The Assassin's Assistant

Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight.

Is it possible to lose a part of yourself?

That night, I fell asleep on top of a few blankets, since my bed wasn’t set up yet. As I was falling asleep, I couldn’t help but think of how similar this was to when I was younger. Every night, I would’ve fallen asleep with one blanket, happy if I could get my hands on a pillow. Would I have been able to kill somebody then? At what point in time had Audrey become Lux?

Jason was right, I can kill without hesitation, and I never really thought about it until now. It’s an ability that had kept me alive on many missions, but I’m not proud of it. The part that scares me the most is it had never bothered me before. I’m not even bothered by it now, in reality, I’m just bothered at the suspicion that I’m not me anymore.

I didn’t sleep well. Maybe I didn’t sleep at all, I’m not sure. I was just too wrapped up in what Jason had said. I was so wrapped up that I barely heard the knocking on my door.

Still lying face down on my floor, I shouted, “Who is it?”

I heard a muffled response of, “Brittany.”

“Go home! It’s too early!” I shouted. “It’s, like,” I picked up my phone that was on the ground next to me, “Two o’ seven!”

“Lux, that’s PM,” Brittany responded through the door. “I need you for a mission.”

I rolled over to face the ceiling. “Use Jason!” I responded, “Obviously you think he’s better.”

I heard the impatient tapping of Brittany’s shoes. “Lux, I have a set of keys to this place. I will get in one way or another.”

I let out a frustrated groan and walked to the door. I opened it to see Brittany. It was obvious that we would be going to some event for the job. She was in a deep blue floor length ball gown. Her auburn hair was curly, instead of the usual straight style. To be honest, she looked great, but I wasn’t going to let her know that. “What are you? From the 1600’s?” I said arrogantly.

Brittany strut in and rolled her eyes. “How many times do I have to say that I’m sorry?”

“I’m thinking somewhere in the thousands place.” I snapped. I took a deep breath. I can’t do this to Brittany forever. She was sorry and I knew it. I just need to get over myself. “Okay, I’m sorry about that, but can’t you please just use Jason? I’m really not in the mood. Just a little preoccupied here."

“Oh you mean with setting up your apartment? We can just hire somebody. And I can’t use Jason. I tried to give him training; the boy was an absolute wreck. A blind man could aim a gun better than him.” Brittany walked gracefully across the wood floor. She reminded me of queens from fairy tales, with her dress flowing elegantly behind her. “I’ll keep him around for paper work, seeing as that’s the only thing he can do better than you. And…” Her eyes trailed to the floor. We both knew what she meant. He needs the money.

“What’s the mission?”

“Well Jason wrote the paper work for it,” Brittany plopped a big stack of papers into my hands, “And it looks like we’re going to be going to a false charity event.”

I raised my eyebrows. “What do you mean by false?”

“I mean it’s fake.” Brittany said it like it was the most idiotic question she had ever heard. “We have a unique Underground member here. It’s not a business, but a charity, for the homeless, I think. Of course, not a dime of the money actually goes where they say it does. They raise money to bring themselves to the top. We’re going to take down the leader of it.”

“Wait a second,” I placed the papers on the floor. I like to talk with my hands, “We’re giving up on Harold?”

“Momentarily, yes. Sir doesn’t want to make any moves on Bexx for a while. Not after they abducted you. We need some regrouping time before we go and poke that bear.” Brittany sighed, “This Underground business still confuses me. I just do my job and ask questions later. So, are you in?”

“Not yet.” I sat on my box. “Where is this event, exactly?”

“It’s in the Museum of Modern Art at eight.” Brittany pushed a curl into place, though her hair looked perfect already. “Are you in?”

I shrugged. “I guess so, if I don’t have to put this stuff in place myself,” I waved my arms around the room.

Brittany smiled, “Good. So do you have something to wear? You should get ready so that we can get everything set up.”

I shrugged, “Uh, yeah, I can wear last year’s prom dress or something. I’m sure I’ll be able to make it work.” My stomach growled a thundering roar. Brittany heard it too.

“Okay, you can get ready. I’m going to go to the café on the corner and get something for us to eat. I’ll be back in the next hour.”

I laughed. “In that dress?”

She looked down at her dress, like she had just noticed that she was wearing it. “Yeah, that could be a problem. I’ll call Jason and have him bring us food.”

Jason, Jason, Jason. It gets tiring. “Uhm, yeah, sure. Just make sure he gets me some coffee, please.” I picked up a large box labeled ‘DRESSES’ in sloppy, black marker hand writing and my makeup bag. With them, I walked into the nearest empty room. Like the rest of the house, the walls were all white. Judging by the size of it, this was a guest’s room. I dropped the box, and it hit the floor with a thud. I could hear Brittany outside, making a call to Jason, trying to give him directions to the specific café that she wanted.

I knelt over the box and opened it. Frills and ruffles immediately exploded from it, my collection hardly contained in the box. I didn’t bother obsessing over it and picked up the first dress I saw. It was a sleeveless emerald colored, form hugging dress that flared out slightly at the bottom. I had worn it to some school dance; Valentine’s dance, I think. I slipped it on and walked over to the mirror also served as the closet door. I found white gloves on the bottom of the box to hide my bandages. I did my makeup heavy as instructed by Brittany. My hair still looked pretty good from the stylist so I just brushed it and let it fall into the waves made yesterday. I heard Jason step into the penthouse and walked back out into the living area.

When I walked out, I noticed that Jason wouldn’t look at me. I remembered what he said yesterday. “Sick.” He couldn’t bear to look at me. He thought I was disgusting, and I knew it.

I walked over to him and still without looking at me, Jason handed me a cup of coffee and a paper bag. “Thanks.” I tried to sound as friendly as I could.

“Yeah, no prob.” He replied quietly. 'Am I really that bad?' All of the confusion that had consumed me earlier creeped its back way into me.

I sipped my coffee in silence. Brittany gave me an once-over. “Oh, that’s smart, covering up your wounds with those gloves. Jason, what’s the time?”

Jason looked at his watch. “It’s four twenty-seven.

Brittany gave an exasperated sigh. “Where does all the time go? Okay, I have to make a few calls to be sure that everything is set up properly. Jason, please give Lux a quick mission briefing, she didn’t have time to read the papers. I’m just going to step out into the hall to do this.” Without bothering for a reply, Brittany walked out of the apartment and into the hallway that contained only my penthouse door.

I turned to Jason. The revolution that he had in his eyes was at an impossible intensity.

He thinks I’m a monster.