by LP Lovell
Sasha takes the other jacket and locks eyes with me for a moment. If this is a gun toting activity then I can’t help but wonder why he isn’t taking one of the other guys. They’re much more experienced than I am.
“Come. We’re late.”
8
“We’re not in Wonderland anymore, Alice.” – Charles Manson
I sit in the back seat next to Sasha, watching the outside world pass by my window. Nicholai is in the front and a man I’ve never met before drives the big SUV, winding down the snow covered drive, away from the compound. A blur of forest flashes past the window and I remember seeing that same row of snow capped trees when Nicholai brought me here. That memory feels as if it belongs to someone else, another girl from another time. That girl was vulnerable and scared. I’m still vulnerable, still scared, but of different things. I’ve always wanted to ask Nicholai about my sister but something always stops me. Call it instinct, but I don’t think he’d like it. I wonder how she is. I hope that she’s okay.
“This job…you are a protection detail,” Nicholai says without turning around. “I don’t expect trouble, but be vigilant and if they make a wrong move, shoot to kill.” He turns in his seat and taps a finger between the eyes driving the point home. He slams the clip into the bottom of a colt .45 and shoves it into a chest holster as he turns back around. “Stay close at all times in a marked formation.”
“Yes, sir,” Sasha responds.
“Yes, sir,” I say more quietly.
I have practiced, shot at more targets than I can possibly count, but this is different. These are people. I flash Sasha a nervous glance and he simply shakes his head slightly, gritting his jaw. Don’t ask questions, simply follow orders. We’re soldiers, and that’s what soldiers do.
We pull up at what looks like a disused factory of some sort. The man who was driving removes a large holdall from the trunk and then disappears. I take a gun from my holster and palm it, feeling the weight of the metal resting comfortably in my hand. Sasha’s eyes sweep over the darkened yard and Nicholai simply stands there, unwrapping a lollipop and putting it in his mouth.
“This way.” He starts walking towards one of the buildings and pauses in front of a side door, allowing Sasha to go in first. My heart is pounding too fast as I scan the shadows, waiting for someone to jump out.
A hand brushes my shoulder and I jump. “Calm, little dove. Remember your training,” Nicholai purrs.
“Clear!” Sasha shouts.
We go inside and walk up a set of iron steps that lead to a walkway that overlooks the factory floor below. It’s a good vantage point with a clear view of all the exits. Nicholai opens the door to a small office. There are papers littered everywhere, and the place looks as though it hasn’t been used in years. He flicks a switch and an emergency light casts a low glow throughout the room. Taking a seat behind the cheap looking desk, he kicks his heels up, still sucking on his lolly.
“Sasha, stay outside. Una, come stand behind me.” I do as he says and move behind him.
We don’t have to wait long. “Three of them coming in the entrance,” Sasha says a few minutes later.
“They’re late,” Nicholai grumbles, pushing to his feet.
Sasha steps to the side of the door, allowing them in. They’re big and burly, all of them dark haired and dark eyed with tanned skin. They wear suits, giving the impression of businessmen, but they’re not. The way their eyes shift around the room, focusing on me and then Nicholai puts me on high alert. I can see the outline of their guns fastened against their chests and it has my fingers lingering over my own.
“Nicholai,” one of them says with an accent. He glances at me and smirks. “You bring children to fight your battles now?”
I can’t see Nicholai’s face, but I see the way the muscles in his back tense, though he seemingly ignores the comment. The conversation switches to Italian, and although I am learning the language, I’m nowhere near fluent. I think Nicholai says something about money. The guy doing the talking frowns and whatever he’s saying, he’s not happy. The other two remain tense and alert.
I catch Sasha’s eye briefly before glancing back at the guy on the left. He keeps staring at me and a twisted smirk pulls at his lips as he drags his eyes over my body. It makes my skin crawl, but I remain still. Suddenly Nicholai slams his palm down on the table, and everyone has a gun in their hand in an instant. It seems Nicholai has quite the effect. I bring the .40 cal up, pointing it straight at the pervy one’s face. His gun is pointed at Nicholai.
