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  When I went to move the Mark’s body, acutely aware that someone could stumble upon us at any moment, the child rushed toward me.

  She shoved me hard when I tried to lift him under the shoulders. Of course, I barely felt the push, but it was the fire in her eyes that gave me pause.

  “Don’t touch him,” she snapped, looking up at me.

  Then she examined his body, checking his pulse, listening for the beat of a heart in his chest. His blood got on her hands, her face, in her hair, but she did not seem to care. She only checked him over with the poise of a veteran medical professional, and I just stood there staring like a fucking weirdo.

  I needed to let the Collectors come and take his body as proof that the job had been completed, and I told myself that this was the only reason I did what I did next.

  Trying to remember what it was like to feel compassion, I stooped beside the child and bit my lip, searching for words.

  “Hey,” I said. “Uh… It’s gonna be okay.”

  Genius, Iliana. Just fucking genius.

  The girl glanced up at me with wide but dry eyes. “He’s dead. He was my guardian. I…I needed him.”

  These words were spoken with a flatness that I chalked up to shock, and the cold heart in my chest thudded heavily as they brought back a very specific memory from my past, a memory, that, ironically, had happened on this very night fourteen years ago.

  I shoved away the thoughts, turning my mind back to the task at hand. Reaching back into my waistband, I removed the Gladius and held it out to the child. “Hold onto this for me?” I asked, jerking my chin toward the edge of the path. “And go have a seat on that bench over there.”

  The child looked at me like she wasn’t going to obey, but then, slowly, she took the weapon from my hand and wandered over to the bench. When she slid down onto it, her shoes didn’t even reach the ground. I made quick work of pulling the Mark’s body away from the immediate path. Then I shot a text to the Collectors with the coordinates. They would be here within twenty minutes, and every sign of what had taken place here would be wiped from the earth.

  After this was done, I returned to the child. Selfishly, I wanted to take the Gladius back from her—I’d always wanted one of the damn things, and they were as rare as dragon eggs. But seeing the way she was holding it, eyeing it with such reverence, I knew I could do no such thing. Not yet, anyway.

  He was my guardian, she’d said. I needed him.

  Fuck.

  I glanced around, still amazed that we’d gone uninterrupted until now. My job was done, but what was I supposed to do, leave the girl sitting there? If I’d asked my Superiors, and even most of my Sisters, the answer would have been an immediate and immoveable yes. Yes, Iliana, that was exactly what the fuck you were supposed to do. Your job was done. Mission accomplished. Who cared what happened to a human child? It was not my problem.

  Life can change on a dime. Sometimes one simple decision can alter the path of that life, ensuring consequences that could not be foreseen.

  This was one of those instances, and I was sure to be seeing the consequences for longer than I cared to anticipate.

  Instead of walking away, I approached the child where she sat on the bench, still staring down at the sword. Maybe it was the fact that she reminded me of myself fourteen years ago—just a child with big eyes and not a single soul left in the world that gave a single shit about her.

  Whatever it was, I held my hand out to her, my voice gentler than perhaps it had ever been. “Come with me,” I said.

  There was a brief moment of hesitation. Then, the child placed her hand into mine and stood from the bench.

  She glanced back only once, to the spot where her caretaker had fallen. Then she raised her little chin and let me lead her away.

  Twenty minutes later, we were in my loft.

  I went straight to the fridge and grabbed a beer, chugging it until it was gone. The child stood watching me as I did so, and I decided I regretted this decision already.

  The man’s blood was still on her, so I pointed to a door across from the kitchen. “The bathroom is right there,” I said. “Go take a shower and throw your clothes out the door. I’ll wash them, and you can wear some of my stuff until they’re clean.”

  The child blinked at me for a moment, and my irritation spiked as I thought I’d have to repeat the directive, but then she simply turned on her heels and headed into the bathroom. The shower started a moment later, and I slumped back against the kitchen counter, grabbing another beer from the fridge before doing so.

  I’d tried to ignore the obvious questions, but found them arising now that I had a minute to myself. Who the hell was this child and the man she’d been with? Where had he gotten the Gladius? Why were the Accursed after them?

  “I don’t want the answers to those fucking questions,” I mumbled to myself.

  I decided that I would take her to the police station and leave her there. The humans would put her in the foster care system, and she would be taken care of. My involvement would end here. I didn’t need to dig any deeper into this mess. Not my circus. Not my monkey.

  I busied myself by gathering the child’s clothes from where she’d tossed them outside the door and running cold water over the blood already trying to set into the fabric. I stuffed the items in the washer and retrieved some of my clothes from the closet, opening the bathroom door and balancing them on the sink for when the child finished showering. Then I retrieved another beer.

  I drank three more brews before the child emerged from the bathroom. She stared at me in silence as I sat up a little straighter on the couch and blinked back at her. Her dark brown hair hung in wet ringlets down her shoulders. She looked so tiny in my clothing, with the big black shirt I’d given her hanging almost to her knees, and the sweatpants bunched up in the front where she held them to keep them aloft.

