Chapter Twelve
A year and a half disappeared in a blink of an eye. I guess that’s what happens when the days are filled with so much training that you feel like your brain is about to explode.
Cyrus took me out on multiple hunting trips until he was satisfied with my performance. To put it bluntly, being satisfied with my performance was until I stopped crying and pulled the trigger without hesitation. I guess it’s a little hard to admit that I bawled my eyes out like a squealing new-born baby. I also lost the contents of my stomach several times. Killing animals was never something I thought I would be forced to do. After a while, the guilt disappeared. My eyes stayed dry and my stomach stayed settled. That’s all Cyrus wanted from me, to be able to pull the trigger without a thought, without hesitation and without feeling. Losing the contents of my stomach stopped too, eventually.
When the hunting trips came to an end, Cyrus taught me different languages. The main two being Russian and Italian, due to the foreign mobs in our city that were run by Tainted Beings. I had to be able to blend in. It was nice for a change, sitting down and staring at books while I tried my very best to mimic Cyrus’s flawless accent. I never knew he could speak different languages. He told me if you lived long enough, you were given the time to learn. Being taught French by my mother allowed me to pick up the languages easier. If I hadn’t been taught a foreign language before, it would have been a lot more difficult.
Cyrus continued to train me in unarmed combat. He wanted my fighting to become muscle memory. During our sparring, he would make me speak fluently in whatever language he called out and knocked me down if I got it wrong. There were a few moments after he knocked me down that his face was a breath away from mine, so close that I could see the ice floating on the surface of his eyes. He went down with me so I couldn’t stop the fall.
I couldn’t deny that Cyrus and I were getting closer. It took me long enough to realise that him being brutally mean was his way of showing he cared. He was a complicated person and I knew getting involved with him was out of the question. He was psychotic, way older than me, and my mentor. Those three things alone were enough to want to stay away. But every time I found myself lying on the mats after being flipped over, staring up at him, his face inches away from mine, I wanted to be someone who meant more to him.
Renée gave me makeup lessons. They varied from eye catching, to blending in. It was all dependent on the mission. If I needed to be noticed in the crowd, the makeup had to be eye catching. If I needed to go unnoticed, the makeup had to be simplistic. The amount of times I stabbed myself in the eye with an eyeliner pencil was uncountable. I wasn’t used to being so delicate, not after training with Cyrus.
Renée also taught me how to blend in with the crowd and go unnoticed. That was important. Successful assassins didn’t get caught. Blending in was essential to pass through undetectable, kill your targets, and escape unnoticed. I had to take in my surroundings without making it obvious. I had to mimic the way people moved to blend into a crowd. I had to carry myself with confidence but to the point where I wouldn’t stick out. It was an odd sensation walking through crowded streets. I wasn’t used to so many people.
I spent most of the morning training by myself because Cyrus had to leave first thing. Whenever I asked if I could go with him on a mission, he would say no. His reasoning was I wasn’t ready, I wasn’t old enough, and I would just get in the way. He wanted to wait until I was eighteen before I started killing people. Was he afraid if I started sooner, I’d be traumatised? Eighteen was the age people enlisted to join the army. Maybe that’s why he chose that benchmark. Eighteen was the legal age to do anything except drink alcohol, not that I cared.
I had my iPod blaring in my ears while I kicked and punched the punching bag. I was listening to trance, losing myself in the music. I never did quite agree with Cyrus’s taste. Heavy metal and rock weren’t my cup of tea. I was quite happy with electro, even if it was dance orientated. Listening to trance made my kicks and punches more fluid, like I was dancing. I wasn’t putting too much force behind my attacks. I didn’t need to. Cyrus wasn’t here to battle with.
Renée came down into the man cave. She had recently dyed her hair. It almost looked black but when the light hit her hair, the purple shined like a gem. I would have loved to dye my hair that colour. Unfortunately, I had to blend in with crowds, not stick out. Pity.
