sitting on a chair with my hands tied to the back with a rope. My neck was hurting badly--likely because my head was rolled to the right for hours while I was unconscious. My head was hurting as well, the pain was centered around the area I was hit at. I tried hard for few minutes to untie me. The only thing I could manage was to make the chair fall with me, and I could crawl on the ground. But as soon as I crawled, I hit the base of some sort of a large standing object. It fell on me and I shrieked in pain. No one showed up. I'm not sure if I fell unconscious again or collapsed with sleepiness, but when I opened my eyes again, I could see the place better--the two small windows near the ceiling allowed a tiny portion of the morning light into the room.

The room did not have single thing good about it. It was full of junk of all kind, and it seemed no one had cleaned it for years. Thick layer of dust had further obscured the objects hidden by spiderwebs.

Someone was unlocking the door. I did not know the best thing to do, so I rolled back on the ground, pretending that I was still unconscious.

"We need to untie him from the chair." One of the two men said.

"I say let's keep him on the chair--easy to carry him that way." The other man said.

The two men were very stout. If they had opened me loose, I still wouldn't have any chance of defeating them and running away. Moreover, I was sure they had arms. I was going to go wherever they were taking me. It was up to me to go there with or without breaking my limbs. So the choice was clear. I continued to pretend I was unconscious as they loaded me at the back of what seemed like a food truck.

The truck ride was very inconvenient. One of the men was driving while the other was keeping an eye on me. I was still tied to the chair and it hurt me every time I bounced on the floor. It seemed like the road had a lot of potholes.

The men transferred me to a small warehouse. There were four men waiting for me to arrive.

"Water." The boss said, as soon as they put the chair on the ground and pushed my head back to make me upright.

One of them came back with a bucket of water and emptied it on me.

The water was ice cold. I couldn't take it. I shook myself violently and opened my eyes.

"Where the hell am I?" I asked with panic.

"Right guess. You're in the hell." The boss said and laughed. Then he pulled his chair next to me and said, "So what are you and Rosie cooking?"

"You're mistaken. We aren't planning anything. I just met her today after a long time. I don't even know what she is up to."

"Good try. Well, I'm going to waste no time on you. You see this man here? We affectionately call him Chocolate. That's because his last four generations have worked for the chocolate factories. But he is just not what his name suggests. He is a chocolate maker by the day, and a ruthless killer by the night. And when he kills an enemy of ours, we celebrate a death by Chocolate. Today we are going to celebrate it twice. He is going to kill you, and after that he is going to kill that sweet girlfriend of yours."

"Wait, just listen to me. I have nothing to do with anything. And I am sure Rosie also has nothing to do with it. Besides, we hardly talked after her brother died." I said all of this nervously in one breath.

"You are going to die in next few minutes. So don't play naive. If you cooperate, we might give you a few bonus minutes to live." The boss said.

My mind was racing. There seemed nothing better at the moment than buying some time. Being alive for as many minutes as possible was my only goal at the moment.

"Okay, fine. If you tell me why you killed Mark, I will tell you Rosie's plans."

"Mark was the best worker at our factory," the boss said, "and our owner loved him. He worked hard. Everything was going well. But then something changed." The boss stopped to light a cigarette. He took a drag and continued.

"Mark had quickly become friend with everyone. He discovered directly from one of our truck operators that our main business is distributing cocaine under the cover of the chocolate business. He had threatened to expose our business. So we had to kill him."

"Why did you have to kill him? Wasn't there another way out?"

"Our owner tried every single thing. He even offered Mark enough money to spend rest of his life comfortably. But Mark wanted to get all of us punished for our wrongdoings." The boss said and laughed loudly.

"Why did you leave him just next to the chocolate factory? Wouldn't that raise everyone's suspicion about the factory's involvement in this?"

"It's actually the other way. Usually, one would leave the body as far away from the scene of the crime as possible. So by leaving body next to the factory, we eliminated any suspicion about the factory's involvement into this. Now that's enough on Mark. Your turn to tell us about Rosie's plans."

"She doesn't know anything about you guys, I swear. You have a misunderstanding." I said. Chocolate punched me on my face and blood dripped from my lips to all over my chin.

"One more time you try to play smart, I will kill you." Chocolate said.

"I lied to you all. She is not planning anything. I was just trying to buy some time. Both of us are innocent. Please spare us. I promise I will convince Rosie--she will not come after you." I begged.

Chocolate took out his gun, walked over to me, and put his gun into my bleeding mouth. I started counting.

A gun was fired. It took me a second to realize it was not the one in my mouth. The bullet had hit Chocolate in his head. He fell right next to me and died.

"No more deaths by Chocolate." I heard Rosie shout. She had a team of five men who had taken their positions.

"Drop your weapons." She shouted.

The boss turned instead and shot at her. The bullet went by kissing her right wrist. This made her men fire non-stop until all the boss's men were dead. I had managed to roll myself on the floor. That saved my life.

"I want you to leave with my men here." Rosie said to me as she opened the ropes to free me. "Don't waste a second. We've killed the owner of the factory before coming here--we have left enough evidence for police to see his cocaine empire and bust his remaining gang. I'm staying here until the police comes. I'm going to surrender myself."

"May be you run with us too? They will not know."

"I tried so hard to get them punished in a lawful way, but that just wasn't possible. Now that I'm done with my vow, I have no wish to be unlawful. I'm sure Mark is watching her sister and feeling proud for that."

Her gun was covered with the blood from her wrist. I took off my shirt, tore it, and tied her wrist. It was hard to leave without her--all the memories of our good time flashed in my mind.

"I will take care of your parents." I told her and turned to leave.

I turned before exiting the warehouse and yelled, "I will wait for you to come back."