How to Raise an Assassin

CHAPTER 19: ASH GIVES A FOURTH OPTION

They say when you're about to die, your life flashes before your eyes. In my case, the images that appeared before me weren't of my life, but the countless lives I ended.

How many people have I sent falling to their deaths? How many people have I tossed coldly to their demise because I was being paid to do so? How many people have I sent to meet their maker because that was what I was raised to do?

The amount of those I killed were enough to fill an auditorium. But I didn't see their faces. They were all blocked out like shadows behind hoods. The only face I saw was that of my brother Noa, who stared at me disappointed. I only thought of his voice in my dream. "You're not strong Zay. If you were, this room would've been empty."

I've made mistakes, but if I didn't do my job, I would've ended up being beaten, tortured, or disowned. The life of luxury had its costs, even if I was born into it. I'd rather be a normal girl who's only concern was about what Netflix show to watch next or what dress not to wear to the prom. But I couldn't choose the murderous family I was born into.

My family was responsible for so much chaos. If the amount of people I killed could fill a school's auditorium, then the amount of bodies on my family's tab could fill an entire college football stadium. No one in my family deserved a happy death—especially me.

"You can fix this Zay," I heard Noa's voice.

I saw flashes of him falling in front of me. His hand extended forward for me to grab. "Do what I failed to do. Use your talents to finish off the right people."

But how could I finish off the right people if I'm dead? Who are even the right people to assassinate? I thought.

"Deep down," he stretched his hand closer for me to grab. "You know the answer."

I fought the raging wind, pushing my hand out to grab onto him. If I died and ended up with Noa, even if that was in Hell, I felt like I could live a satisfactory afterlife.

When I latched onto his hand I gasped as if I had just surfaced from water. My eyesight was blurry. The rush of a cold wind blew the false red wig off of my head and it floated down fifteen stories below. I was dangling with a single hand latched onto another.

I looked up and my vision slowly returned to me. My heart was a jet turbine at maximum speed. The face I saw looked scared and anxious. It wasn't Noa's. Noa's skin wasn't that dry or gray.

Dangling from a wire while ropes of veins bulged across his body was Ash.

"Grab the rope," he gritted through his teeth.

I snapped myself back into reality. I latched my hands around the wire and steadied my breath. Ash was trying to do the same. He looked down at me with the moonlight shining upon him. Sweat glistened his face. His right hand was bleeding from cable burn. He probably slid down a couple of feet after he managed to somehow catch me while falling.

I would hug him if we weren't dangling fifteen stories from doom.

Ash was wheezing as he spoke. "So, what was that about not falling?"

And now he was back to being annoying. "Shut up," I said, trying to reclaim a sense of dignity. "I need to finish those guys up there. But, why are you even here?"

He looked like he wanted to shock me but knew that might end up wasting the effort he just exercised to save me. "Talking to the doorman got boring. So I decided to give your scaling method a try."

"And the rope?"

"I might have borrowed a rope gun while you were changing in your room. But it came in handy. Now, are we going to talk, or are we going to beat up the people that tried to kill you?"