I pulled off my gloves, letting them drop to the mat, and held onto the punching bag to stop it from swinging.
“What’s up? You never come down here,” I said, pressing the pause button on my iPod. I pulled the earphones out of my ears to show I was listening and coiled the cord around my fingers.
There was a crease in Renée’s brow and her green-grey eyes were heavy with concern. “I wanted to have a word with you about something before Cyrus got home. Well, it’s a heads up more than anything.”
“What is it? Did something happen?”
She shook her head. “No. I just wanted to give you a fair warning.”
“That’s a first. About?”
I couldn’t help but be surprised. She never warned me about anything. Ever since I had been here, it had been a constant fight-or-flight response. I never knew what to expect and I was always on edge, especially where Cyrus was concerned. He was brutal and if I wasn’t ready, I’d get seriously hurt. That’s where the fight-or-flight response saved me. My reflexes were incredibly fast and always had been. That was a plus. I’d be in a completely different state of mind if that wasn’t the case.
“You know what Cyrus has planned, right? To get the agency’s attention when you come of age,” Renée said.
“As far as I’m aware, he wants me to assassinate gang leaders that the agency is too hesitant to go after, due to the possibility of heavy losses should they screw up.”
“That’s about a quarter of it,” she murmured, running her hand through her hair. “Taking the leaders down doesn’t necessarily mean that the gangs will disassemble. Someone else will take the place of the fallen leader and continue running things. Cyrus expects you to wipe out the entire gang, leaving no immortal soul left alive.”
“What?” I breathed. My heart skipped a beat.
“Cyrus has spent the last two years getting intel on the gangs you will be targeting. He has information on every member.”
“So what, he expects me to go after them one by one? If I do that, the smartest thing for them to do would be to group up.”
“I guess that’s what he’s counting on so you can take them out quicker.”
“This is crazy. I can’t kill that many people. What was the point of teaching me different languages? I won’t be blending in if I’m killing every last one of them.”
“You’ll be killing a lot more people when you join the agency. You need to get used to the idea of having blood on your hands. If you don’t, your training has been for nothing.”
“There’s no children in that target list, is there?”
“Thankfully not. There are no other options, Joan. Complete annihilation is the only way the gangs don’t continue causing problems. That’s why the agency hasn’t gone after them. Dane knows what cost he’ll have to pay and that cost is too high.”
I had heard that name once before, a long time ago. Dane was there when my parents were murdered. He was the one who took control of the situation. He was the one who sentenced us all to death.
“I don’t know much about Dane,” I replied in a distant voice, still struggling to come to terms with new developments. I would have to kill hundreds of people.
“Dane Stevens is the CEO of the agency. You think Cyrus is ruthless? Next to Dane, Cyrus is one of those kids you see trying to burn ants with a magnifying glass. Dane would nuke the entire forest.”
“Thanks for making me feel like I’m the only sane one left in the scheme of things,” I muttered, punching the bag once, as hard as I could. “I can’t compete with that. I’m not ruthless. I’m not a mass murder
er. I wanted to be a hero, Renée. I wanted to be someone who brought about peace, to bring an end to this war. I feel like killing all those criminals won’t make me a hero. It will make me a villain.”
“You’ll never be a hero. You’ll never be a villain. You live your life in a void between light and darkness. That void is the best place to be. If you leave it now, darkness will consume you and light will hinder you.”
“Very poetic. You get that from a fortune cookie?”
“Don’t shoot the messenger, Joan. I came down here as a favour to you. Disregard my words if you find them to be poetic or take them into consideration,” she paused and turned away, giving me her back as she walked towards the stairs. “Cyrus will be home soon and I don’t want him to know I was down here. As you were.”
“Thanks for the heads up. I appreciate it.”
“Mhmm,” she replied, disappearing up the steps.
I sighed heavily and slipped my earphones back into my ears, pressing play on my iPod. I picked up my gloves, flexed my fingers once my hands were inside them, and continued punching the bag, a lot harder than before.
