The Price of Fate

Chapter 1: The Beginning

~Edited~

"Are you ready?" Joel asked.

"Yes, sir. Who is he?" I replied.

"Ahhh, Mr. Himms." he said, flipping through the faded manilla folder. "Forgot to pay The Boss back $10,000. The bastard." he snickered.

The Boss. Also known as Michael David Sanchez. I hate him. From his dark brown hair that swept over his chocolate brown eyes, to bulging muscles and tanned skin that completed the player look.

I fell.

Hard.

Mr. Himms didn't seem like a bad guy when I walked into his office, but he had to go. Boss' orders.

I had to make his death look like suicide so no one would get suspicious. I used gloves so there wouldn't be any prints when the coroner checked the body and I double checked my tracks just in case anything fell off of me during his struggle. I also made sure that I was in the camera's blind-spots. Those precautions were drilled into me since the day of my first order.

The photos of his family on his desk didn't make it any better, though, until I noticed his open email when I was moving the body. He was having a secret affair.

Douche.

He had two kids, a son and a daughter, who looked close in age. Twins, maybe. And he ruined it with a freaking hooker with fake blonde hair and an obvious boob job. The picture left open on his computer forever etched in my brain.

The guilt of killing him soon disappeared. I looked over the edge of the roof at his body.

"It's done." I said into the ear piece. "If one little hair on them is misplaced when I get back, I will kill you."

I heard a breath being let out over the microphone.

"Alright. You're now to report back to the car. Or I can't promise their safety." he said with mock strength.

I really do hate his voice. I hate everything about Joel. From his algae colored eyes to his thick greasy hair, stinky breath, and awkward frame.

As I waked back to the van that was parked a little ways beside the house, I hoped that life would get easier after this.

But something told me it wasn't.

****

I began fighting few weeks after my parents died in a company fire in July. They both owned a kid-friendly restaurant outside of town, co-owning with my moms best friend. Apparently, there had been a gas leak in the kitchen that no one noticed. The building caught on fire on a late Friday afternoon. My parents died helping customers out before help came, or at least thats what the survivors told me.

Soon after the funerals, I became depressed. I began drinking my mom and dad's secret stash of alcohol when my sister was asleep. The struggle of taking care of my sister and not having parents got to me. We had no one to go to except each other, yet I failed Dani by pushing her away to mourn on our own. I soon decided to take care of her by myself under the radar. I was not going to put my sister and I in foster care and possibly split us up.

Then, Michael showed up in the park one day in September.

He was nice and caring to me. That was my mistake. If I hadn't have been so stupid I could have saved us from him. From what he did. He saw the report on the news about my parents a few days before we met. He said that he saw a potential fighter in me, a spark, that shouldn't be wasted away. So, being the awe-struck dummy that I was, I agreed to train with him.

For Dani, I thought.

Michael asked me to cage fight six weeks after I started training and I agreed. He had laid out my future before I could reply with "sure, I guess."

I should've noticed the all-too-fake smile I got in reply that I was about to be in too deep to ever get out.

I became #1 in the fighting arena about 16 weeks after I started and soon quit cage fighting late December of that next year. I felt used and guilty after every stack of money that was given to me as my opponent was wheeled into the nurses room. After a few months, I was filled with enough guilt to fill a huge lake. When I first started fighting, I walked in an overweight, weak, scared, and homeless 15 year old girl with nowhere for her and her 14 year old sister to go and walked out a fighting champion that everyone hated opposing.

I soon realized that I, too, was scared of myself and what I could do with just my hands.

I felt unstoppable, but nothing ever is.

A few weeks after I quit, Dani had gone missing. We lived in the woods where I was hoping Michael couldn't find us, but I guess I was hoping for too much. A few days after my searching had gotten me nowhere, Michael left a pre-paid phone with a recorded message on my bed.

"Hello Ace. Did you really think that you could hide? That you could protect them from me? Nice try, sweetheart. There's been a slight income shortage since you decided to leave and we can't have that, can we?

Now, I see you've noticed that something very dear to you is missing."

I heard a lot of movement and then the line switched and a lighter, girlier voice spoke.

"A-ace? W-we need you! I'm so scared."

Dani.

"He has-"

"Nah-ah-ah! A shame. She almost ruined the surprise!"

I heard more movement and another voice came through the small box.

"Ace? It's Katie. Remember how I said he was good for you? I take it back. He's a total dick." She spoke strongly.

Katie?

That asshole.

"Now, i also have Cheryl. I think that's her name. She's still out cold, though. But don't worry your pretty little head, I haven't done any serious damage to them yet." I heard his sickening laugh echo through the room he was in.

By now, I was shaking. I want to slit his throat for ever touching them, for ever laying eyes on them.

"Back to the real reason I'm leaving this message. I want you back on my team. I have some errands I need completed. Come by the lake behind the park around one a.m tonight. If not-"

It ended with an ear-shattering scream that I recognized as Dani's.

He is so going to regret that, I thought as the phone went silent.

***

"Hurry up, sweetheart." I stiffened as Joel's sickening voice interrupted my flashback.

I gave him my meanest glare and by his pale expression, it worked.

"Don't call me that. Just shut up and drive."