The Short Stories of Harry Styles

The Assignment: Part 5

In The Agency, there are two elite forces. 

One program is for soloists. Assassins, like myself, trained in all skill sets. Molded from the age of ten through a training program dubbed The Sparrows. A front to look like an elite ballet school when in fact they are training their youth to be cold blooded killers. 

The second program is one for partners. Trained to work together with specific skill sets to balance one another out. They are called Lock and Key. They are trained from infancy and partners are selected after extensive assessments on cognitive, emotional, and physical evaluations. These selections are rare. For every fifty sparrows there are only one lock and key partnership...maybe two.

More often than not, the partners fail. 

Too much emotion.

Too much care for one another.

Too much risk.

Sparrows are taught to blend in. Usually heavily tattooed or using make up to cover up the sparrow branding. We cannot stand out. Some modify their brand to look different, but a simple scan can reveal the brand to those who know the tricks of the trade. 

To say I did not know my assignment could be one of me was not only an understatement...

It was an impossibility.

There are only two hundred or so of us actively working, stationed in different countries. There are no teams, there are no interactions. 

We do not know one another but we know the signs.

Harry did not show the signs. 

I have always had the key on my wrist. I remember going to the tattoo shop to get it. The meaning behind it? Couldn't say. 

My training taught me to blend in...not to put thought into how I did it. 

I lied awake that night, after stitching my body back together, and tried to go back in my memory as far as possible. 

I remembered the ballet academy, the training, sniper skills, cognitive tests...I remembered it all. 

I remembered the isolation most of all. 

There were no interactions, ever. 

How then...could the man I was hired to terminate, have a matching lock on his wrist in the exact spot that I had a key? 

Could it have been a coincidence? 

No. He knew the words of our creed. 

He knew.

Something was aching in the back of my mind, something telling me that I was missing vital information. 

I needed to discover who Harry Styles was. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I awoke to the sound of knocking at my door. 

A hiss escaped my lips as I pulled my stiff shoulder through a beige cardigan. I darted around my room and pulled pants on in the process, assessing my hair and pulling on my fake glasses to get into character of the bashful neighbor. 

I knew it was him at the door.

A quick check to my stitches and I was opening the door with a small and timid grin on my face. 

Harry looked like he'd been to hell and back. Faint bruising from where I'd strangled him the night before lined his neck and could almost be passed as hickeys.