  I gestured her forward, setting my beer aside so that I could tie the front of the sweatpants. She hesitated only a moment, perhaps sensing the danger around me that sometimes took others too long to tune into.

  She climbed onto the couch beside me, her big brown eyes never leaving my face.

  “What’s your name?” she asked.

  “Iliana.”

  A slight pause. “Do you want to know mine?”

  I already knew hers. I’d heard the man say it.

  “No,” I answered.

  “It’s Vida.”

  I sighed.

  “What are you going to do with me, Iliana?” she asked.

  I took another swig of my beer, regretting this whole decision more than ever. “In the morning, I’m going to take you to the police station. They’ll figure out what to do with you.”

  Vida looked down at her hands, and for a horrified second, I thought she was going to cry. I hated when people cried, and hadn’t done so myself for longer than I could remember. It was one of the first things they’d beaten out of us at the Academy. Crying showed weakness, and even for all our riches, a Sister could afford none.

  But Vida did not cry, she simply drew a deep breath and nodded.

  “Unless you have someone else you’d like to go to?” I asked, relieved. “Some other family member? An uncle or aunt, maybe?”

  She shook her head, dark curls shifting on her shoulders. “There’s no one.”

  I nodded, trying and failing not to flash back to my own childhood. “You hungry?” I asked.

  “No. He…he fed me before….”

  She didn’t finish. I set my empty beer down and stood, stretching. I pointed at a room across from us. “That’s my room. I’m going to sleep. That door over there is the guest bedroom, and you should probably go to sleep too.”

  Vida followed my finger, biting her lip. She said nothing.

  I paused, wondering about her line of questions. She’d asked my name, and what I was going to do with her, rather than what those creatures were that had attacked her male companion, or why they’d wanted to kidnap her, or how I’d u
sed fire magic and the Calidi chain to kill them. I was still pretty sure she was human, and that meant the whole scene should have thrown her seriously off kilter.

  When the silence stretched between us, I retreated to my room, chalking it up to shock. A few minutes later, I heard the door to the other bedroom open and close, and reassured myself that in the morning I’d be free of this burden.

  Not my circus, Gods damn it. Not my monkey.

  3

  When I emerged from my room the following morning, I found Vida sitting on my couch.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  This greeting took me aback. It was so normal, not the kind of response I’d expect from a child who’d witnessed the murder of her guardian just the night before. She was once again wearing her own clothing, though I was sure that I’d forgotten to put it from the washer into the dryer the night before. Furthermore, there was a banana peel and the wrapper of one of my protein bars beside her. When I glanced at this, she got up and threw these things away, returning to her spot on the couch and looking at me as if awaiting instructions.

  “Did you dry your clothes?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she replied.

  I wondered if she was a little older than she looked, or if she was just extremely self-efficient for a child. It seemed every moment I spent with her bred more questions, but I was determined not to know the answers. I already knew more than I cared to.

  “I’m taking you to the police station,” I said.

  Vida’s mouth pressed into a grim line, and she nodded.

  Part of me had expected her to argue, to ask to stay with me, and I was more than relieved when she didn’t.

  It was a ten-block walk to the nearest police station, and while I had various vehicles at my disposal, I opted for going on foot. Still, Vida did not complain or comment. She didn’t ask for any further information, nor did she offer any.

  Like a foolish cat, this only seemed to pique my curiosity.

  I resisted the urge to indulge. By the time we reached the police station, I was relieved to be done with this.

  When I stopped at the bottom of the steps that led up to the old stone building, Vida paused and looked back at me.

  “You’re not coming in?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “They’ll ask a lot of questions if I do, and you can probably answer them better than me. Just tell them you’re on your own. They’ll know what to do.”

  Vida stared at me for a moment, and again, I was sure that she was going to ask me to stay, or to keep her with me.

  But she didn’t.

  “I owe you one,” she said instead, and turned away. I might’ve found this endearing, had I been capable of such feelings.

  The child’s small shoulders were squared, her chin raised as she walked into the station and out of my life.

  The rest of the day was mine. In fact, until I received another Mark from the Superiors, I was free to do whatever I wanted.

  My usual routine consisted of buying good food and luxury items, drinking until I found it hard to stand, and finding random attractive males with whom to distract myself. I was halfway through this routine when my phone buzzed with a message from the Superiors.

  I thought it was strange that there was another Mark coming so soon on the heels of the last one, but this was not terribly unusual. It just meant there was a higher volume of work at the moment. The average interval was a week between marks, which made for around fifty-two kills a year, an honorable number for any Sister.

  But this message was not about a Mark.

  It was about the child.

  It read:

  Are you in possession of the child who was with Mark 224?

  I blinked down at the words. This was not usual. The people who contacted us never asked any questions beyond a request for confirmation that the job was complete.

