77 HOURS

five

HOUR 50

There was a heavy silence that encompassed the room in which the two assassins sat. Six knew that in her mind, he was her least favorite person right now even though he had just saved her life. He knew that she saw the act as a betrayal. Not noble. She wouldn't even look at him, just stared at the floor in front of her, quiet as a mouse. He wanted to explain his decision, but it wasn't the time. He had to wait out her anger. All he wanted was to know what was on her mind. She seemed so deep in thought. He wondered if she was imagining how to escape and save Claire, or if she was thinking of ways to kill him. Her face was unreadable so there was no way for him to tell. Yet after hours of silence, she finally spoke. Her voice was calm. A little too calm that it was unsettling, but Six got what he wanted. She told him exactly what he wanted to know.

"My parents were scientists." She mumbled, recalling her past. Six's eyes danced over her face which still pointed towards the ground as she spoke, "They worked long hours so my sister and I spent a lot of time with sitters. And my sister wasn't very present in my life. She had better things to do than hang out with her little sibling. She must've gotten that mindset from our mom and dad since they seemed to be uninterested in raising kids. So focused on their careers that they hardly even had time for even each other.

"I was such an angry kid. I remember drawing on the walls in crayons just to get back at them. Got in trouble at school. I would lash out in so many stupid and childish ways, but I was still never satisfied with the attention I received. They just took away the crayons, painted over the drawings, ignored the school principal, and hired new babysitters once the others quit. They would yell occasionally but even then, they would just roll their eyes and go about their day. I tried so hard to get their attention and they never understood that I was only angry because all I wanted was to be treated like they cared about me." She paused, looking up at the wall, "I hated them for not understanding me. I hated my sister for never spending time with me. I hated the babysitters for always leaving when I became too difficult to handle. I hated every single one of them with everything in my little body. And then, on the way to school one morning, it was all of us in the car, and a song came on the radio. My mom turned to me and smiled, 'it's your favorite song' she said. I remember being so shocked that she recognized it, and then she started singing. Soon enough, everyone in the car was singing except me. It was the first time that I felt like I actually had a normal, loving family, and I just... forgot the words to my favorite song. 'Ain't No Mountain High Enough' by Marvin Gaye." It suddenly made sense to him why she was telling this story. Normally, sharing personal details as a Sierra Agent was strictly forbidden, but all he could think about was the chorus of the song. It was the same tune that she'd been humming before. "I was definitely too young to be feeling all of those emotions, but right as the song ended, a silver pickup truck ran a red light and t-boned us. If you haven't guessed already, I was the only one who survived the accident." Her face held no emotion as she recalled the turning point in her life.

"The doctors said it was a miracle that I even lived. She said something about how 'God has bigger plans for me' but I still think that's bullshit. I spent 11 years of my life thinking that my family didn't love me, thinking that they never cared, and right when it dawns on me that maybe they do love me and maybe they do care, they just didn't know how to show it, they get taken from me. Spent my whole life up until that moment thinking I was alone and then I actually was all alone.

"The next five years I spent bouncing around the foster system. The accident only made me angrier at life so as expected, my foster families never kept me for long and it's harder to be adopted as you get older. Nobody wanted me... and to be honest... I didn't want any of them. Until I turned 16 and Frank entered my life. He adopted me. I don't know how considering he was like 50 and didn't seem fit to take care of a teenager. My theory is that since he was ex-military, they thought that maybe he would knock some sense into me. Which he did. He saw me and recognized my anger. He was former special ops. Trained SWAT in close-quarter combat and precision shooting. He taught me how to focus my anger on training. Shaped me into the agent I am today. After I turned 18, I did my own work in special ops. I took on training others in shooting. I know now that he only adopted me to train a fighter-- that I should hate him for giving me this life... but I have a talent for it. It's what I'm good at. He was the only person who ever understood my anger. He was the only person I knew who loved me. When I was 21, he went out for a few drinks, got a little too drunk, and a group of Irish thugs tried to mug him. He fought back and got himself shot. After that, everything that he told me about controlling and suppressing my anger was thrown out the window. I hunted down every single person associated with his death and killed them. I didn't even care about being discrete so it was no surprise that I got arrested and charged with five accounts of murder. Served 7 years in jail before Fitzroy found me." She finally looked up to Six, eyes narrowing as her jaw clenched.