Ishtar shrank from hearing the name Jake.
Within the living room was a contemporary open smart kitchen. Ishtar stepped in mute upto where the refrigerator was and opened it. She got herself a glass and half filled it with water. The name Jake was nearly a curse in her ears that, when Bob Lee mentioned it, she crazily needed a refreshment to cool the arose anxiety down. Amidst pouring heavy sips down her throat, Bob Lee couldn't wait to invade her space.
Noticing how uneasy she seemed, gently, he walked to her and humbly asked.
"Are you okay?"
Not knowing what answer give him, Ishtar put the water glass down on the kitchen counter, turned to the refrigerator and re-opened it. From the many items that were filled in the middle section, she pulled out a transparent container of sweet cherries.
"Would you need some?"
Gladly, Bob Lee accepted.
"Sure."
On a kitchen counter, she then placed the cherry container after opening it for him to enjoy. He felt better from the first cherry he picked up and ate.
"Tastes delicious, uh?"
With a high spirit smile quirking corners of his mouth, Bob Lee nodded and replied:
"Cherries make my day most of the times."
Ishtar smiled with a low spirit mind, already haunted by the thoughts of a guy behind the name 'Jake': the male stranger she met on an airplane four months ago while on her way to Paris. Bob Lee, keeping a fixed gaze on her, he could tell something was really eating up her mind.
"You seem bothered... we can talk about it if you don't mind!"
With her bright eye on him, as her minds were still stuck in tormenting thoughts, she picked her glass off the kitchen counter, took steps that closed the gap in-between, and gave him a romantic stare at a close up. Right in his face, she took a sip on the water and spoke in a small voice;
"You won't need to know."
Then, she walked on, leaving him in a fix by the kitchen counter. Ring a bell loudly in her head were the memories of Jake. Very well, Ishtar thought of the hair-raising moment on a plane, when she had a hastily performed act of sexual intercourse with this stranger guy who introduced himself to her as Jake.
On an elegant coach she sat and leaned, but uncomfortable. Deep inside she hambled her spirit, praying hard that the talked of dude doesn't turn out to be the same dude _ Pixie's elder brother and a cousin to Nadia Browne that Bob Lee mentioned.
"He better not be the one!"
Bob Lee could not take his eyes off her. Again he walked gently from the kitchen to meet her where she was sitting. Still resurfacing on her mind were a series of challenges she faced in Paris, when Jake, the next morning, knocked on her hotel suite door unexpected. That was the moment she realized that what she had expected to be a normal short moment of fun up in the skies was turning out a painful thorn deep in her foot, that needed to be extracted.
Out of confusion, thinking her way above the ordinary, in a small voice Ishtar cursed:
"Goddammit!"
Already, Bob Lee had got close enough to hear the curse word from her mouth. Instantly he grabbed sat by her side. The beauty in her eyes was marked with wary when she turned her face at him.
Expressing an intense feeling, Bob Lee said:
"You just cursed... and that face, you used to wear it whenever something unusual ate up your mind."
But Ishtar can't just dump it on him, that four months ago she put down her pants inside the airplane bathrooms to have fun with a guy named Jake, and that the thoughts behind it is why she has lost herself. The fact that she loved him, Ishtar didn't want to say anything that may bring pain to him.
She decided to play on his mind.
Giving a cat and mouse play gesture, Ishtar frowned, lowered her eyebrows, switched on a curious gaze and abruptly stated:
"I don't think Jake is as hostile as you were convinced!"
Bob Lee poses and stares at her for a few seconds.
"Is that the reason you're bothered?"
In exasperation, Ishtar rolled her eyes and nodded. Suddenly, in another hectic flashback, Jake, with determination, began to harass her when she opened the door and allowed him into her hotel suite.
"That rascal turned out to be hostile! His unwelcome verbal and physical conduct!"
