Lurking in the Shadows

«Chapter One»

Footsteps, the soft sound that meant something alive and demonish was nearby.

I strained my ears to the location of the sound, telling them to only to focus on that.

The soft crunch of the steps against the hard ash and gravel of the ground suddenly stops, and I hear nothing but the bubbly nearby lavafall. Then, the footsteps return, but this time, they're much quicker, and quickly coming toward me.

I crouch down, trying to avoid the eye of my target, and good thing too, because the large, steel blade swings and crashes against the stone above my head, where it was just seconds ago. I roll out and kick him in the leg, causing him to stumble backward.

He quickly regains balance as I jump up to my feet, knife in hand.

He swings, I move from side to side to dodge it. Slowly, his movements become faster, and he swings lower.

I watch his eyes, they tell me where he's going to swing next. I watch them gaze to my legs, and I jump just in time to miss the blade, and I land on it.

Still holding the hilt of the sword, he falls forward. I raise my knee to meet his jaw, and he falls back, holding his chin.

I stand over him as he lies on the ground, squirming slightly. He stops momentarily to look me in the eyes.

I raise my knife, and lunge. I plunge the small blade into the ground next to him, and smirk.

"You're dead."

Cinder huffs and takes my hand when I hold it out to him, and I help him up.

"That's not fair," he groans, brushing himself off. "You cheated."

"Cheat?" I chuckle. "It's skill."

"Yeah, yeah, you can call it what you want, Anti, it's still cheating."

"Wait, do you smell that?" I ask, holding a hand up.

Cinder sniffs the air, and looks perplexed. "What?"

I sniff twice, and scrunch my face up, covering my nose. "Oh Satan! It smells like, like..."

I move toward him and sniff the air in front of him, inhaling ash. "Bullshit!"

Cinder's face turns to that of fury. "Why, you-!"

I burst into hysterics as Cinder stands there, shaking with anger.

"Calm down," I smirk. "You'll be fine."

Cinder starts muttering profanities under his breath as he walks back toward the building, picking up his sword as he passes it. I roll my mismatched eyes and follow him, shoving my knife back into its scabbard.

Cinder and I train together often in the courtyard of the only place we can really be safe, and that's A.O.A, Assassins of Angron, but everyone here just calls it "home." It's all some of us have ever known, and pretty much all I've ever known since I don't remember much of my past at all. Some say I'm cursed, others say I'm blessed. Me? I don't know which I am, but if my past was uneventful enough for me to not remember a single second of it before I left home, then it must not be that important.

Cinder doesn't wait for me at the door, instead, he storms inside and makes his way toward where I can only guess is the cafeteria since I know his room is the opposite direction.

I give a breathy chuckle as I turn to head to my room, but a voice stops me before I'm able to.

"Anti!"

I turn my head toward the only door around to see Raven, the sanctuary's little 'guide' we call her, waving me over to her. I sigh, and make my way over.

"Yeah?"

"Severin asked me to give this to you, come here."

I follow Raven into her room, though it isn't much like the other demons' rooms around here, it's more of an office space that she lives in. I've only been inside a few times.

I watch her long hair flow behind her like waves, and almost run right into her when she suddenly stops and crouches down for something.

"Damn it!" She groans. "Not again..."

I try to look over her shoulder at what Raven's complaining about to see several shredded pieces of paper. Raven growls.

"What's that?" I ask.

"Well, it was a document full of contracts for a couple of the other demons," Raven informs. "But now it's just rubbish."

Raven gets up and starts walking again, so I follow her until she reaches what seems to be a kitchen area. Raven discards the shredded papers into a stone bin, closes the lid, and presses a button. As soon as the button was pressed, the inside of the bin seemed to explode, as if there had been a lit stick of dynamite inside. The action startles me since I hadn't expected it, and Raven snickers.

"Afraid of a bit of sound?" She smirks.

"No," I growl. "I was caught off guard."

"Really? Well, you should know that you can never be too care-"

"Why do you need me here again?" I interrupt.

"Oh, right." She turns and walks around some more. I roll my eyes and huff, following her.

"This." Raven leans down once again to reach for something on a table in the lounge. "This is your new target."

Raven hands me the thin folder.

"Geez, poor guy, who'd he catch on a bad day to become one of our contracts?" I smirk, opening the folder and expecting to see a small man or woman there, but there aren't any pictures. There are hardly any documents at all. I look up at Raven, and she doesn't seem to have any expression.

"Okay, not funny."

"What?"

"Do I have a target, or do I not?"

"That is your target."

"This is a child's coloring book."

Raven shakes her head, and takes the folder back, taking one of the three papers out.

" 'Subject name: Unknown; Current whereabouts: Last seen in Firestar; Contracter: Unknown; DOB: Unknown; Appearance: Dark hair, grey skin, formally dressed in smokey suit with red tie.' "

"You can't be serious!" I say, astonished. "I can't take out a target when I don't know hardly anything about them!"

"Oh there's more," Raven sighs. "We also don't know where you can locate him, we have only one lead that also no one knows the current or exact whereabouts of, oh, and you'll probably die trying to take him out. So, uh, have fun."

I stare at Raven as my body shakes when it glitches, hoping that at any moment, she'll start laughing and tell me it's all a joke.

"You really expect me to-!"

"I have other things to do, as you know I'm very busy, Anti, so please, if you may?" She motions toward the door and hands the folder to me.

I growl and snatch the folder from her hands, and glitch the whole way to the door. I would've slammed it, but she beat me to it and closes the door gently.

I stare at the cream and ash colored folder, and almost tear it to shreds, but something inside of me tells me not to, so I don't. Instead, I start walking to my room again.

How am I supposed to kill someone I don't know anything about?