“Go!” Xav screams again as Father leans down and slits his throat.
I drop to my knees with a blood-curdling wail. My insides feel like they’ve been ripped out, my heart destroyed, and everything taken from me.
Father turns and walks away like he doesn’t have a care in the world while the men run for the SUV. While their backs are turned, I push Jacob into the plane.
“I will find you!”
Ipush the door closed, crawl under the plane and take off running for the tree line. As the plane starts to taxi down the runway, I hide in the trees and vow to kill them all before I get Jacob back. I need to make sure he’s safe. The SUVs drive away, and as the plane picks up speed in the opposite direction, my heart is in my mouth. If I were a religious person, I would be praying to God, to any deity I could right now, to let him be safe. The plane adjusts its trajectory and manages to take off. I sigh in relief as the plane lifts and soars into the sky. I look over to Xav’s prone body, his beautiful face lying vacant on the tarmac, blood pooling around him. It’s tragic, and I sob. Then the heat hits me and knocks me back a few feet, sending me flying through the air. The noise is deafening as I scream out with everything that’s left within me. The plane just exploded.
It's over. They’re both gone, everyone’s gone. They promised they wouldn’t leave me, and yet he took them anyway. He took everything I ever wanted, everything I ever loved. I close my eyes. I scream till I can no longer, and I collapse.
I’m cold, it’s dark, damp. I crack my eyes open and try to sit up. What happened? I look down, and I’m covered in ash and debris. There are flames in clumps all around, near the runway, and further down is a raging inferno. I reach up and touch my head. It's fucking throbbing. My fingers come away wet and sticky. I’m bleeding and confused.
I shake my head and try to shake the fog and the confusion, but I can’t quite remember. I can’t quite reach the truth. It’s there. I can almost reach it. I rub at my eyes, but the blood has run down my face. My lashes are heavy with the stickiness. I remove my top and try to wipe my face to clear my vision, and it helps a little. I try to take a deep breath but just end up coughing from the smoke and ash burning my lungs. Stumbling towards the wreckage I gasp from the heat still surrounding it.
I roll onto all fours and stagger to my feet, gripping the tree for stability. It’s dark. All I can see is the massive fire and all the little fires. Where’s the fire brigade? Why aren’t they here fighting the fire? There’s no one around, there’s no sound, nothing. I try to focus. I close my eyes and try again for a deep breath. Straightening up, I stagger closer towards the carnage. When I reach Xav’s body lying on the tarmac, blood pooled around him, I roll him over. His wide eyes stare at nothing. I long for his touch once more. I take his hand in mine and bring it to my cheek. He was the only one I had till Jacob. I don’t know what to do or where to go. I’m so lost. He’s taken everything from me, my childhood, friends, family, Xav, Jacob, my heart and my soul. I close my eyes, and I hear it. I hear his voice, my Xav, he promised he wouldn’t leave me, and he hasn’t.
“You know where to go, Vic,”he says. It rings through my head like he’s standing right beside me, and my eyes flutter as I lean in for his touch.“You know what to do, Vic.”
It’s a whisper in the wind. It caresses my cheek as it seeps into my body. I feel his kiss on the back of myneck, the ghost of a promise we will always be together. I bring his hand to my lips and kiss it one last time before touching it to my forehead. I take a breath and close his eyes, kissing each one before standing and nodding to him. I do know where to go, and I do know what to do.
As I stand, I crack my neck and smile. “I’m about to burn the world down, Father. You have front-row fucking seats to it. See you in hell!” I laugh as I walk towards the car we came in.
The doors are still open. I close them and climb in. I see Xav’s laptop still sitting there. Clearly, Father didn’t think to check the car with us all dead.
I hug the laptop close. I have everything I need now. I need to get to work. I drive cautiously back to the safe house. I shower and climb into the bed, where I can still smell Jacob. I wrap my arms around myself, and I hear Xav’s voice again. I close my eyes, the flutter of his breath against my skin, his heat at my back, the kiss, the kiss he always gives me to the back of my neck to his name carved there by us so long ago. I rest my eyes.
“Tomorrow’s a new day, Vic. Now sleep,”he says, and I nestle back into his warmth, for tomorrow is a new day, and I am the bringer of death.
I wake after a disturbed sleep, to say the least, with images of the dead haunting my dreams, but I have a purpose. I have a new day and a new beginning. I’m dead, or at least they think I am. It's time to truly become what Father created me to be. His worst fucking nightmare. What have I got to lose?
