Trapped Where There Ain't No Future

1

The cold rain trickled down my back as I crouched on the fire escape outside the building. Lightning flashed through the sky, and thunder followed immediately after it. It was good; the thunder would cover up any noise I might make. Not that I would make any. After 4 years on the job, I had become almost perfect. But things still went wrong sometimes. As I slid the window open a crack, timing it with a clap of thunder, a door creaked open from the hallway into the room past the window. I jumped aside, my back to the brick wall next to the window. A voice came from inside. A young boy's voice.

"Spot?"

A rustling noise of sheets, then another voice, much deeper than the first. "What is it?"

"I'm scared." The young boy's voice spoke again.

A sigh. "Lis'en, Laces, it's jest a li'l thunder. It ain't gonna hurt ya. A'right?"

The younger boy whimpered, the slightest amount.
The deeper voice said, gentler, "Laces, Ise has a job foah youse. Ya gotta make shoah da li'l ones aren't scared. Okay?"

I inhaled sharply. Memories swam before my eyes.

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Lightning lit up the small apartment room, illuminating the faces of my twin and I as we lay on our shared bed. I shivered, shrinking deeper into the blankets.
"Hey." My twin said. "You need ta be strong. Don't let the little kids know you're scared. It'll help, I promise."
He was right. Not letting anyone know you're scared does help. Except when it gets too much... but it doesn't get too much, I can handle it.

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With difficulty I drove the images from my mind. I had a job to do. My grip tightened on the sharp blade in my hand. No more voices came from inside the room. Just to be sure I waited a few more minutes. Still nothing. I eased open the window, slowly. Nothing. Slipping like a shadow into the room, I paused for a second to admire how much better I had gotten. Clad in boys clothes (a dress was much too cumbersome for my kind of work), that were pitch black except for the cat with two-colored eyes embroidered on the sleeve, and my naturally reddish-blonde hair tied back in a braid and darkened with coal, I was like a shadow. I snuck over to the bed, raising the knife high, ready to strike. Until I saw my target. The one I was sent to kill.

He was a boy. Probably older than me by quite a few years, but still a boy. When I had received my assignment, I had assumed it was like the others. The middle aged men, usually drunken and filthy, who had wronged Queens-and more specifically Calico- in the past. But this was a boy. Not too bad looking either, with sandy brownish-blond hair and strong steel blue eyes. Wait. His eyes were open. I froze. Maybe he hadn't seen me. Maybe he wasn't fully awake. All hopes of that were dashed a second later, when his eyes flicked to the knife in my hand, then up to my face. I was still frozen when he moved. His hand closed firmly around my wrist-the one that held the knife- and pinned it to the mattress next to his body. I raised my other hand to strike him, but he grabbed that wrist too. I was forced down onto the bed. I struggled against his grip, but it was firm and I wasn't the best at hand to hand combat. There was a reason I worked in the darkness. The boy studied me openly, the cold blue eyes flicking over me from head to toe. I pulled against his hands one more time, and he smirked. Shifting his grip so he pinned me down with only one hand, he raised the other to his mouth and whistled shrilly. Another boy entered the room, a switchblade raised.

"Switch, we has a visitor." The boy said.

The new boy-Switch- nodded and left the room again, returning in a split second with a coil of rope. He dropped the rope on the bed and shut the window, where rain had started to come through.

My heart sank. There goes my escape route. I could still try for the door though. I relaxed my arms a little, so that the boy was caught off guard when I wrenched my wrists from his grasp with a mighty twist. I had only made it a couple steps though when my arm was caught and twisted behind me. My other arm was grabbed and my hands were tied tightly behind my back.

"What do you think you're doing?" I snapped.

The boy seemed surprised I had said anything, but he ignored me. He and Switch marched me out of the small bedroom to another room filled with crates. Storage, I supposed? For some reason there was a rusty iron ring bolted to the floor, and it was there that the boys tied me, forcing me to sit on the old wood planks.

"I'll deal wit' ya in da mornin'." The boy I was supposed to kill said, regarding me with his arms crossed for a second before turning and leaving. On his way out the door, he paused. "Switch. Make sure she don't try ta escape."

Switch looked at me. I looked at him. Then he hit me on the temple, and everything faded to black.

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A familiar dream overtook me: Fire, leaping out of the windows, consuming the wooden planks of the house. I stumbled out of the burning building, ash on my clothes. In the distance, the fire engines drew closer. But they were too late. Too late to save the house, and my family with it. I screamed, a long drawn out sound. Usually the memory/dream ended here. But today it continued, replaying the events of that night. I crumpled to the ground in a heap, watching the only home I had ever known burn to the ground. Suddenly, a hand on my shoulder. A boy, with one eye blue and one eye green, crouched looking at me.
"That your house?" he asked. I nodded wordlessly. He looked at me for a few seconds more. "Come with me." he stood up and turned without another word, and I followed him. I was 9 years old that day. That was the day I met Calico. And it was the very next day when he started to training me. Training to become his personal assassin.

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When I awoke, it was morning. Light trickled in through the cracks in the boarded up windows, illuminating the room. Just as I had seen the night before, the room was crowded with wooden crates. A slightly salty, briny smell filled the air, and I remembered where I was. And more importantly, who had captured me. My target. The one I was supposed to kill. The King of Brooklyn himself. Spot Conlon.