Chapter Two: Samantha and Nicolas

    Nicole found the location of the safe house where Samantha and her son, who Nicole had found out was called Nicolas was being held. The safe house was a room at a rundown motel with more entry points than Nicole could count, so she knew she’d have her work cut out trying to stop other assassins attacking.

     “You got any more info on who else took on this job Ferret?” Nicole asked the guy she had on the other end of her phone.

     “I’ve hacked the site, and it looks like all local talent, no one to really worry about.” A man called Ferret answered on the other end of the phone. “What’s got you taking on a job like this Ice? You know the pay isn’t that good, and it could get risky if you get to her at the same time as one of the others.” Ferret asked with some confusion in his voice.

    Ferret had been saved from being shot when he got caught up in a shoot out between Ice and another hit man on another head hunt, just like this one, but he knew nothing about Nicole’s past, or the fact she was once a boy called Nicolas Johnson. Ferret had been the one being hunted along with his sister and her daughter. Nicole didn’t like it when children got mixed up in hits. Ferret had a feeling that Nicole wasn’t taking this job to kill the mother and her son, but to keep them safe, and he was more than willing to help her do that, even if she was playing the reason close to her chest.

    The reason Ferret became a target in the first place was because he was a hacker that found his way into the accounts of a mob front company, and then he was foolish enough to steal from them, and left enough evidence for them to track him down. The mob took out a hit on him and his family. This turned out to be Ferret his sister and her daughter, there was no other family. The job had been offered to Max, but he turned it down when he saw a kid was one of the targets. Not happy to just turn down the job and just walk away, Nicole had tracked Ferret down and then killed two different hit men before getting Max’s help to make Ferret and his family disappear.

    Max had contacts that helped him fake people’s deaths, and that is what they did with Ferret. It did cost him a little finger and a couple of toes, but it was a small price to pay for keeping his sister and niece alive. Ferret felt he owed Nicole a debt he would never be able to repay, so Nicole knew she could trust him with her life.

     “I could tell you Ferret, but then I’d have to kill you.” Nicole said with an edge to her voice that left Ferret wondering if she was joking or not, so he stopped asking questions and just gave her the info she’d asked for.

     “I get the message Ice.” Ferret said as he started filing her in on Samantha’s life from just after Nicolas shot Jason and went on the run.

Twelve and a half years earlier

    Samantha had let the police and all the locals make up their own story while she pretended to be in shock from the shooting. Everyone had thought Nicolas had lost his mind after becoming obsessed with Samantha and broke into her parent’s house and stolen her father’s gun before shooting Jason as he tried to save Samantha from being shot by Nicolas. The fact that Nicolas had left the house and then shot two of Jason’s friends helped sell the story Samantha went with it at the time. The troubles started to get worse later; when Samantha found out she was pregnant. Having never slept with anyone but Nicolas, she knew the child was his.

    Her parents didn’t take the news of her pregnancy well, and they took the news of Nicolas being the father even worse. They shipped Samantha off to live with an aunt on her mother’s side before anyone in Westville found out. Samantha gave birth to a baby boy and named him Nicolas. Her parents tried to make her give him up for adoption, but Samantha refused to, and she started raising him while doing evening classes and working part-time. Samantha’s parent’s wanted nothing to do with her while she raised the child, but the aunt had always had a soft spot for Samantha, so she let Samantha stop with her and she helped her to raise him by babysitting while Samantha went to work and college.

    While doing her studies and working, Samantha found out that Nicolas’s body had been found, and it looked like he’d been living rough for some time. Samantha was sad he would never get to meet his son, or her son the chance to meet his father.

    Samantha was forced to move away from her aunt’s home when Jason’s Parent’s found out about Nicolas. They thought the child belonged to Jason until they saw him, then they got angry and threatened Samantha with the police if she didn’t hand him over to them to raise as their child because of what Nicolas had done to their son. Samantha managed to put a stop to them doing this when she told them what really happened, and what a complete psycho their son had been, and how Nicolas had shot Jason in self defence. Not wanting to see their son’s name dragged through the mud, they let Samantha live her life with the child that had the same ice blue eyes as the boy who shot their son.