“Careful now, sweetheart. Wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself,” he says in broken English. My English is a lot better than my Italian.
Nicholai holds his hands out, trying to calm the situation. I can’t take my eye of the guy in front of me, but something happens on the other side of the room. I hear a cry of pain, the crunching of bone. It’s going south. I see the guy’s finger twitch over the trigger which is pointed at Nicholai and I react. I shoot. The bullet hits him between the eyes and his head snaps backwards before his body follows suit. My mouth falls open and I drag heavy lungfuls of air into my body. I killed him. Adrenaline floods my veins and my hand trembles around the gun. I killed him. The guy who was talking is hunched over the desk, a blade slammed through his hand, pinning him there. The other guy is on his knees in front of Sasha, and Sasha has a gun rammed against the back of his skull.
“You owe me fucking money!” Nicholia growls, in Russian this time, getting in the man’s face. “And yet you add insult to injury by trying to kill me.” He’s still sucking on his lollipop. Leaning over the desk he presses down on the hilt of the knife. The man grits his teeth and bites back a pained groan. “Big mistake, my friend.” He shakes his head and then nods at Sasha. The gun shot seems deafening, and I watch as the man that was on his knees falls forward, a hole blown in the back of his skull. “I don’t like traitors,” Nicholai says calmly before he yanks the blade out of the man’s hand and slashes it across his throat. A warm spray hits me in the face and chest and the man falls forward, choking and gasping on the desk as blood pours from his neck. It spreads over the wood beneath him until it’s running over the side, pitter-pattering on the carpet in a steady flow. This is what we’re trained for. Death and destruction.
Nicholai pulls into the base, and the car sits idling outside the building. Sasha gets out and I open the door.
“Little dove?” I pause and he turns in his seat, smiling at me. “I am so very proud of you. You are ready for the next stage in your training.” I frown but again, say nothing. “You will be magnificent. Your name will be feared, the whisper of death on the wind.” He breathes, a look of awe crossing his features. Something uncomfortable winds around my chest, but I swallow it down. “It will be hard, but you must endure. You must survive. Be strong, little dove. Take the gift I am offering you.”
“I will,” I say quietly before getting out of the car.
An escort takes us back to the training wing.
My mind is flashing like a faulty film reel, only it’s the same image, over and over again. My bullet. That man’s face. No amount of videos can prepare you for that. The dorm is empty when we get in. Sasha wordlessly drops his kit and heads for the showers. I just… I need a minute. There’s a two-foot wide gap between my bed and the wall. I wedge myself into the corner, and pull my knees up to my chest. I stare at backs of my hands, resting against my thighs. They are literally covered in blood, tiny splatters dotting my skin in a fine mist. I thought I was ready, but death, the reality is a far cry from the ideal. I imagined that I would simply pull the trigger and it would be no different to firing at one of those human shaped metal targets. I don’t know what I expected to feel. I guess I never thought about it. In the heat of the moment, when faced with the possibility that he might kill Nicholai I simply reacted. There was no thought or reason to it. It’s the exact second after you’ve pulled the trigger that your mind starts to over analyse. Nothing could prepare me for the blood, for the li
ght leaving his eyes, the deafening bang of the gun signalling the end of his existence. There was something brutally humbling about it, the reminder of how fragile human life really is. It was horrifying, but more worrying; there was a strange thrill in taking his life. I’ve never felt more powerful. I’ve never felt stronger. What would Anna think of me now? Would she see me as strong, or would she see me as a monster? In the space of eighteen months I’ve completely changed. The life I had was no walk in the park. Starvation and abuse were daily factors that I thought so awful at the time. It was the childish notion of a girl whose life was a battle of bad and good. This life is a battle of bad and worse. There is no room for good, only survival. Only strength. Only what must be done. In my world, humanity itself is a weakness, and right now I feel as though I’m barely holding onto mine. It’s like I took a run and jump off a cliff, willing to become this killer, only I changed my mind halfway and now I’m clinging to a small ledge, clinging to the basest form of what makes us fundamentally human. Why though? What has humanity ever done for me? Why do I feel so guilty?
