SCREAM | ginny w.

SCREAM | one

"GOOD JOB." A voice from behind Vera would have made her jump if she hadn't already known he was there. "Your mission was a success and we were paid handsomely."

"You were paid handsomely," Vera muttered, though she was aware he could hear her. Her accent was still thick, despite having been separated from anyone who spoke her mother tongue for nine years. "I'll never see a single galleon of that." Something small and hard hit her back. She turned around, refusing to look him in the eye. He had thrown a galleon at her.

"For you, to spend however you wish," he simpered, though she could hear the smirk in his voice. "Not that you have anywhere to spend it. Now up. You've had your rest, it is time to train."

Vera scowled up at him meeting his eyes at last. There was something inhuman about them, as though he had stolen the eyes of a snake and worn them as if they were his own. His gaze was certainly venomous enough. He smiled coldly and put a hand on her cheek, before drawing it back to slap her. "Look me in the eyes again and your pretty face will see more than just my hand," he cooed, tracing her cheeks again. "Train, little lady."

Vera seethed as he turned around to saunter out of the room. She discreetly pulled a dagger out of her sleeve, readied to throw it when he whipped around, his wand in her face, his mouth already around the one word she didn't want to hear and-

She woke up with a start, the cheap sheets of her bed in the Leaky Cauldron sticking to her sweaty skin. With an almost silent sigh, she lay her head back on the pillow, her hair fanning out in front of her. She played with one of the ends, slightly lighter than her natural brown roots. Her hair held a lot of memories, and like all of hers, like the one that had just hijacked her dream, none of them were very good. It had finally grown out to its former length from before it had been chopped three years ago close to her chin. It had memories of several different colors, for her time undercover the year before. She pulled herself out of bed, holding in her groan as she moved her sore arm.

It wasn't like she didn't know where she was. She knew she was in London, not Germany. She was fifteen, not fourteen. And Alfred, the man who had taken her from her parents at six years old, was on his way to Azkaban today. But it didn't matter. She had been living in the fire for nine years, molded and emboldened by it. The sudden normality of her life was perturbing. It had only been a week since the raid on the mercenary compound and it was a lie to say she was adjusted. It didn't help that she was living in an inn, on her own.

It was easy to get lost in her thoughts. She didn't mean to, her thoughts were never as pleasant as she wished. She thought a lot about all of the people she had killed. Mostly how she wouldn't have had to kill them if she hadn't been so much of a coward. Her or them, which life was more important to her. And she always chose her own. For a while, she thought she was too valuable to the underground ring of assassins and mercenaries stationed in Germany to be disposed of. But she had the scar on her throat to prove otherwise. She had screamed at Alfred to stop but he only did when the woman, a dottering old thing in her 70s, was dead on the floor as well. And that's when Vera realized that it was either one of them or both of them- once she was dead, the target wouldn't just be spared. Control was an illusion, Vera knew that. Alfred had known it only as a one way street, and learning about treachery had ended up with a knife in Vera's back- more specifically, her shoulder. The wound had been healed a week ago, but the skin around it was still fresh and tender, the muscles still disrupted.

Though, Vera guessed, that was what happened when you got stabbed in the back.

A knock on the door interrupted her thoughts. She quickly grabbed a jumper and pulled it over her tank top that she had slept in. And, out of habit, she slipped a switchblade up into the sleeve. Stalking the door like it was her prey, her hand wrapped around the knob and opened the door to find the man that was her new headmaster standing outside the door.