Intoxicate [❌]

10 - Tear

[Anatox]

I can't do this anymore.

I know Dagger told me to keep an eye on Tonix. And I was willing to do so, since there's obviously something really weird going on here with our connected brains or whatever. But I am not someone who likes being cooped up in my quite small apartment room with a mental case that obviously needed more therapy than I could give him. Because I feel the same way, so there's not much in comforting him.

At the moment, I was now walking across the bottom floor of the collapsed parking garage that was the organization's "headquarters." Funny to call it that, sounds much more sophisticated than the smell of cigarettes in a not at all insulated concrete room littered with trash and other miscellaneous objects. I heard some people fighting somewhere in the room. I didn't check it out, and made a beeline to Dagger's office.

He was conveniently coming out of his office when I happened to be reaching for the handle. I caught myself before I ran into him, took a step back to recollect myself, and met his surprised eyes.

"Oh, hello, Anatox," Dagger nodded in greeting. "Didn't expect you here. Aren't you supposed to be home?"

"I need an assignment," I started blatantly. "I'm not gonna be stuck in my own apartment watching some guy with maybe one very insane brain cell left in his empty head. He'll be fine. I just need to go out and do something to unwind."

Hopefully he'll be fine. When I'd left, I'd explicitly told him not to leave, kill himself, or get into anything while I was gone. Sometimes he makes me feel like I have a dog or something, only that dog is six or seven feet tall and losing his mind beyond comprehension.

"Aren't there other options to get out of the house?" Dagger chuckled, crossing his arms with that smirk he always wore when he thought I was being "stupid" or something along those lines. "Like, you could go see a movie or something."

"Okay, first off, there is no point in that," I said, rolling my eyes. "Second, if I stay still long enough to watch a whole movie I'm gonna die on the floor from blood loss long before it ends. And third, I am raised in chaos of many forms, and when I don't get that I get bored. Quickly."

"All fair points," Dagger said. He sat there for a moment, thinking before he slightly nodded to himself and looked back at me. "Alright. I'll give you a target. But only one - get back here to report your success or failure, you'll get paid, and you'll go directly home. Understood?"

I couldn't stop the smile from breaking across my face. "Understood."

Dagger gave me a lighthearted chuckle as he turned back through the door and began searching through the mess of papers on his desk. A minute or two of searching, and he came back with a paper and handed it to me. "There you go. Decent pay, easy target. You're welcome."

The profile was of not an adult, but an older teenager - the text next to the picture of the tan, short-haired redhead girl with pristine blue eyes said she was seventeen. High-school dropout, worked at a Walmart downtown. I found it a bit funny, since the target was younger than me - probably some very ticked-off ex wanting her out of their life entirely. Shame, but I didn't really care so long as I got paid. I nodded, and said a quick "Thanks" to Dagger before bolting back out of the parking garage.

-x-

I found the girl - Mallery Wilhelms - coming home from work around 6 PM. She was still in her blue Walmart uniform, a bright, happy expression on her pretty face as she walked with a slight bounce in her step down the sidewalk. Already I didn't like her. I could see why she was on the target list.

I'd already decided on the way how I'd kill her - my hand curled around the grip of the handgun I kept barrel-down in my pocket at all times. It was easiest, and least traceable. Plus there was no one around besides passing cars - best to maybe draw her into an alleyway before finishing the job. This should be pretty easy.