Angel

Part Ten

Both men just stared at me silently, waiting for me to go on. I sighed deeply before sinking down onto my couch.

"It's Lucien...Navarro," I murmured, "and I was born in Madrid, Spain," I took a breath, hesitating for a second, "my parents died in a car accident when I was ten...and since there wasn't any immediate family willing to take me I was sent to a group home called Casa Refugio, or Haven House...it wasn't great, but I managed. When I was thirteen, some men came and started asking us all these questions like what our families were like, if we had any siblings, how well we were doing in school...that type of stuff...they left afterward and a few weeks later they came back and took me and another girl...we were the only ones without siblings or family," I sighed, "since we were technically wards of the state they were granted guardianship over us and could take us...no questions asked...they took us to Italy to some kind of facility."

"Fabbrica degli assassini," Rafael said quietly, "the assasin factory."

"You've heard of it?" I asked, giving him a confused look.

"It's sort of like an old wife's tale," he replied, "mothers would warn their kids to not wander the dark alleyways at night alone or the men in black suits would take them to the assasin factory and you would never see your family again."

"I figured out pretty quickly it wasn't just some group home," I said softly, "the supervisors started conducting tests and experiments on us. They tested our reflexes, our strength, our problem-solving abilities...that kind of stuff. They also tested our intelligence and our fight or flight response...we were only there for a few weeks before we were transferred out," I hesitated for a second, taking a deep breath, "I ended up in another facility with three other boys my age...Gunnar, Rhys, and Alexei...there was also an older man, but we never learned his real name...they said to just call him the Caregiver. Over the next five years, they trained us to use firearms and how to maintain them, how to fight in hand-to-hand combat and with knives, we learned several languages, how to conduct surveillance and tail people, how to get close to people," I sighed, shaking my head, "we never questioned their methods...when we were at the factory if someone started acting out or asking too many questions...they were taken away and never seen again...we were scared and all we had were each other so naturally we grew attached and bonded through our training...the Caregiver even encouraged it," I looked up meeting their eyes, "Gunnar and Rhys were like brothers to me, but Alexei...he was...different...he was always so intense and slightly obsessive...I kept my distance but he noticed and I knew the supervisors did too so I tried making more of an effort to get to know him and we grew closer. Eventually we became more than just friends and when we turned eighteen we were released from the facility and looked after by the Caregiver...it wasn't until then that we finally learned what we were really training for."