I always knew I would have to kill to get into the agency’s good books. I always knew that I would have to murder the crime lords they were too scared to go up against. I never knew that I would have to kill every last person tied to those crime lords. I didn’t know how many gangs there were in Chicago that were run by Tainted Beings. I didn’t know how many people I’d be killing. My estimate was in the hundreds, if not less.
Renée was right. Killing the leader would only make an opportunity for someone else to take their place. I had to kill everyone. I needed to get used to the idea of having blood on my hands. But could I really kill that many people? Was I prepared to commit mass murder?
What would my life be like if I had chosen a different path? I’d be thinking about going to college. I would have spent the last few years in high school, not training to be an assassin. I doubt I’d still be living with Damian, not after my low threshold of tolerance where Isabelle was concerned. There was no point thinking about what could have been because I chose this path a long time ago. There was no going back, not now.
After I exhausted myself giving the punching bag all I had, I laid down on the mats, staring up at the roof. I yanked off the gloves and chucked them to the side. The music drowned out my heavy panting. My chest rose and fell rapidly. Sweat dribbled down the side of my face.
When I carried out my mission, I would be labelled as a serial killer. I couldn’t decide how that made me feel. I had so many emotions running through my head that it was difficult to pinpoint my feelings. Fear overrode the emotional clutter; fear of what I could become. I could become one of those monsters that everyone was afraid of. I didn’t want to be a monster. I didn’t want to be a villain. I wanted to be a hero but heroes weren’t mass murderers. I couldn’t be a hero. There was no void. There was only light and darkness. When I started killing people, I had to try my very best not to be consumed by that darkness.
Killing would be a lot easier if I didn’t see them die. I would be content with poisoning. Jabbing someone in a crowded street with a toxin so potent that immortal healing capability is too slow to counter, I’d be happy with that. I wouldn’t see them fall and die. I would already be gone, moving onto my next target, until there was no one left. Poison would be my weapon. If Cyrus said otherwise, I wasn’t going to do what was expected of me. I didn’t want the deaths of a hundred people to haunt my dreams. I didn’t want to have any memories of their final moments. Poison would grant me ignorance. Poison would be my saving grace.
Cyrus appeared in my view. His handsome face oozed disappointment and its usual arrogance. Those cold eyes stared me down. He signalled to take out my earphones by pinching his thumb and finger together, plucking invisible ones out of his ear. I knew if I didn’t, he’d do it for me, and I wouldn’t like his approach.
“You call lying down and gazing aimlessly at the roof training?” he asked me once my ears were no longer blocked by music.
“No. I was thinking. I find it easier to think if I’m staring at something that doesn’t talk back.”
“I’d ask what’s troubling you but I don’t care. We have work to do. Get up.”
I sat up but that was as far as I got. “When were you planning on telling me that I was going to kill more than just crime lords? That I was going to wipe out entire gangs.”
An irritated breath swimming with rage and disbelief parted from Cyrus’s lips. “Renée coddling you just bumped up the schedule.”
“That isn’t my fault. She came to me of her own accord. I didn’t prompt anything. You shouldn’t be punishing me...” my voice trailed off when I saw how infuriated he was; steam was coming out of his ears. “What schedule?”
“Come with me. I need to show you something.”
Cyrus didn’t give me a choice in the matter. He heaved me up onto my feet, dragging me by the arm. Breaking free wasn’t an option. He was gripping onto me so tightly that my arm could break in half if I tried anything. I just went with it. I had managed to get this far without breaking anything. I wasn’t going to start now.
Cyrus dragged me up two sets of stairs, the basement ones and the main stairwell by the front door.
It wasn’t until we got to his room that he let me go with a sharp shove. The door slammed shut behind him.
I was left rubbing my arm, trying my best not to scream at him or lash out for treating me that way. I had never been in his room before. The door was always closed when I walked down the hall.