“Una.” I peer up at the sound of Alex’s voice. He’s standing on the other side of the bunk, his arms braced against the frame as he focuses on me. I can’t even look at him. Alex, regardless of the brutality he’s seen still manages to be good. He smiles when he shouldn’t be able to, laughs when anyone else would cry. Maybe he’s broken too. Maybe he’s too uncaring to be bothered by the things that should affect us. Or maybe he just manages to maintain his humanity while being here. Maybe he’s just stronger than the rest of us. He moves around the bed and comes to a stop in front of me. I watch as he drops to his haunches and those deep brown eyes move over my face.
“You look like something out of a horror movie, Titch.” I slowly bring my eyes to his, waiting for some kind of disgust or judgement. It never comes.
“I killed a guy.”
Sighing, he props his back against the wall, stretching his legs out beneath the bed. He places his hand on my knee and his thumb strokes rhythmic circles against the material of my cargo pants. “That’s kind of the point of being an assassin.” I nod. He’s right. Of course, this is ridiculous. “You’re allowed to care though. It doesn’t make you weak.”
I look at him and I’m worried he sees me for what I am, what I’m becoming. Alex is too good for this place. He still sees me as the innocent, broken girl who walked in here, but she’s long gone and I wonder if he knows that? When he opens his arms, I go to him, wrapping myself in him. I bask in his warmth and inhale his familiar comforting scent. The blood and the death slowly ebb away until I can’t feel them any more. He presses his lips to my forehead, lingering against my skin for long seconds, despite my blood covered state. For a few moments I bury myself in him and allow him to take me somewhere else, somewhere that isn’t the cold, grey walls of the dorm. I pretend that we’re that boy and that girl, the ones we could have been. Normal. Not monsters and killers.
9
Six months later…15 years old
“Let it define you, let it destroy you, or let it strengthen you.” – Unknown.
The hand presses on the back of my neck, pinning me beneath the water. I try to hold my breath, but my pulse is beating erratically, and the harder my heart beats the more desperate my lungs become for air. I’m pulled up and I drag a burning breath into my lungs. Torture is as much a part of my daily routine now as fighting and killing. My body count is now at twelve. Twelve kills in only six months. I go between working for Nicholai and being here, trained, tortured. Each day is a test of endurance, a battle of the mind over basic instinct. I always win. But the water…the water is its own brand of fear. I’ve been electrocuted, cut, burned, beaten, but none of them bring you as close to death as water.
James stands in front of me, the other side of the water tank. His arms are behind his back as always, and the black material of his military style jacket pulls tight over his chest. He grimaces at me and the scar that runs diagonally across his face sinks into his skin making his expression twisted and deformed.
“It’s here, at the limit of death, when you think you have no choice but to give up, that the strong are separated from the weak.” He nods and I’m thrust back into the water. Again I panic and flounder and again I’m brought up. “Embrace death, only then can you conquer it,” he growls, and I’m forced under again.
This time, when I reach the point of no oxygen, they don’t let me up. My lungs burn and a rabid kind of desperation claws at my mind. It’s here, at the precipice of death where it’s impossible to think rationally. It’s here where the mind can no longer battle the body and the unbridled instinct to survive will kick in. I hold out and hold out, until finally I can’t anymore. My body shuts down and my mind closes in on itself, refusing to let me open my mouth even though I need to. The pressure grows and grows until I feel as though I’m about to explode. I open my mouth and inhale, only the air never comes. Water rushes into my lungs and I panic, but it’s accompanied by a strange kind of relief. I’ve always been scared of dying, but as my body frantically tries to work through its distress, my mind is at ease. There’s nothing I can do, and a strange kind of peace comes with that knowledge. Everything goes black.
