The Hybrid's Assassin

Fourteen

Inhale. Exhale.

I had never ran so fast in my life. Adrenaline burned through my veins like acid, pushing me on and on even though I hadn't had a proper meal in days.

I needed to get to the tree line before he noticed I wasn't in the crowd. I needed to get out of the open.

I practically dived into the tree line as a bullet flew past my face, grazing my cheekbone. He knew where I was, he would be on my tail.

I crashed through the tree line, trying to create some distance. I needed distance before I could put into act any plan. How hard was it to create distance?

This wasn't my reputation on the line. It wasn't money on the line. It was my life.

I couldn't believe that I had never questioned him, never questioned my situation. Now everything I had constructed of life was beginning to crash down around me. I knew nothing anymore. Now I just had the instinct of survival shattering the window pane of my consciousness.

And it was in that moment that I knew. I wasn't just running from my psychopathic brother, I was also running from my past. The horror of it, but also the comfort that familiarity offered.

So I ran, but I ran with a twisted smile of amusement on my face. This was somewhat a game in reality, for me to not find it amusing would have perhaps been a sin. Salty tears mingled with the blood that dripped from the wound on my cheek, never had I thought my life could go to such ruin in a timespan so very short.

The sound of someone crashing into the tree line broke through my thoughts, the sound of another bullet had me diving to the ground. By some form of twisted luck it made its home in a nearby tree trunk instead of my skull. I quieted my breathing and worked on slowly crawling across the forest floor. Every crunch of a leaf had me clenching my teeth and every rustle of a branch had me drawing blood from my lip.

"I know that you're here, twenty three." The words from his mouth appeared to be spat somewhat viciously, almost as though they tasted disgusting for him to form. "Come out, come out, you dirty whore."

I didn't move. I didn't dare breath.

Drip. Drip.

Blood slowly rolled off my cheek and reddened the fallen leaves underneath me. How beautifully poetic, that while the leaves were falling and the days were growing colder, so was I.

I would lose something today, I just had to pray that it wasn't my life.

Something crashed into me and I gasped. I was pinned on my back, blinking red from my eyes. As my vision cleared, my heart fell. "I found you."

"Brother."

He smiled arrogantly and placed the cold barrel of the gun against my forehead. "Is this a checkmate?"

I smiled, wider than I could have remembered ever smiling as a child and slowly began to laugh. Slow, mildly amused laughs emerged from my mouth. Quickly they morphed into high-pitched manic giggles that broke through the forest's eerie silence like sharp glass.

"Any last words?" He asked, his smile widening.

I continued to laugh. "Fifteen," I choked out. "Remember?"

His smile faltered and he grew confused around the eyes. "You're actually crazy."

"I've been counting."

He squinted, completely and utterly confused. "Whatever, see you in hell."

The gun clicked. My brain didn't contaminate the forest floor. It clicked again.