The first thing I noticed were countless photos and paper plastered to the wall. There were so many that it took up the entire space. Women and men of different ethnicities all shared one common trait: they were targets.
The photos were accompanied by strings that lead to notes. It was a spiderweb of different coloured string, four colours. Knowing the type of person Cyrus was, I was certain that the string was colour-coded for each gang. Cyrus’s handwriting was small and difficult to read from where I was standing. I could make out a few of the notes, the targets importance in the gang, which I was guessing to be their rank, addresses to home and work, weekly schedules, everything.
“And I thought I had issues,” I muttered. “You get all this intel on your own?”
“Yes. It wasn’t easy.”
“How did you keep it quiet enough so you didn’t alarm the gangs in question?”
“I have my ways,” he replied, voice ominous. “You wish to poison as many as you can and not see their deaths, correct?”
“How did you know?” My tone was defensive.
“I know you better than you know yourself. You can’t hide anything from me, Joan. I can see right through you.”
“Th-that’s not entirely true,” I stammered, hoping he didn’t know the true meaning behind my sentence.
I didn’t want him to know that I cared about him. I didn’t want him to know the feelings I had towards him continued to grow each day. There were moments where I absolutely hated him for the way he treated me but somehow I managed to fall for him. I didn’t think it was love. I’d like to say it was admiration but that wasn’t it either. I didn’t know what it was.
“I’m not against the idea of poisoning them but you need to be smart about it. The poison is slow acting, a couple of hours give or take. Killing them off one by one will put gangs on high alert if you’re slow. You’ll have to kill them all in a day. If you don’t, they’ll group up and you will have to find another way to kill them. I’ve memorised this entire wall. I don’t expect you to do the same. I’ll be on comms with you, set to a frequency only you can hear. I’ll be your eyes and point out your targets.”
“Killing all these people by myself isn’t something I can pull off in one day.”
“Yes, you can. You won’t be alone. I’ll have your back but you will kill them all by yourself. It needs to be you, not me.”
“This is asking too much. I
’m not ready for this.”
“Yes, you are. I’m not asking you to torture. I’m asking you to kill. This is what you’ve been training for. I trained you to be an assassin, not a hero. You’ll kill from the shadows, not in the open.”
“I was prepared to take down a handful of people, not this many,” I replied curtly, gesturing to the wall. “You expect me to take down all of these people on my own? You’re crazy.”
“I already said that you won’t be alone.”
“Comms, yeah, but you won’t be taking down any targets. I can’t do this, Cyrus. It’s madness.”
“I’ve been a lone wolf for many years, Joan, more years than you’ve lived. I’ve taken down countless people. This list doesn’t come close.”
“In a span of a day?” I asked him, tone still sharp. When he didn’t answer, I did. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. You’re expecting too much of me.”
“They’re all in one city. All my targets were spread out. It’s doable.”
“If you’re so confident, how about you do it and I take the credit.”
Cyrus laughed. “That won’t cut it. You need to kill, not me. I’ve already done my quota. It’s your turn.”
“You said I’d kill from the shadows. The agency won’t know that I had help. I don’t want to do this by myself.”
“There is no easy way out. There are no negotiations. You’ll kill everyone on this list singlehandedly. You have to prove yourself. You need to do this on your own. I’ll supply you with the tools you need. That’s it. Yes, you’ll kill from the shadows, but Dane will know who it was. He doesn’t miss a thing. That’s why I can’t help you kill your targets. This is your mission, not mine.”
“Fine. Whatever. If you’re making me do this on my own, at least tell me what the poison will do.”
“It’s better if you don’t know.”
“Just tell me.”
“I’ll be giving you an antidote that will protect you from the poison. It’s permanent. I know how accident prone you are. You’ll probably cut yourself.”
I scowled at him. “What if my targets have the same antidote? That will be counterproductive.”
“They won’t. The poison is of my making, as is the antidote.”
“If the poison has your name all over it, why are you making me do this on my own?”