    Once all the trouble with Jasons parents was behind her, Samantha found a small apartment for her and her son to settle down in. Samantha hadn’t had any contact with her parents since the argument about her giving her son up for adoption. Samantha was getting back on her feet and even though she didn’t have much in the way of money, she still made sure Nicolas had plenty of love, and they had each other.

    Samantha noticed there was something different about Nicolas as he grew up and acted distantly from the other kids, and he seemed to like the company of girls to that of other boys. Samantha noticed that he would act and giggle like a girl. Then Samantha got a shock one evening when she got home early from work when Nicolas was eleven, to find Nicolas dressed as a girl playing tea parties with all his stuffed animals.

    Nicolas was bright for his age, so Samantha felt safe to leave him to get home from school and look after himself until she got in from work. Their next door neighbour was a nice little old lady that sometimes joined them for dinner, and was always willing to help Nicolas if he had any trouble while she was at work.

     “I think we need to sit and have a talk.” Samantha said as she sat on the couch and patted the seat next to her for Nicolas to come and sit down.

    Nicolas walked over and brushed the skirt of the dress he was wearing under himself before sitting down and nervously smiled at his mother.

     “How long have you been dressing like this, and where did the clothes come from?” Samantha asked when she saw that Nicolas wasn’t going to start the conversation.

     “Mrs Slain asked me to take a couple of boxes down to the basement for her about a year ago, one of them fell open, that’s when I found it to be filled with girl’s clothes, and most of them fit me.” Nicolas said looking down at his hands in his lap. “I just felt the need to try them on, and I’ve been dressing like this when on my own ever since.”

     “Why did you never tell me anything about it?” Samantha asked looking hurt with the secret. “I always thought I was an understanding parent you could talk to about anything.” She added.

     “I’m sorry I’ve made you feel that way mum, but I was scared you would stop me dressing and make me throw away all the clothes I have.” Nicolas explained.

     “Is it just the clothes you like, or do you feel like you’re a girl?” Samantha asked as she tried to understand where Nicolas was coming from.

     “I do like the clothes, but I couldn’t answer the question about being a girl, I just feel like me, and it feels right to be dressed like this.” Nicolas tried to explain.

    Samantha felt that she had known about this side of Nicolas for some time now, and she could understand the answer he’d just given her. She couldn’t say she felt like a girl either, he just felt like he should have been born with different body parts.

     “I think you look very natural dressed like that.” Samantha smiled.

     “I’ll go and get changed.” Nicolas said as he went to get up.

     “Please don’t do that, if this is how you want to dress, then please stay like that.” Samantha said as she stopped Nicolas standing up. “I can’t keep calling you Nicolas while you’re dressed like that though.” Samantha added. “Do you like the name Nikki?” Samantha asked.

     “Actually I’ve always liked the name Sara, but without the ‘H’” Nicolas said looking hopeful that his mother would let him be Sara.

     “Hello Sara.” Samantha smiled as she held out her arms and showed Nicolas that she accepted him as her daughter.

     “You don’t mind me dressing like this?” He asked as Samantha hugged him.

     “No matter how you dress or feel sweetie, you are still my child, and as long as you’re happy, then I’m happy.” Samantha said.

     “I love you mummy.” Nicolas said as he enjoyed the hug.

    Samantha smiled as she hugged her child even tighter. She’d not heard him call her mummy in some years, and it felt nice to hear it again. Nicolas wasn’t a large boy, and he had his father’s gentle features which Samantha knew to cause him trouble in school with the larger boys, she remembered the trouble his father had, and what it led to. Samantha wondered if Nicolas might not be better off as a girl, he looked so natural and happy in the way he acted now he was dressed as a girl.

