Follow the light《Yizhan version》

《Chapter 6: Not stabbing but hitting》

"I burn, I freeze; I am never warm. I am rigid; I forgot softness because it did not serve me . . ."  

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Qihe's POV  

"This is nothing between us, but I think it's safer for both you and Tracer that you're tied on a chair if you don't mind because both of you have a horrible urge to kill each other, like a cat and a dog," I smiled sheepishly while tying both of his hands, his killer eyes glaring up at me.  

"Even if he minds, he has not much choice," I glanced up at Eliwa, she was beautiful like always, sometimes I couldn't believe she was an assassin like Lily and us, I mean Lily and Eliwa both would have fit a way better world, and yet they were both determined to be a part of the community, about Lily's background there always had been a mystery, but why did Eliwa become an assassin? 

"The only good point of him is that we don't need to tape his mouth cuz he doesn't talk much or not at all anyway," I turned around Tracer was standing in the doorway, his hand around his wrist, and I turned around to Sean Xiao or Xiao Zhan, it was a wonder he was still alive. 

I walked towards the door, taking Tracer with me and leaving Eliwa with Sean. 

"How did he make it out alive without a scratch?" Tracer smiled deadly while I rolled my eyes at him. 

"Who said he didn't have a scratch?" My eyes wandered back to the room behind us, Eliwa casually leaning against the door while Sean sat there, tied on the chair his mouth shut, and that was when I noticed the dripping blood from his ear and the shot in the wall. 

"You threw a damn knife at his head!" I lowered my voice while I looked at Tracer, this was unlike him, so unlike him. 

"No, the knife slipped from my hand and almost hit him," Tracer glanced down at his nails, inspecting them while ignoring me. 

I took a deep breath, "the last time you killed someone using a knife, you stabbed them and told us you didn't stab him to death, but he bled to death after you hit him a few times casually with a knife, and you killed him because he was eyeing down Lily, so tell me, Tracer, what is the reason you're keeping him unwounded," his eyes were deep and unreadable, we all had our own secrets, and Lily was the one holding us together. 

Even though I knew the example I just used was unfair because I knew Tracer had done a background check-up on that man, who turned out to have cheated on his wife with multiple women and even impregnated them, yet left them behind, the person in front of me was not the Tracer I knew.  

"And besides that, we both know how fierce you can be, and the most important thing is that he is alive, not unwound, tell me why Tracer?" He sighed deeply, glancing behind my back to the room where Sean was tied, now talking to Eliwa, and he looked back at me. 

"Promise me you won't tell anyone," I rolled my eyes at his words before replying. 

"Tracer, we are friends since we were seven, we both are assassins, pled an oath, and still you don't trust me? We even jumped off an on-fire set building, and now you ask me to promise something?" Tracer smiled softly, one of the precious smiles he hadn't given away since Lily's kidnapping. 

"He is someone I used to know-" 

"Someone you used to be before you became an assassin?" He nodded slowly, closing his eyes, and the puzzle pieces fell together into one picture, that's why Tracer had so easily been able to capture Sean, but what was the relation between them? 

"Don't tell this to anyone, Qihe," I sighed with a nod, who would I even tell it to if I had the chance? 

"Then, does he knows?" Tracer shook his head, and from the way, he moved I knew he was holding back information, but this was his life and his story, I was no one to know things he did not want to tell. 

I was about to walk past Tracer when he grabbed my arm, "Qihe, promise me to let me handle him, okay?" I turned to look Tracer in the eyes. 

"You mean that you want to make him hate you, so you will feel justified for what you have done? It's an unhealthy coping mechanism, Lily would say." Tracer raised an eyebrow, "she's not here," he muttered and I couldn't help a light huff leaving my mouth. 

"Okay, I won't intervene, but it's okay to trust someone else besides us, Tracer," I said, patting his shoulder before walking past him towards my room, and when I stepped inside, I slammed the door behind me closed, falling with a thud on the bed, my head buried in a pillow, fresh memories of the memory came up that I had tried to suppress so hard . . . 

A woman is softly humming a lullaby, from her looks I can't make out who she is, but from her features, I can tell one thing: she is a beautiful woman. 

She cradled me in warmth and light like a mother would do with her child. 

The lullaby she is humming sounded somewhat familiar, just like the woman looks familiar, but I can't remember what and who they are, everything felt blurry when I try to concentrate, so I just listen to the wonderful melody of the lullaby which makes me feel calm and serene. 

At that moment, a long lost feeling nestled inside my chest, the warmth of safety and love.  Inside her arms, I felt like the time had stopped, what I won't mind because she gave me the feeling a mother would. A feeling I have never felt because my mother died giving birth to me. 

Out of nothing, the warmth around me deepened and kept deepening until it spreads out through the whole room and starts to get hotter until it hurts. 

Immediately my eyes snapped open. 

Wherever I looked there were flames, from every corner, I was surrounded, and the woman was no longer humming instead she was screaming. 

Blood gushed fast and not ending from a wound on her head, and she was reaching out for me. 

"Please, Qihe you must live... You have to!" Her voice was soft but full of love, and I saw how she lifeless fell on her knees, I wanted to help her. 

I tried to stretch my hand out to her, but at that moment I realized, I couldn't move at all, I internally panicked when I saw the flames going closer to her. 

And at the end, the only thing I could do was watching the flames rising higher and higher until it touched the ceiling, and at that moment I heard the woman screaming, for the last time, and I saw how the flames crawled up her clothes. 

This morning I woke up with this nightmare in the fresh back of my mind, haunting me wherever I went, I would never ever forget the reason I became an assassin, and I wouldn't stop until they were all buried away eight feet under the ground in an abandoned forest where no sunlight while come to touch them, ever again. 

Lily had promised me to help, and even though she did not know why I wanted some of them to disappear she never ever asked a word about it, since the moment I became an assassin of her community there was this unsaid rule of never asking questions, we just did our job came home and ate and slept in one house, when we did need someone we asked without question, and when one would be caught, we would be each other's backbone. 

A deep sigh escaped my mouth and, I turned around to sit when my door opened with a soft crack and I turned to meet Eliwa's eyes, that are deep brown like chocolate, to drown in. 

"I know why they wanted her in specifical words . . ." 

"Wha-?"  

"I know why they wanted Lily." 

Word count: 1397 words