  My heart picked up in pace as I searched for a response. Things I hadn’t fully considered last night were being considered now. How would the Sisterhood feel about my actions, about my taking the child into the loft, housing her for an evening, and then dropping her off at the police station? I had no answer for this, because I’d never been in such a situation before. The Code insisted that one never got involved in the lives of a Mark, to never go beyond the point of contact that was the kill.

  Deciding that brevity was the safest choice, I sent back a simple no, and received an answer back immediately.

  Was she with the Mark when you completed the task?

  My pulse picked up a little more. I bit my lip, the thought of lying to the Superiors not even crossing my mind.

  Yes.

  Another immediate answer.

  Did you leave her at the POD?

  The POD was the point of dispatch.

  Now I did consider lying, a testament to the peculiarity of the situation.

  Again, I decided honesty was a good policy. The Superiors of the Sisterhood were not people one wanted to lie to; they had ways of knowing things, and they were always swift and precise in their punishments.

  No. I took her in for the night and then dropped her off at the police station on 17th street.

  This time, the response was delayed. In fact, I didn’t get a return text for a half an hour. In that long thirty minutes, I paced nervously around the loft.

  When the next message finally came through, it read:

  Ok.

  I stared down at those two letters, gut sinking. The questions that I’d forced myself to avoid last night when I’d been in possession of the girl came back with a vengeance. Who in the ten hells was that child? Why did everyone have such a keen interest in her? What were the consequences of what I’d done? Would there be any consequences? Who was the man she was with, and where had he gotten that rare supernatural sword? (Which, by the way, I’d been sure to lift from the girl before dropping her off.)

  A week went by, and I received no more contact regarding the matter. When the name of my next Mark came through the following Saturday, I’d nearly managed to put the whole incident out of my head, and was glad to have been handed a new mission.

  This one took me two and a half hours south, to a town that was rather unassuming, situated on a quaint island along the eastern seaboard.

  A warm summer mist rolled over the town as I rode in on my Harley Roadster, the fog such that I could hardly see ten feet in front of me. The salty air was pleasant and heady, sticking to my leather jacket and my black helmet as I checked into a motel set back on the beach. Once there, I opened the digital document that had been provided to me on my laptop, and went over the details a final time. There was no name, no background information. Only a picture, a deadline, and a location.

  I closed the computer and sipped on a bottle I found in the minibar, resting back on the bed until the sun sank behind the curtains. Once night had fallen, I got up, pulled on my boots and jacket and headed out the door. The fog that I’d ridden through earlier was thicker now, blanketing the coastal town and lending a morose feel to the evening.

  I headed toward the location I’d been given, found a good vantage spot in the boughs of a wide old oak, and waited for my quarry.

  With the veil of the leaves and fog, it was difficult to see the front door of the house where my Mark should be. But I had strong senses, and when she emerged from the dwelling forty-five minutes later, I heard rather than saw her. With a litheness that was the result of years of training, I slipped down off the branch on which I was perched, landing silently on my feet.

  I let my senses probe the area around me for any other presences. The street was residential, the hour late. The following day must be when the garbage was collected, because I could smell rotting food and other various waste, and as I drew closer, I indeed spotted bins and trashcans lined up along the curb.

  This was the task in which the Mark was currently engaged. There was a large blue bin in her hands, and she was lugging it toward the sidewalk. With one final check that we were indeed alone,
I slipped out of the shadows and mist and came to a stop before her.

  A disarming smile was on my face, the same smile the Superiors had made us all practice in the mirror for hours on end, until our cheeks ached and our eyes watered. Our docile and sweet appearances were one of the Sisters’ greatest weapons, which was why we kept our hair long and soft, our figures trim, and our makeup in place. Not a one of us looked on the outsides like the monsters we’d been cultivated into on the inside.

  “Oh!” she said when I appeared, she eyed me apprehensively. “Didn’t see you—.” Her words dried up dead in her throat, her eyes going wide as she caught sight of the Mark of the Sisterhood on my wrist.

  There were no more words between the Mark and me. I noticed off-handedly that she was middle-aged, tall, and had a mousy sort of face. Then, fast as a snake, I took both sides of her head into my hands and snapped her neck in a single, swift motion. The sound of the crack was one I’d heard dozens of times before. I caught her body as the life left it and she slumped into my arms.

  Then I dragged her around to the rear of the house from which she’d emerged, and stowed her inside the tool shed.

  With a text to the Collectors, I headed back to my motel, eager to see what else was in that minibar and pass out until I could return to my loft in the city the next morning.

  When I reached the room, I kicked off my boots and settled back on the bed. I drank and tried for sleep, but slumber would not find me. It was not the kill that was keeping me up—I’d killed several before and this Mark had been no different. I couldn’t say what it was, exactly, but I repeated the mantra of the Sisters and still could not find sleep until long after midnight.

  What was wrong with me lately? Why did I feel not quite content, when in all facets of my life, I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing? I was one of the most revered and experienced of the Sisters, the one others came to for advice and help. I was the one who got the job done, no matter what.