“I know how to cover my tracks. It doesn’t lead back to me. It doesn’t lead anywhere. As far as anyone is concerned, it doesn’t exist.”
“Tell me what the poison does to its victims. I’m not going ahead with this until you do.”
“It’s nightmare fuel.”
“Who’s the one coddling me now, huh? Renée isn’t the only one looking out for me.”
“You mistake my intentions. If I tell you, you’ll get cold feet, freak out, and refuse to speak to me for several weeks. You’ve done it once before.”
“Try me. Besides, I’ll need to know what the poison does if I get interrogated by the agency, right?”
“I’ll tell you when the job is done.”
“Tell me now. I can handle it.”
“No, you can’t.”
“It can’t be that bad.”
“Have you met me? It is that bad.”
“God, you are so infuriating. Just tell me before I make you tell me.”
“Oh?” he questioned with a tilt of his head, smiling. “What do you have in mind to make me talk?”
“Kicking your ass.”
“Cute. That won’t break my silence. But since you’ve humoured me, I might tell you.”
“Might?” I repeated, folding my arms. “What do you want from me?”
“Commitment, for one,” he said, standing up straight.
“I am committed. I’ve been committed since day one. I’ve done everything you’ve asked of me. What more do you want?”
“Your word that you won’t back out of this if I tell you what the poison does.”
“The last time I gave my word about something, you said it didn’t mean crap. What changed?”
“My perspective. I’ll ask you again. Give me your word that you won’t back out.”
“You have my word. I won’t back out.”
“A little more convincingly. Your voice shook.”
The reason why my voice shook was because I was terrified about the task ahead. It was a frightening prospect having to kill all of those people on my own.
I let out a steady breath. “Quit dragging this out. You said you can see right through me. I’m being honest, here. I won’t back out.”
“The poison is made up of a magic deficiency strain that targets the flames coursing through Tainted Beings veins. The poison short circuits the magic, making it implode on itself. Their core body temperature skyrockets. They burn up, burst into flames, and turn into a pile of ash.”
My stomach churned and spat out several butterflies. I tried my best to make sure discomfort didn’t show on my face.
“Is everyone on this list immortal?” I asked, tone empty of emotion.
“Yes. I made certain.”
“Okay,” I murmured, voice distant. “How much time do I have until this needs to be done?”
“Enough. You’ll have time to practice bumping into people. All it takes is a simple scratch.”
“How do you plan on making me noticed when the agency admires my handiwork?”
“The blade you’ll be using is enchanted. When the poison has done its job, it will trigger the spell. The ash of their remains will form a symbol of my choosing. A scythe guarded by angel wings.”
“The Angel of Death.”
“Precisely. I’m glad we are on the same page.”
“I doubt I’ll ever be on the same page as you. May I be excused? I need time alone.”
“You usually just storm out without asking.”
“I lack the energy to throw a tantrum. Can I go or what?”
“Yes. We are done here, for now.”
I left Cyrus’s room without looking back.
I took refuge in my bedroom, locking the door behind me. I crawled onto my bed, grabbed a pillow and held it tightly. The whole world was caving in on me. Rocks fell from the sky. Breathing became difficult when my chest grew tight. My shoulders shook from restraint. I tried so hard not to cry but I couldn’t stop once I started. I used the pillow to muffle my sobs.
I didn’t want to kill that many people. I didn’t want them to burn. That poison was torture. Torture wasn’t my code. Quick and merciful deaths were what I had planned. Cyrus’s taste in poison matched his wicked personality. He was right; I was too kind-hearted, perhaps too kind-hearted to be a killer.
They were criminals. The world didn’t need criminals running the streets with their notorious reputation, drug trade, slavery, the list went on. I didn’t feel guilty that they had to die. The only thing I felt guilty about was being responsible for their slow and painful deaths.
I would become the Angel of Death. I would become their nightmare and I would lose myself to darkness.
Everlasting Flame Page 12