Blood and Bone | 1

2 | 9

      As I stared at my target, in the perfect place for my shot, I wondered why it was suddenly more difficult for me to pull the trigger.

      I'd been trained to be a heartless killer, a dangerous girl that didn't look back while on a rampage. I was meant to leave death and carnage wherever I stepped.

      But then, my situation had been different. My previous living situation made Adiago Hundsen's warehouse and constant torture seem like paradise. I'd killed for them because I had to. I'd had no other choice.

     Many of my slain victims weren't as innocent as the one I was being pressured to kill now. Though I hadn't been given any more than the bare minimum information that was necessary, I knew for sure that I'd destroyed countless men involved with gangs, large-scale drug dealers, smugglers and politicians with dirty and scandalous secrets, among others.

     But she hadn't harmed me or my leader in any way. Or at least not that I knew or could figure out. For now, I had no idea why I was even being assigned to kill her.

     Was one life lost better than seven? Would my conscience be able to bear the addition to an already unbearable weight?

     As it turned out, I didn't have to make a decision. It was made for me.

     I heard a crack above me and I turned around to find the source of the noise. All I could make out on the hilltop above me was the rippling of clothing as someone ran away from the side of the cliff. Apparently, I wasn't my victim's only stalker.

     When I looked back at the house with the open window, my prey was no longer sitting by the window. Now, the body was laying in a pool of blood that I could see even from the hillside. As I stared at the unmoving body, I was filled with rage. I was furious with Hundsen, Orozco, Hunt, my team and most of all, myself.

     Almost like an animal, I clawed my way up the rest of the hill. My knees scraped against rocks and dirt and my fingers were probably bleeding, but I didn't feel it.

     Adrenaline filled my body when I caught sight of the dark figure making their way down the other side of the hill. I sprinted after them, not quite knowing what I was going to do when I caught them.

      I raced after the person, not even noticing when briar bushes and sticks scratched at my legs as I ran. When I reached the bottom of the hill, I expertly leaped over a chain link fence and kept following.

      Our footsteps rang and echoed off the dark houses surrounding us. No street lights lit up the poorer neighborhood. The person I was chasing, that I could now tell was a man, was about fifty feet ahead of me. But with the adrenaline and power pumping through my veins, I began gaining on him.

      Forty feet.

      Thirty feet.

      Twenty feet.

      It was then that he looked back at me. I couldn't see anything important; his face was completely blocked out by the darkness of the cloudy night.

He ran across a street and a car went by so quickly that I almost got ran over. I snarled like an animal as I stalled. As the car raced past, the man disappeared.

      He was there one second and gone the next. I looked around wildly, panting, but there was nothing. I was the only one there. It was like I'd been chasing a ghost.

Looking up at the waning moon that was bathing me in soft light, I closed my eyes. I hadn't been the one who'd pulled the trigger, but I felt like I had. My eyes slowly opened. I'd done this before and felt nothing. I would have to pretend it was that way now.

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      I ran as quickly as I could into the alley. As I ran deeper, my footsteps slowed. The tall, dark walls were shadowy, even during the day. It was eerily quiet, with no noises from the bustling city that surrounded me.

      I felt like someone was watching me.

      When I was a few buildings away from the one that I dreaded, I felt someone grab my arm so tightly it was turning purpler by the second.

      Out of habit, I twisted my arm out of his grip, grabbing his arm in the process, snapping it behind his back. He yelled, holding his now-broken arm. I clamped my hand over his mouth, elbowed him in the head, and he crumpled. I grabbed his unhurt arm and dragged him behind a pile of trash on the damp ground.

      I was still going to go into the warehouse. But this was s sign to Hundsen that he couldn't tame me.

      As I was admiring my handiwork, a hand slapped over my mouth, as I'd done to the other poor man. I chopped down on the hand covering my face, despite the fact that it was probably very dirty and had been places I didn't want to imagine.

      As I bit his unclean hand, he yanked it away from me as if he'd just been burned. As I leaned my face toward the ground to get ready to kick him, the guy grabbed my chin and I felt the cool metal of a gun hit my forehead. I wisely stopped moving and listened to him. I was stupid, but not that stupid.

      "You're coming with me."

      He pulled me so that I was standing up as straight as I could, and not staring at the cold concrete. He kept the gun resting on my temple, ready to shoot if I tried anything.

      My captor did the knock on the secret door to the gang's hideout, and it opened with a small creak. I was shoved back into the too-familiar musty warehouse, where Adiago Hundsen was waiting.

      Ten minutes later, I was shoved into the same cell that I'd been in before, with my legs chained, my arms in a straightjacket, and a gag in my mouth.

      I slid down the wall and banged my head against it. I still had no idea if my teammates were okay. For all I knew, they had each been killed off by Hundsen.

      However, I knew Jake wasn't dead, at least not yet. Hundsen, the immoral gang leader he was, hadn't stopped having him tortured. When I'd been led away to my cell, I saw many triumphant Club members milling about and watching the scene in the torturing room.

    I vowed to never speak of this mission to my teammates. I'd already seen the way they looked at me when they found out I was a hired killer. It was just another secret I'd have to keep.

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      Two days.

      That's how long it took for Adiago to finally grow a small, insignificant heart and finally give me food. He'd been giving me water for a while, but it was grimy and slightly brown. It reminded me of the good old days of working under Orion.

      Two days was also how long it took for Adiago to let me out of my bare, dirty cell. However, as I looked back on this, it definitely would have been better had I just stayed in my cell.