Still in her head she added:
"Of course he must have kept an eye on me and tailed me from the airport to the hotel as soon as the airplane landed. Is it because I gave him a stranger treatment immediately after satisfying my high libido?"
And, not only did Ishtar deny Jake her mobile number, she did not tell him her name either.
In a small voice she whispered to herself:
"When did I turn that cold?"
Frowning, she remembered how brilliant she managed to escape Jake's hostility, harming him by applying her self defense skills, giving him a hard kick that landed him down on the floor where he laid unconscious for the time she parked her belongings and left the hotel suite.
And now, of course, she knows that after all the embarrassment she subjected Jake to, he definitely woke up raged. Then, if he turns out to be the same Jake whose parents she killed, he was going to hunt _ not only her down but also her ghost, just incase he finds that Ishtar died but a natural death.
Jake wished her was tears of grief.
Heart racing, at the back of her mind, Ishtar sighed:
"I thought what happened in Paris remained in Paris!"
Bob Lee, watching Ishtar closely, with a curious gaze he asked:
"What happened in Paris?"
Slightly startled, Ishtar stood up from the coach.
"I'm troubled."
Gazing inquisitively, Bob Lee stood up too and stepped more closer, to hear what Ishtar was troubled with. With a wary face Ishtar looked at him, speaking something else, far from what was disturbing her mind.
"I left Pixie alive after putting two bullets in her shoulder."
Bob Lee relaxed his shoulders and stated:
"But Pixie and his family don't live in Paris except her elder brother Jake!"
Frowning out of frustration, she panicked into explaining to cover up any doubts arising.
"Yes. I know so... I meant, I had quit to unlive people while in Paris _ that day Nadia hit me on the head with a flower vase, I regained my memory and remembered the person I was!"
Ishtar, lowering her faced, she looked away from him and in downcast voice she added:
"I had sworn not to be a killer any more. But it's like... the idea of karma, what goes around comes around."
Confounded, Bob Lee scratched the back of his head as he quirked a corner of his mouth speechlessly. He turned and faced away from her too. All he was seeing ahead was serious trouble knocking on their door. Never had he ever imagined that Ishtar, such an innocent intelligent young lady she grew up with and a mother to his child, at some point in life was going to turn out an assassin. Something he shaded tears about the first time he found out but now, he wanted her to kill for the safety of her and their child Bimbo.
After all, he was on the verge of loosing them again.
He turned, grabbed to her arm and stated in desperation:
"Do you really oversee the hot soup we're in? As we talk now, definitely Pixie had already called her weird brother Jake and reported the death of their parents. Probably they are distributing your picture, searching for you everywhere. Besides, both of us know that by now, Nadia Browne knows about the death of her aunt. She can't rest until she hurts you to grave tears."
Exhaustedly, on bloodspot eyes, Bob Lee added:
"I had just got lucky to get both of you back! I'm not ready to loose you again!"
Insanely, Ishtar shrugged and exploded in his face:
"I had no idea it would turn out this way! How would I have known Pixie and her parents are Nadia Browne's relatives? All I wanted was to get back my child they stole! I had to do what I had to do!"
She added:
"But I did want to take Pixie's life. She was a very good friend and my heart tells me that she was influenced by her parents to betray my trust!"
With a downcast tone she admitted:
"Well. Maybe am a looser... my mentor was right. Am not professional killer."
Stutteringly, out of confusion she added:
"I I don't want to have blood on my hands any more!"
But then, Bob Lee had no option except to Instilling more wary in her. He gave sudden indifferent hand claps.
"Well. Now that you're a born again, how are you planning to save our son from Jake and Nadia Browne? Because they are coming to avenge the murder of their family members. They are going to press the button that hurts you mare first!"
Anxiously, on top of her voice, Ishtar yelled:
"Nothing is going to happen to our son!"
With bloodspot eyes and determination, she then looked him in the eyes and sighed:
"One by one.... am going to go for them before they can harm us!"