❝ 𝐘𝐀'𝐀𝐁𝐔𝐑𝐍𝐄𝐄
- arabic term meaning 'you bury me,' a declaration of one's hope that they'll die before another person because of how difficult it would be to live without them. ❞
⤷ in which an ex assassin meets a thief orphan who's skil...
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CHAPTER ONE ✔️
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PERCY OBSERVED THE WORLD from a distance. She preferred her work to be quick and clean—with little to no physical touch. Much like her well-refined brain, her delicate fingers functioned rigorously. Every move she committed was calculated.
The reason she wouldn't get her hands dirty wasn't that she had a dislike for the remnants of her acts but because laying so much as a pinky on someone sent her into a state of terror. Her lip tended to quiver, and her breathing would become shallow. Melanie and Kai respected the boundaries Percy firmly set yet found themselves lost when she needed comfort or when she gifted them her findings at the store. They wished they could embrace her without fearing that she'd fall into one of her episodes that they were so acquainted with.
So as she stuffed her bag with things she saw fit for her endeavor, they fought the urge to wrap their arms around the girl. The date that she'd circled on the calendar was a mere few hours away. The redhead determined that she would say her goodbyes fast before visiting the old man, Perkins. She slid her harshly pointed knives into the makeshift compartments in her sleeves and whirled around to give Mel and Kai a soft smile.
She was going to miss these orphan losers.
"You'll visit, right?" Kai asked hopefully. Their skin itched to be touched by her, but they ignored their body's plea. It wasn't difficult to obey a limitation.
"Of course." Percy caught sight of Melanie's black brows furrowing. She was confused by the lack of sign language spoken since they both knew she had difficulty reading lips. Percy forced a smile to her freckled face and signed the words "not important" quickly.
Melanie was fragile. Sister Amelia and the other nuns of the orphanage tended to be particularly hard on the deaf girl, giving her strict lessons with even worse punishments if she failed to complete a task given correctly. The harder they taught her to lip read, the more Mel didn't wish to.
When Percy first learned of this happening, she was pushed over the edge. Mel remembered her words vividly:
"Old warts like her have always gotten under my skin. Their torments will continue like an itch until someone comes to put them into their place. Unfortunately for her, I'm about ready to scratch."
That was when she found that Percy wasn't all shits and giggles. She was terrifying—that of a cat who's fed up with getting its tail tugged.
A cat.
Kai once compared the girl to a feline; she was cunning and quiet and ready to pounce. Melanie, at the time, thought there couldn't have been a more accurate comparison until she saw her in action. Now she believed that a cat would sit at her feet and watch how it's done. Percy's assassin-like skills put its nature to shame.
