But I can’t.
Because I look like her.
For the first time in my twenty-one years, I look just like my mother. My dark chestnut hair was always a dull tangle of thick locks, my face a little dirty, my clothes were a mixture of poverty and assassin uniform.
It wasn’t until today that I realized I’m more like the carefree woman I researched back when I joined the Lifeless League than I ever realized. There was never any resentment toward the woman who should have been my mother. She wasn’t someone who abandoned me, a forgotten child in the world. She was just… an absence.
Sometimes, when I was really little, I’d pretend the woman who took care of me but couldn’t communicate with me was my mother. She barely spoke to me at all. It didn’t stop me from pretending. It wasn’t until I signed my life away to Armond that I found out anything about my real mother.
She died a quiet but peaceful death.
Carbon monoxide poisoning when she was asleep. It didn’t hurt at all.
It was reassuring to me to know she hadn’t died in pain. That she hadn’t disowned me. That she was a good woman who I very much like to think loved and cared for me.
The article on her death mentioned she was outlived by her only child. What the short article failed to mention is where that child was at the time of her death. What that child went on to do. Who that child grew up to be.
My attention is held on the shine of my perfectly painted red nails, so much so that I don’t notice when Tylin walks in. His shoes stop an inch from the hem of my dress and I stare at his shoelaces for several moments before I realize he’s actually there.
“You look like you’ve been stood up for the senior prom.” He lowers himself, crouching down to meet my gaze.
My tongue slips across my lips and I force myself to push aside my very festive pity party.
I consider telling him I didn’t have a mother to make sure I attended school let alone a prom but once again, I push aside that damn pity party.
“I—” He pauses, his hands locking together in front of him. “I attempted to murder the higher power Armond has been showing an interest in. It wasn’t Armond I tried to kill.”
My brows raise and I keep quiet in hopes that he’ll feed me more information.
“The man, Derek Stallis, is someone of deadly intent. He’s been working for decades to create a source of power that could completely annihilate the human population.”
“What could Armond possibly offer him?”
“Since Armond is the leader of the Lifeless League, he has the one product Derek wants more than anything; immense power.”
“How’d you try to kill him?”
He shrugs with a small smile and it occurs to me that I’ve never seen the power which Tylin was so adamant he could kill me with.
“When I’m really focused and someone is unaware, I can sneak inside their minds. I can plant dangerous thoughts inside their pretty little heads.” There’s that cruel gleam in his eye that I always associate with his lies.
But this time, I think he’s entirely honest.
“You’re a telepath?”
He shakes his head at me slowly.
“Not at all. For majority of my life I never realized I possessed any powers, but bad things always followed when I was angry. When my emotions were at their highest and my target was at their weakest. Now I’m more in control. I probably could be a telepath if I used my ability for more than just killing.”
“All those bad things could just be a coincidence. Have you ever heard of karma, Ty?” I’m taunting him and he seems to be taking the bait.
“Maybe. I guess you’ll find out the next time you’re too relaxed around me.” A small smile pulls at the corner of his lips.
My eyes narrow on him and his subtle threat but I can’t help but smile back at his rarely shown happiness. His gaze lowers to the curve of my mouth and there’s a fleeting moment that I know he’s thinking about our kiss. The one he dismissed me from.
The one I’m not likely to forget for the rest of my life.
Because I’ll never be able to ask him about it. I’ll never have the nerve to kiss him again. Because he’s essentially my boss. And I am just his asset.
