Riders of Elysium

Chapter Six

----Third Person----

Azariah had never wanted to betray his only friend. But he didn't see how she could work for Kugen after everything she knew.

He remembered the night they'd met.

A girl with blonde hair and stunning blue green eyes walked past him to her seat on the plane. He'd smiled at her, thinking about all the people that pass through your life, yet you never know them.

He may have jinxed it.

Once the plane was in the air at cruising altitude, an engine exploded. The wings broke off. A man grabbed Azariah and pulled him out of the plane, opening up a parachute. The plane hit the ground and caught fire. They landed a few moments later.

Kugen explained everything, and Azariah had been excited. He'd always role-played as an assassin as a little boy. Now, seventeen years old, he's being invited to an assassin camp.

But then he heard coughing. He couldn't stop himself from running back towards the plane to see where the noise was coming from. One girl, that same girl that had walked past him, was struggling to break out of the seat.

She tried to crawl out of the hole in the plane, and that's when she saw Kugen, holding a dagger in one hand. At sunrise, in that particular lighting, it looked like it was soaked in blood.

Her eyes had gone wide with fear as she crawled back into the plane again. She saw that the plane was on fire, possibly about to explode. She climbed to her feet and started running.

Kugen had followed her into the woods, dagger still in his hand, "What are you doing?"

The man simply answered, "Destroying the evidence."

The girl had tripped on a loose log and screamed in pain. There were burn marks on her back, along with a few deep scratches from the metal on the plane. She turned around and saw Kugen holding the knife, slowly backing away.

She was panting and out of breath, her eyes leaking out tears from either fear, pain, or possibly the excessive smoke in the air, which she was also coughing on. She backed into the log and couldn't move any farther.

Then, Azariah heard her mutter, "I will not be afraid." She clutched her bleeding arm, and looked Kugen in the eye.

Azariah had no clue where she got the courage or strength to speak loud enough for Kugen to hear, "I will not be afraid."

Kugen lifted up the dagger.

"Wait!" Azariah yelled sitting down next to the girl.

"Get out of the way, boy," Kugen had said.

Azariah shook his head, "You need more assassins? You say you recruit fighters and survivors? Here's one."

Kugen had sighed, but put away the dagger. Azariah helped the girl limp towards the camp.

She'd nearly died that night.

Her lungs were full of smoke, her cuts and burns nearly killed her, and her courage to yell into Kugen's face had saved her. Her courage had made Kugen find a healer.

So while Kugen trained Azariah, Azariah trained this girl. She hadn't needed brainwashing to remove attachments from the outside world. She'd hit her head so hard on the head that the concussion did that for them.

She couldn't even remember her name.

Azariah was the one that called her Rayna. He trained her, protected her from Kugen's wrath and the other assassins.

Rayna didn't even know she owed her life to him. And now he may have to kill her.

What is wrong with the world? He supposed it was an assassin thing, but Ajax and Aurelia, Ellukah, Ollie- they never had to make this choice.

He was the one who'd discovered Kugen's secrets. He was the one who may have ruined Rayna's life.

Kugen wouldn't have ever known she was there. It was Azariah who had alerted him to her presence.

Her death would be on him.

"Azariah Sun," A voice in the trees whispered, "Glad you joined us."

A group of figures appeared out of the trees. Some tall, some short. One even had a parrot sat on his shoulder. But they were all still cloaked in darkness.

"Did you get anyone else to join us?" another asked.

"There's only one I could trust," Azariah said, "And she won't risk it."

The first asked, "What about you? Are you sure you want to risk it?"

"We understand if not," Said a third.

"Though you'd have to kill me because I'd be a loose end," Azariah laughed, "I've accepted I'm never going to get back to a normal life."

The deep voices talked amongst themselves for a minute or two. To Azariah, it felt like an eternity.

"We have reached a decision," The first voice announced, "We've concluded that we have enough in numbers to destroy the assassins. We start once all loose ends are taken care of."

"What loose ends exactly?"

The second voice sighed, "We can't risk this girl you speak of jeopardizing everything."

"It's been decided that she must either join us or be taken care of," Said the third voice, "Permanently."

A fourth voice spoke, "If you don't want to kill this girl- perhaps she is your friend, we can send a different assassin after her."

"No," Azariah said, "I'll take care of it."

"Are you attached to this girl at all?" The first voice asked.

Azariah shook his head, "Not at all. I barely know her." If only that were true.

"Then go and take care of it. You have two days before we send someone else in," The second voice warned, "Recruit her if you can."

"Too risky," said the fourth harsh voice, "She needs to be eliminated."

Azariah nodded and began to retreat back into the woods.

"Failure will result in death," said the third voice.

"I will not fail," Azariah could barely keep his voice from shaking.

As he walked back to track them from the camp, he couldn't stop thinking about Rayna.

The girl who'd been covered head to toe in cuts and burns. Who'd barely survived a plane crash and the following explosion.

The girl who'd found the courage to defy the king of assassins.

Whose life he'd saved, who he'd trained and protected. Who he now had to kill.

He thought, that just this once, he might fail.