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Memory is a landscape of hands too afraid to make fists. Memory is a tall smokestack bleeding out ghosts. Memory is a needle hidden in dandelion roots. Memory is a wishbone rattling inside the altar box.
Memoria, Keaton St. James
McKenna's whole life has been about two things: kill or be killed.
What once was a girl of bows tied in her hair playing with dolls in the middle of her living room was now a woman of bleeding guns and rotting flesh; McKenna doesn't even remember what her childhood used to look like because maybe it was never real. She barely remembers anything past the age of thirteen, the age where her girlhood should have started, but instead it was taken from her.
McKenna was only three years old when her parents were murdered by a group of highly trained assassins, only she didn't know the truth. All she knew was that her parents were dead and she was taken in by The Handler, a woman whom claimed to be her mother, but all McKenna knows is that she took care of her.
Did that make her a mother or her kidnapper?
When McKenna was of age, The Handler told her the truth about her line of work and when she turned thirteen, McKenna was trained to be the most successful assassin at the Commission, a title she achieved by the age of twenty-two. Many were jealous of her, something that pushed her to work even harder, because McKenna cared more about being the best than about making friends.
Questions were raised ever since the girl started her training but one always stuck with her: was she the best because her mother made her that was or because she was born to be?
Not many people knew the truth about McKenna Barlowe. All they knew was that she was The Handler's daughter. The truth was is that McKenna was born October first, making her one of the rare children all born on the same day with powers. But she was a unique case. Instead of one power, she had multiple, something she used to her advance when she went on missions. From being able to move stuff with her mind, to making herself turn invisible, and to being able to teleport from one spot to another, McKenna was both an valued asset and a threat to the Commission.
McKenna was a master manipulator. She was cunning and sly. Five Hargreeves was merciless and callous, resentful and indignant. He was once a sweet, caring boy who did anything and everything for his family despite their upbringing but now, he was angry and cold. All those qualities is what made a great assassin. They were two sides of the same coin and yet McKenna couldn't help but feel jealous that she was no longer looked at as the most powerful.
And yet they both wanted the same thing. Something larger than life itself: fancy cars, money, large houses, but most importantly, power. McKenna was known to be a trickster, a swindler, a cowboy. She and Five also had that in common because he, too, was a trickster and a bandit, hustling for a good life.
