The Queen of Hell

Chapter 2

*

Ashton sauntered from the doorway, strutting like a damn runway model. You'd think he'd also be annoyed that he had to work with me, but no. It seemed he was excited to make my life a misery. I narrowed my eyes in suspicion. That's not normal.

"Yeah, that's not happening" I said, turning back to Joseph, using all of my self control not to throw the dagger that was still in my hand. "You, unfortunately, don't have a choice" Joseph said, making 'unfortunately' sound unnecessarily sarcastic. I turned and glared at Ashton trying to decide if killing him was worth getting kicked out of the guild. His face lost the cheery smile and turned into a cautious glare as if he could read my thoughts.

Deciding he wasn't worth my entire life and hard work I turned around and I handed the folder back to Joseph, who went on and quickly handed it to Ashton to quickly read over. Once Ashton had finished reading Joseph repeated exactly what he said to me. All the while, I sat fuming. Why did I have to work with him? Of all people, Joseph even knows that we hate each other.

I didn't notice when Joseph dismissed us so I sat, still in my own angry thoughts as Joseph tried to get my attention. "Really?" I snapped at him as I started to go back to the real world. "Really? Of all people I could've gone with, of all the other assassins, you had to choose him. We can't work together Joseph, you know this and-" I noticed the look Joseph was giving me; I was angrily rambling and it was annoying him.

I clamped my mouth shut and resolved to just give him an angry glare. He levelled my glare with one just as scary. But I'd grown up staring back at that exact glare for too many years for it to be intimidating. I huffed, knowing I wouldn't get anywhere with this so I got up and stormed out, almost tearing the door off its hinges in the process.

Ashton was waiting for me down the hall and I cracked my knuckles as I approached, ready for this to get nasty. "Hey partner" I called, throwing as much spite into the word as I could. He smirked when he turned around and I knew this was going to go one of two ways.

"Hey. You know, I was planning on coming after you later but this works just fine too" His smirk grew and I regretted leaving Joseph's office. "Sir said that he needed me. He needed me on this mission. You wanna know why?" He paused and, just like Joseph, I swear it was for dramatic effect. "He said he needed me to keep an eye on you. Needed me to make sure you do this properly. Now why would he say that I wonder? Maybe it's because he thinks you're not capable?"

He kept taunting me, watching my anger levels rise. He knew exactly how to get a rise from me; taunt and belittle my achievements and my worth. He'd been there years ago and knew how well it worked. I clenched my fists trying not to lash out. I took some calming breaths, containing my anger, hiding it behind a straight face, as I'd been taught. My calm seemed to just irritate him so he threw a punch before quickly escaping down the hallway to the guild entrance.

My straight face turned into a scowl and you could probably see smoke coming out of my ears the second he left. But I knew I couldn't go after him because the second we both left guild property one of us would end up dead. So instead I made my way further down the halls to one place I could destroy something without getting in trouble.

I barged into the training room, the doors slamming against the walls with the amount of force I used to open them. I shoved several younger assassins out of the way as I made my way to the punching bag, ready to tear it to shreds.

I caught the attention of every assassin in the room and I could feel their confused stares burning into my skull as I started attacking the bag. The bag was swinging like crazy with the force of my strikes but I didn't care. I kept punching, not actually seeing the bag through the anger clouding my eyes.