Lightrunner

(2) No Choice

I'm not sure if I hear Jojin correctly. I stand there like a malfunctioning bot. My ears must be faulty. My heartbeat glitches as it skips in rhythm like I'm made of wires and coding. Is this what it feels like to break?

"So, will you do it?" Jojin asks, leaning forward. His elbows rest on his knees as he watches me closely. The bastard really had given the order to kill someone.

"Do I have a choice?" I ask, knowing what his answer will be before the words slip through his oversized canines.

"Do you ever?" He cocks one thick brow at me.

Any choice I ever had vanished the moment I witnessed one of the lorkins murder a human in the alley behind my apartment building. Wrong place, wrong time. I was almost dead too when the lorkin turned his gun on me, the barrel pointing directly at the spot between my eyes. When he saw my pointed ears, realization of what I was dawned on his face and my brain got to stay in my skull, but he didn't lower his gun. Instead, he delivered me to Jojin, and to keep the secret of what I'd seen in that alley, I was given my last choice the House of Horns would ever give me—join ranks as one of them or die. Jojin had said he'd make my death quick out of respect for my ancestors, but he'd rather use me for the treasure he believed me to be.

I know what I am versus what I'm supposed to be. I'm not destined to be legendary. My ears are smaller than the images of elves I've downloaded on my gigapad. My frame is shorter and bonier, my voice lacking the musical lilt I've heard in the videos I watch and the songs I listen to. I am one of them, but I'm not, like a torn page from a book. At least I have two things going for me though—I'm quick and I'm smart.

"Do you want me to kill him fast or slow?" I ask as if either option is fine. The thought of ending a life crawls on my skin like a spider, threatening to reveal my discontent as the lorkins watch intently for my reaction.

Jojin chuckles, a smirk twisting at his lips. "Now that, Little Elf, is a choice that I will give you."

How kind.

Leaning back in his white leather throne, Jojin glances at his son and then back at me. "Before you leave, go with Venjo. He will brief you on the situation."

I turn my gaze to his son, who is already glaring at me with such ferocity that he has to be imagining my painful death. Maybe he is wishing the lorkin who'd brought me here those months ago would have shot me instead. What is his deal?

I stare right back at Venjo, unblinking, holding my gaze until he is the first one to look away. If only I won a prize.

"Come," he tells me, stepping away from his father's chair. He doesn't give me another glance as he clasps his hands behind his back and walks toward the door I entered through.

I turn to follow him, but Jojin's voice stops me cold in my tracks. "One more thing, Little Elf. You come back here, and the job isn't done, then this partnership is through. I don't care that you're the last elf in Voltyss, or that you deliver shipments faster than any of them." He points his fat thumb in the direction of his cronies, who grumble under their breath at his words. When he spins his gaze onto them, their traps snap shut. Then he looks back at me. "Prove your loyalty to this gang or I'll take your ears as a souvenir before I throw you out of the city and into the Evernight."