     “Will you show me what clothes you have, so I can see what you need to carry off this look more often.” Samantha said as she got to her feet and held out her hand to help Sara get up.

    Nicolas, now Answering to the name Sara, smiled as she let her mother help her up, and then Sara showed her to the box in the back of the closet in her room where she kept all of Sara’s things.

     “Sara doesn’t have many clothes mummy.” She said as she laid it all out on Nicolas’s bed for Samantha to see.

     “You don’t have very many things do you?” Samantha said with a sigh as she referred to Nicolas as a girl called Sara. “I think we need to go and do a little shopping for you then.”

     “We can’t afford to waste money on clothes for me to wear around the house.” Sara argued with her mother’s idea.

     “I think we can spare a little bit to have some fun as mother and daughter.” Samantha said with a wave of her hand. Dismissing any more worries from Sara about her idea.

    Sara wanted to argue against her mother’s idea, but the thought of going shopping with her mother dressed as a girl, was a dream come true, so she ended up grinning in agreement. “What if people recognise me or you?” Sara asked.

     “We’ll just say you’re a niece visiting for a couple of days.” Samantha shrugged. “It’s not like either of us have a lot of friends to bump into.” She pointed out.

    Samantha helped Sara do something with her hair, and then she smiled when she saw how pretty Nicolas looked as girl. “I’m scared mummy.” Sara said looking nervous about going out looking like a girl.

     “You’ll be just fine. I’m looking for any sign of you being a boy, but all I can see is a pretty girl waiting to go shopping with her mother.

    Samantha and Sara left their apartment and walked down the hallway to the lift and then road it down to the parking area where Samantha’s car was parked. They never saw anyone they knew, which helped to relax Sara, and they were soon in the car and heading to one of the many malls in the area to do some shopping.

    Sara was nervous when they got to the mall, but Samantha soon talked Sara into leaving the car, and they did a little window shopping so Sara could get used to being around people dressed the way she was. No one started screaming Sara was a boy and laughing at her, so she was soon just acting like a girl out shopping with her mother for some new clothes.

    The two of them had a wonderful time, and they got some more dresses for Sara in a sale, as well as underwear and a starter makeup kit so she could practice applying it when at home. From that day forward the minute Nicolas got home he went to his room and got changed into Sara’s clothes, styled his hair in a more feminine look and became Sara, Samantha’s daughter.

    Nicolas spent the next two years becoming Sara at weekends and in the evening. Samantha started to notice a marked difference in Nicolas’s mood when he was Sara to what he was like as Nicolas, and she realised that Nicolas was a girl, and she needed to help her come out and start living her life, so she started looking into what she could do to help, and also into moving to a new area where they could start a new life as mother and daughter where no one knew them.

     “We need to sit and have a talk sweetie.” Samantha said one night when she got home from work to find that Sara had cooked dinner for them both again. Sara had become quite a little housewife to her mother since becoming herself.

    Sara took a seat at the table and looked over at her mother worriedly. “What is it mother? Has someone found out about Sara? Does this mean I have to stop?” Sara asked close to tears. “I can’t mummy; I don’t want to be Nicolas anymore.” Sara pleaded.

     “Calm down sweetie and let me talk will you.” Samantha frowned. “I want to talk to you about moving to a new area and letting you live as Sara, and going to see a doctor about making the outside match the inside.” Samantha explained.

     “What? You want me to become Sara for real?” She asked with shock in her voice “Go to school and everything?” Sara asked as she tried to make sure she was hearing her mother correctly.

     “Yes honey, I want you to start living the life I think you should have had from the start, as a girl.” Samantha got out just before Sara dived on her knee and hugged her.

     “Thank you mummy, thank you so much.” Sara said as she hugged her mother.

     “Don’t get me wrong sweetie when I say it’s going to be a tough journey and a lot of people will not be happy with what you’re doing if they find out.” Samantha warned.