I wake up and choke, sitting and coughing up water. My lungs feel raw and strained. I’m lying on the floor next to the water tank James is hovering over me and the guy who held me under water is crouching at my side.
“Congratulations, you just stared death in the face and won,” James says. I don’t feel like I won. “Embrace death, Una. Become her. Only then will you not fear her.” He walks away and the other guy gets up and follows him. I sit there, my lungs burning as I continue to cough up water. When I finally stand and leave the room, I find Nicholai waiting in the hallway. He’s leaning against the wall, sucking on a lollipop as usual. He reaches in his pocket and offers me one, but I shake my head. Another ragged cough works up my throat that seizes my entire body. My lungs are trying to purge the water and I know from experience it will take days for them to do so.
“You are doing well, little dove.” I like Nicholai’s praise. It makes me feel like all of this is worth it, like there’s someone routing for me. We start walking down the corridor and he wraps an arm around my shoulder, pulling me into his side. “Do you know why I do this to you?” He gestures at me. “The electrocution, the drowning, the pain…” I shake my head and I’m not sure I want to know. “It is not because I like your suffering. Quite the opposite.” His expression looks genuinely pained for a second before he continues. “I will tell you a story. There was a man who once trained a dog. Every time he fed the dog he would ring a bell. Soon, every time he rang the bell, the dog would drool, whether he received the food or not. The response was conditioned.” I glance up at him, a frown on my face. “Humans are much the same. We are naturally conditioned by our own minds. When you are thrust into the water, your mind panics, it is conditioned by its own need to survive. I want you to be able to over-ride your own mind, little dove. To do this is to have absolute power.” He smiles wondrously. “How strong you will be to conquer death and fear. And more so, with certain training, you can make anything instinctual. Conditioned behavior.” He shakes his head. “The mind is an a wondrous thing.”
Is it even possible? To have no fear, not even of death itself…I’d be like a robot.
10
6 months later…
“The best protection any woman can have is courage.” - Elizabeth Cady Stanton
I stand with my hands at my side. Igor, one of the new enforcers lingers behind me. I can sense him, his every breath, his every movement. Nicholai once said to me that someone could be conditioned, but I couldn’t understand the full extent of that until I started to experience this particular brand of it. Deprived of all human touch, except for pain. Conditioned over several months to only ever feel pain at another’s touch. The kill reflex, Nicholai calls it. Alex is my only exception, but his innocent caresses are not enough
to over-ride the hours and hours of daily torture. My mind is no longer my own. It’s like I’ve been programmed. Igor shifts his weight and I remain still, bracing. I know what’s coming and I want to react, every muscle demands that I do so, but that’s not part of the exercise. He touches my arm and an electric shock rips across my body. The second his hand leaves me ingrained instincts kick in and I have him on his back, my fingers wrapped around his Adam’s apple, in an instant. Kill, kill, kill. My finger nails dig into his skin, drawing blood as I cut into his flesh. I want to rip his throat out. He chokes and attempts to hit me but I grab his head in both hands and slam it into the concrete. Kill, kill, kill… it pounds through my brain like a drumbeat. I can’t fight it. I feel his skull crack against the concrete and blood pools around his head, crawling across the bleak grey floor, staining it. Eventually hands gripped my arms and again, their touch…kill, kill, kill. I snarl and fight until they finally release me. I turn in a crouch and face Sasha and James, panting heavily. James maintains his cold expression while Sasha flashes me a knowing, almost pitiful look. He knows what it’s like because he’s going through it too, except Sasha can’t even bare to wait for the shock.
“Little dove.” I glanced to the left where Nicholai stands, watching. He’s been here a lot more recently. He watches the training sessions and always speaks to me afterwards. The look of pride in his eyes always pulls me through. It makes this worth it. I am strong and he sees it. “You make me so proud.” He smiles and steps towards me. I allow him to get within two feet and then I step backwards.