All For You

Twenty-eight

Isla

"May you live to see the sun set" was a saying assassins used to wish their friends good luck on their next mission.

I never heard it much. I'd almost forgotten what it meant because I didn't have anyone to wish me luck when I was still a part of nameless.

I never really understood it, either. Luck didn't exist. You either died on your missions, or you were skilled enough to get out alive.

If anything, surviving those hellish missions was more bad luck than it was good, because all it meant was that you'd have to go on another one without any real rest.

It meant you were still doomed to a cycle that killed you over and over again without actually ending your misery.

Harold is one of the only people to ever have wished me good luck before a mission. But that's not all it was. He was telling me to prepare. For a mission worse and harsher than all the rest. He was wishing me good luck where I've never needed it before, because he wants me to know I'll need all the luck I can get. He needs me to know that shaking his hand means I'm likely signing my death certificate. And he wants me to do it anyway.

I'm glad he told me in that way, as discreetly as possible, because August is clueless. He, nor my family, can know the truth. That I'm going into this mission expecting to die. That everyone but them expects it. That, perhaps, my death is necessary for our win.

They can't know, or they'll try to stop it. But their safety and the freedom of so many depends on our win, so, as Harold would say, the show must go on.

It won't stop now, and it won't stop after I die, either.

As August and I make our way back to our hotel, I lose myself to memories. Of a time so long ago it's all black and white now.

"I'll see you soon. For Shogi." Back when I was thirteen, only about nine months after I had been taken, I had a friend. I barely remember her face, but her hair was brown. She was small, young, like me, but outstandingly more likeable. "May you live to see the sun set."

"I don't like that saying" I had told her. It hurt to hear. It reminded me that there was a possibility I could die. It meant that I needed someone to wish me luck just so I'd come home alive. "Don't wait up, Missy. We'll play Shogi tomorrow."

Missy was my only friend. Before her, I had no one. After her, I kept to myself. I didn't deserve friends after her, because I was her ruin.

The moment she was given the mission to kill Hayden Frazer, I knew I'd have to ruin her. And like the stupid little girl she was, she told me. Because of our aliases, she couldn't have known that Hayden was my brother. She couldn't have known she was telling me her mission was to kill my own little brother. She wasn't to blame.

I had to kill her anyway. I didn't have the courage to tell her not to listen to the higher ups. I didn't have the heart to tell her to disobey them. She was doomed to die either way. If she disobeyed the organisation, told them she wouldn't kill Hayden just because we were friends, they would have killed her on the spot. I didn't have the heart to tell her not to go after Hayden, because I was afraid she would anyway. I was afraid she would betray me and hunt him down anyway.

So I killed her quickly, and I never made friends again.

I'm sure Mr. Smith must have done it on purpose. He must have seen me making friends and he must have hated it. So he made me kill her. He made me murder the only person who I could have loved in that hellhole.

Mr. Smith has always despised me. I'm the only one who still has my family. I'm the only one who has someone left to fight for. I'm the only one openly defying him by working tirelessly to keep them alive.