     “No worse than I’ve been living with as Nicolas, mother, and I feel like this is the real me anyway. Being a boy is harder than being a girl to me.” Sara explained, so with their minds made up, Samantha and Sara started looking at a new area to move into, so Nicolas could start and look at transitioning into Sara fulltime.

    Samantha could only look for a new apartment in other area’s when she wasn’t working, so this made it an evening thing for the two of them. Samantha thought it best that Nicolas go out looking with Samantha instead of Sara going out in the late evening as they checked out the apartments.

    Nicolas wasn’t happy to be dressing as Nicolas more than he needed to be, but he could understand the reason for his mother not wanting them to get caught up in any trouble with anyone and them find out Sara wasn’t a real girl.

    Samantha had been speaking to a girl at the office she worked at and the girl had told her about an apartment that had not long become empty in the same apartment block the girl’s sister was living in. Samantha made some calls and found out the place was still available and she arranged to meet the landlord.

     “Are you sure this is the place mum?” Nicolas asked as his mother parked up outside the apartment block. Nicolas thought the place looked more up market than the price being asked for it indicated.

     “This is the address the man on the phone gave me.” Samantha said.

    It turned out to be the right address and they both loved the area and the apartment was nice and clean, so Samantha signed some paperwork and left the security deposit before she and Nicolas left looking excited about their new apartment where Sara would be living with her mother, not Nicolas.

     “Let’s call and grab some dinner to celebrate.” Samantha grinned as she pulled into a parking lot at the side of a diner.

    The two of them were soon sat at a table and making their orders. Then ten minutes later they were eating. The diner was quiet as it was getting late, but there were still a group of men sat over in a corner booth. Samantha and Nicolas were just working out what desert to have when they saw another group of men enter the diner. Samantha knew there was going to be trouble when she saw that all the men that just entered were wearing masks to hide their faces and they were heading straight for the group of men sat at the corner booth.

    Samantha had just enough time to push Nicolas to the ground and throw herself on top of him before the men started shooting at each other. They heard a lot of loud bangs and scream as the men shot each other. Samantha let out a scream of her own when she felt someone pulling Nicolas from under her. She looked up just in time to see one of the men that just entered the diner using Nicolas as a shield.

     “Sara!” Samantha screamed, using her son’s female name as she tried to pull Nicolas away from the man.

    The man looked confused just long enough for Samantha to punch him in the face and knock off his mask, so she could get a good look at him. Having lost the mask and just being seen by Samantha, he raised his gun to shoot her, but had to run when one of the other men got off a shot and almost hit him with it.

    Samantha was still holding Nicolas in her arms sobbing when the police arrived on the scene. The police took them both to the precinct once they both got the all clear from the medics. Samantha was angry that the man who tried to use her child as a shield to save his own life had got away, so Samantha looked through some mug shots until she found him.

    It turned out that the man Samantha picked out was the son of a known drug dealer called Seeley Gunn, and his father was called Damon Gunn but they had never been able to make anything stick, so arresting his son and charging him with various counts of murder may make his son more willing to help them build a case against his father, and with Samantha willing to give evidence against the son, that would stop him from picking up where the father left off.

    Samantha and Nicolas were both dead on their feet by the time the police got done taking their statements and Samantha had done a line up where she identified Seeley Gunn. A couple of officers dropped the two of them off at Samantha’s car. Samantha and Nicolas made their way home so they could get some sleep.

    Nicolas didn’t go to school the next day and Samantha called in sick so they could catch up on some of the sleep they lost with not getting home until four in the morning. Samantha was just making the two of them a late breakfast when there was a knock on the apartment door. Samantha went to see who it was and looked puzzled when she saw a couple of plain clothed detectives she’d spoken to the night before.

Modern day

     “Hello detectives, what do you need me for now?” Samantha asked looking worried.

