Unseen

Chapter 24

Violet, invisible, crept up the darkened staircase. She moved quickly—she had to, with the clock in her cells counting down. But her every footstep was silent on the lush carpet that covered the stairs.

She trailed her fingers along the banister. Her thin leather gloves—a gift from Yvette—meant she wouldn't have to worry about leaving fingerprints.

She let go of the banister as she reached the top of the stairs. The soft sound of snoring emanated from a closed door. Slowly, Violet turned the knob. She pushed the door open without a squeak.

The target was sprawled across his mattress, taking up the entire king bed. He had kicked off the covers, and drooled onto the pillow as he snored. Violet pulled out her dagger—another gift from Yvette—and crept up to the head of the bed.

As she took the final step, the floor creaked under her weight.

The target's eyes flew open.

He reached under his pillow and pulled out a handgun. He sat up quickly, alertness flooding his eyes faster than Violet had expected. The gun barrel swept side to side as his eyes scanned the room.

The clock inside her counted down, and down, and down. She had ten seconds. Maybe less.

Good thing she didn't need ten seconds.

As the target searched the room for the intruder, she ducked under the barrel of his gun. She drove the knife in under his ribs and pierced his heart.

His eyes went round. He let out a choked gasp.

Violet flickered back into existence as she drove the knife deeper. The target's frantic eyes landed on her. He swung the gun down to aim at her—

Just as it fell from his nerveless fingers.

He fell backward onto the bed. A slow trickle of blood out from the wound. Violet pulled the knife free, and the trickle became a gush. A puddle of red spread out around him to soak into the silk sheets.

Violet watched him to make sure he was dead. Then she wiped her dagger off on the sheets and tucked it away. She pulled out the walkie-talkies Yvette had gotten—some expensive model that Yvette said communicated on an encrypted frequency, although Violet wasn't entirely sure what that meant.

"It's done," she said. "No problems."

Only silence answered her.

"Yvette?" Fear constricted Violet's chest. "It's done," she repeated. "Did you hear me? Are you there?"

"I'm here," came a familiar voice from behind her. "I heard you."

Violet spun around to see Yvette standing in the doorway.

Yvette wouldn't have had enough time to come in after receiving Violet's message. "What are you doing in here? Were you in here with me from the start?" Violet's tone was faintly accusing.

In answer, Yvette looked down at her feet. She gave Violet an abashed shrug. "I thought you could use backup."

"I'm a trained assassin," Violet pointed out. "If I ran into something I couldn't handle, what do you think you would be able to do?"

"I'm getting better with a gun," Yvette pointed out. "All those hours at the firing range are paying off."

"You don't need to protect me," Violet reminded her, her tone gentle to soften her words. "Not from something like this. This is easy."

Yvette's wry smile told Violet she knew the truth of the words. "No, you just need me to explain things like what a bedspread is, or that you shouldn't sprinkle coffee grounds on your popcorn." She shook her head with an affectionate laugh, seemingly unbothered by the fresh corpse in the bed. But then, Yvette was no stranger to corpses. "You're full of contradictions, did you know that?"

"I don't see any contradiction there," said Violet with a frown.

"You wouldn't." Yvette let out another soft chuckle. Then, all business, she looked down at the body. "That's one more bad guy gone," she said. "He's not going to be selling any more kids any time soon."

Violet followed her gaze. "Does it... bother you at all?" she asked hesitantly. "Killing criminals when you used to be one of them?"

"I was never one of them," Yvette said with a vehemence that pulled Violet's startled gaze to her. "There are lines I would never have crossed, no matter how profitable it would have been. There are lines even my father wouldn't cross."

Yvette's words, benign as they were, cut as deeply as the dagger in her hand. They drove into her belly with a painful pang.

Yvette noticed—of course she did. She frowned. "Is something wrong?"

Violet thought about saying no. But she and Yvette were past lying to each other by now. "I've been wondering about those lines," she admitted. "About good and bad. I've been thinking about how PERI was... probably actually pretty bad. Which means I was too, when I worked for them."

She had been thinking about this for a while now, but she hadn't wanted to say it. She had been afraid Yvette would wave her worries away. That she would say Violet's suspicions were wrong, and PERI had only ever killed targets who deserved it. Or that Violet hadn't been responsible for anything she did when she worked for them. Or, worst of all, that it was all in the past now and she shouldn't worry about it.

She should have had more faith in Yvette than that. Yvette didn't say any of those things. She answered with a solemn nod and a quiet, "Do you want to talk about it?"

At some point, Violet knew she would take Yvette up on that. But not now. Not with the corpse of her latest target in front of her, and the tingle of purpose in her veins.

Tonight was a night to savor.

Violet shook her head. "I want to try a new kind of food," she said. "Something I haven't tried before. And then I want to plan our next target."

"I've already got a target lined up," said Yvette. "And we're having Indian food tonight." The answers came so quickly that Violet suspected Yvette had already known what she would want.

Of course she had. They knew each other well, these days.

"I found a restaurant that's open late," Yvette added. "But before we go, we should go home and get you cleaned up. You have blood on you."

Violet looked down at the fresh red streaks. "Oh, right. I forgot that bothers people."

That earned her another quiet laugh from Yvette. The sound brought a smile to her own face.

They walked out of the house together, into the cold night air. Outside, the faint moonlight bathed them both in white. They strolled into the shadows to hide—Violet didn't need the help, but Yvette did. The street was straight out of a storybook, with a line of rainbow houses all in a row, but the sight had lost its wonder. Violet had other things to be awed by now.

Like Indian food. Like Yvette's laugh.

In the safety of the shadows, she twirled once, slowly. Then she took Yvette's hand.

The road stretched ahead into the distance. The stars were more distant still. The world was larger than she could comprehend, and every inch of it was glorious.

And tonight—and every night—it was all hers.

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I hope you enjoyed this story! Watch for Protector, a new Mind Games novel, with chapters coming out 3x/week starting 7/8. Or read the full novel now on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=28038571