How to Raise an Assassin

CHAPTER 27: HE WAS TOO LATE

Auntie hated to look at her nephew in such a miserable condition. Whenever she visited when I was there, she didn't stick around for long. She said we'd resume to stage five when Ash was feeling better because I was going to need him to persevere through the initiation.

I knew that stages 1-4 were roughly the same across every hive. However, hives branch off into different areas for stages 5-8. Some of the rougher Locusts hives use nasty methods of initiation, from beating a member into the gang, to killing an innocent person, to even rape. It was horrible.

I was hoping the respected Royden Hive wouldn't degrade itself with such low tactics to force people into total submission to their organization, but after what I had seen of the Swarmmaster, I wasn't sure what to expect.

Seeing Ash's gray-tint color return, followed by the return of his normal facial features, the scar forming on his chest where he was stabbed, and his ability to move his injured arm again always made coming to visit him each day more relieving. He asked me to keep him caught up with school, so each day I passed him some notes I took photos of so he could go through what he missed.

However, one photo I took hastily by my locker before leaving school had a bit of graffiti in the frame. Written in black marker on my locker was a single sentence, "Ash is gone because of you."

Ash noticed it, even though it was written small enough to be barely unnoticeable. When I first saw it, I was frustrated and wanted to slap whoever wrote it. Then I started to feel guilty because Ash was gone from school because of me. Had I never written down his name on that list...

"Looks like the school misses me," Ash said staring at the photo on his phone.

I didn't lie to him. "They think I'm responsible for your disappearance...and they're kind of right."

Ash noticed my mood shift to depression, and he grabbed my arm. "It's not your fault Zay. I think I would've been more hurt if you hadn't written my name down."

I looked at him like he was crazy. "Look at where that got you."

"It's in the past now," he said. "Now I know we're best friends."

"But, how can we be best friends if we've only known each other for two weeks? We barely know anything about each other."

Ash sat up in his hospital bed and got closer to me. "I don't think best friends are made by how long one is friends with another. I think a best friend is someone who's there for you when you need someone the most."

Ash wrapped his arms around me and gave me a hug. At first, I resisted a bit. "And you were there for me when I needed you most."

Then I caved in. "You too," I said thinking back to my near-death experience in the downtown high-rise.

I heard Ash sniffle before he said. "Because sometimes, even a friend you've had the longest can show up too late to be of help in his time of need."

I pushed Ash gently away from me. His eyes were red. He quickly wiped away tears.

I didn't want to dive into the history behind that comment. But all I could think of was that Ash had gone through the same stages of initiation I did to enter into the Royden Hive. He too had someone he loved kidnapped and tortured to near death in some abandoned building in Chicago.

The difference was, I don't think he got there in time to save that person.

I felt Ash's pain. It's the same regret I had for not pulling the trigger fast enough to save Noa. His death was on my consciousness as much as this memory of a failed rescue attempt was on Ash's.

"His name was Darius," Ash mumbled. "I wrote down three names on my list: Dad, Auntie, and Darius. Darius had been my friend since kindergarten. We always hung out, told each other secrets, and helped each other whenever we needed to...until a couple of months ago when he died because I was too late to save him."

Ash looked at me with eyes that were filled with regret for writing down Darius's name. "My father told me while I was there hugging his corpse, 'Sometimes, friends must die to serve a greater cause. Their deaths aren't a waste, but proof that they were true friends to give their life for you to grow.'"

Ash's voice shook like a child afraid of the dark. "Out of all the people on that list, why did they have to go for him? Why did they have to go for the most defenseless? If I had known what was going to be done to someone on that list..."

"Hey," I said gently slapping his face. "We can't get beaten up by our past. The more distance we place between us and it, the safer we are."

Ash sank back into his bed. "Zay I've become a monster. I just killed a man recently with my own hands. But this, Darius's death...it's also on me. It's like it was my true first kill." He paused and shook his head trying to contain his voice. "You don't know Zay. You don't know how it feels to be responsible for the death of someone you truly care about."

I broke out into sarcastic laughter. Ash was shocked out of his depression. I pulled my chair closer to his bed and took a sip of his water resting on his nightstand. "Oh Ash, do I have a bedtime story to tell you."

"You know," he sniffled while looking at the water. "I just drank out of that a couple of minutes ago. I put my lips on that cup. By the transitive property of mathematics, you just kissed me." By the end of that sentence he seemed to have shaken off the sadness he was feeling moments before.

"Ash, you wish I kissed you," I said, noting that Ash could still be a bit of a creep sometimes.

"Maybe you can give me one after your bedtime story?" Ash suggested trying to lighten the mood.

But the story I was about to tell was far from light in mood. "It isn't a fairytale Ash. You said I had no clue what it's like to be responsible for the death of someone I cared about. Well, I do have a clue. My brother died because of me."