     “We need you and your son to come with us now Miss Kaye.” One of the detectives said looking nervous as he kept looking up and down the hallway outside the apartment.

     “Am I being arrested?” Samantha asked.

     “No, we need to take you in to custody for your own protection.” The second detective said as he stepped into the apartment to get his point across.

     “What’s going on, and why do I need protection?” Samantha asked as she stopped moving and turned to face the detectives. Her body language said they needed to talk or she wasn’t moving another step.

     “Word on the street is the father of the man you identified as one of the shooters at the diner has taken out a contract on you.” The detective explained.

     “Contract? What do you mean by that?” Samantha asked looking confused.

     “They’re trying to say that someone has hired people to kill you mum.” Nicolas said as he walked out the kitchenette into the small hallway where his mother was still stood with her arms folded across her chest. Nicolas had been too tired when they got home to do anymore that climb into bed, so he wasn’t wearing any of his girl clothes when the detectives turned up.

    Samantha’s arms fell to her side when she realised what Nicolas had just said. “I thought you said my identity would be kept secret?” Samantha snapped as she pulled Nicolas closer like it was him in danger and not her.

     “We’re looking into how they got your name so fast, but until we can find out, I think it best we take you to a safe house.” The first detective said.

    Samantha had a lot more she wanted to say, but getting out of the apartment before gun toting thugs arrived to kill her, seemed like the best thing to do. The two of them quickly packed a couple of bags and left with the detectives.

    Samantha and Nicolas found themselves in a seedy little motel rather than a house, and it soon got boring and Nicolas was missing being Sara, but the detectives had no idea how long it would be before they got the price removed from his mother’s head, and Nicolas didn’t think the police officers protecting them would understand his reason for wearing a dress and makeup like a girl.

     “I know how you feel sweetie.” Samantha said as she pulled Nicolas closer to her as they lay on one of the beds in the room. “I’m sure it won’t be much longer before we can put all this behind us, and Sara can come back.” Samantha said it in such a way as to not tip off the officer as to what they were talking about.

    Nicolas looked worried when there was a knock on the motel room door.

     “Don’t worry kid; it’s just the pizza delivery guy.” One of the two officers supposed to be protecting them said as he got up to answer the door.

     “Pizza again?” Nicolas whined.

     “If we don’t get some real food soon, I’ll shoot myself.” Samantha snapped. All they had had to eat over the past week was pizza, Chinese, Mexican and cereal.

    The officer just shrugged like he didn’t care as he went to the door and looked through the peephole before he opened it without bothering to put the chain on first.

     “Someone order some pizzas?” A guy in a baseball cap and shirt with the name of a pizza company on it.

     “Keep the change.” The officer said as he took the two pizza boxes of the guy at the door and then slapped some notes in his hand. He lifted the lid on the top pizza box and saw that this wasn’t one of the pizza’s they had ordered. “This is the wrong pizza!” The officer pointed out as he turned back to show the delivery guy.

     “I wouldn’t worry about it; you won’t get to eat it anyway.” The pizza delivery guy said as he pointed a gun at the officer’s head and pulled the trigger. He soon took care of the second officer in the same way and then pointed the gun at Samantha and Nicolas.

     “Please let my son go.” Samantha begged the man pointing the gun at them.

     “I’m sorry, but he’s seen what I look like, and I can’t have that.” The man said in a cold voice, void of any emotion. “I’ll make sure it’s quick though.” He added as he got ready to shoot.

    Samantha pulled Nicolas close to her as she sobbed. “I’m sorry sweetie, I’m so sorry.” Samantha knew she was going to be following her son to the afterlife very soon as she closed her eyes and waited for the shots to ring out.

To Be Continued Next Sunday  

Story by SaraUK

Edited and Posted by SamanthaK

    EDITORS NOTE: Please Comment and/or leave Kudos and let Sara know you like her work please, Any comments on spelling, grammar or the layout of the story please PM me “Samanthak” not Sara. Thank you