I open Xav’s laptop. I pull up all the members of The Collective. Thirty-six in total, these are the main players, the backbone. I separate them into tiers, and there are three. The worker bees, the lower ones trying to get their foot in the door. The drones, the ones dishing out the orders, the ones who look like they’re in charge. And lastly, the Queen Bee, Father. I’m going to save him for last. I want him to know it’s me coming for him. I want to smell and taste that fear when he realises he took the only thing that’s ever stopped me from killing him away from me. He’s taken my heart. Xav was so much more. He was my conscience, and without him, all bets are off. I’m going to collect each and every one of their screams and create a symphony to heal my dead, broken heart.
I smile. Let’s see how creative I can truly be when reality now plays no part in my vengeance.
I will go after the assassins first, ten of us originally, eight to kill. Once I’ve killed them, there’s no one left to protect the others. They have bodyguards, but when you’re as skilled as I am, why the fuck even bother? They will be cannon fodder at best.
I slip into the back door of The Collective’s system. Xav has had a way into it for years.“You know what to do, Vic. Release the chaos,”he whispers around me, and my eyes flutter closed for a second. I set the virus going. It will eat its way through their system, retrieving data and haemorrhaging their funds. It meant he could keep track of everything from Father without himknowing. I can intercept messages, create my own and create non-existent jobs.
I have the funds we’ve been syphoning off the stupid motherfuckers for years. Where do you think the money came from to rehabilitate the innocent? That’s right, we steal it straight out of their own pockets. The worm Xav created years ago, links to all their accounts, personal, business, and offshore, and effectively redirects slivers to us on every keystroke, so they don’t even realise it’s missing.
I create four hits. They’re all roughly in the same area. They won’t know that, though. Why go to them when I can have them come to me?
I slip into the apartment. It’s so dark. It’s funny how few security measures most assassins take. We think, well, who’s going to sneak up on us and kill us? Well, until now, the answer has always been no one, but now, it’s me, motherfucker. I’m coming for you all.
I whistle as I walk down the hallway to the bedroom at the end. I open the door, and there’s the slightest click that startles him awake as he sits up in bed. I raise my gun with the silencer on and double-tap between the eyes. He crumples back to the bed. I’m not going for theatrics here. I will save that all for Father, the one who started this whole shit show. I’m going to be the one to finish it, though.
I search the whole apartment. I find his safe; we all have one, and I take my clippers out of my bag and remove both of his thumbs, pressing them to the padson the device, and I grin. What a stupid way to be able to get in a safe. I open it up and remove all his knives, guns, and cash, loading it all into my bag. I leave one identity, tossing it on him. The passport and driving licence I leave are his true identity. We all have them, no matter how long it’s been. All their crimes in the files are linked to this original identity; it doesn’t matter now he’s dead, but when it's reported, Father will know someone’s cleaning house. I smile to myself with a sadistic grin.“Surprise, motherfucker,”his voice whispers over me,and I let out a maniacal laugh as I turn to leave.
“Next!”
I head to the hotel next. She’s working, waiting for the mark to show up. She’s predictable, this one. She’s dressed like a two-dollar hooker. I wonder how some of them actually manage to not kill themselves if their stupidity is anything to go by.
I pay for the hotel room and slip upstairs. I get set up, and I call down to the bar to say her client is waiting in his room. There’s a small rap at the door, and I wait out of sight till the door clicks open. She tentatively takes a step into the room. I have all the lights off, except for the bedroom one, and I’ve left the light on, and the door cracked open. She speaks into the room but then steps in and walks to the bedroom, calling out her presence. As she steps towards the room, I swing out from my hiding spot, grabbing her around the throat and stabbing her in the carotid. If these are the best we have to offer,we need to be shut down. It’s a shit show, is what it is. They’ve gotten too big for their boots and think they’re invincible. Well, you might have been the hunter and forgot to watch over your shoulder, but now you’re the hunted, and I will kill you all, and you won’t see me coming till it’s too late.His breath flutters on the back of my neck, and I smile.
She crumples to the floor, gagging on her own blood. Two down, six to go. I step towards the door and leave the do not disturb sign on the outside. I’ve paid for a week, so she should stay unfound till then.
The next two are going to be harder to kill, twins. They’re hot, sexy and dangerous, and maybe I could have a little fun while I work. A girl has needs, after all.
