The Pink-Haired Hood~A TMF Robin Hood AU Story

🔸Chapter 9🔸

Dim beams of light stretched above the horizon, coating the once pitch black sky in light shades of violet, fuchsia, and tangerine, as the stars slowly faded away as dawn continued to approach. Unbeknownst to everyone, all that ever was and ever will be hung in the balance of every decision, thought, and action of this fateful day.

She clutched her throbbing cheek, where a furious blonde had repeatedly slapped her, sharp pain after sharp pain until she couldn't feel it anymore. A single, anguished tear slowly fell from her pained azure eyes.

"I'm sorry Zoey," Stacy pleaded. "Believe me, I have my reasons for-

"For what?" the snake-like girl seethed in response. "For knocking me unconscious and costing me the reward?!"

"Just hear me out okay, I swear, I have my reasons," Stacy begged for the last time.

"No, no, no, absolutely not. I'm done with you." Her neon-green eyes glared at the trembling soul before her.

"Why did you bother travelling with me," she glowered with an intense glare.

"For the reward."

"The reward you just cost us, you mean."

She shamefully glanced at the floor in response, not uttering a word. 

"Rulers are greedy. If we had killed the hood yesterday, he would've had to follow through with his word." The blonde sat up and began pacing across the hall.

"But technically, we didn't follow through with our end of the bargain," she continued with a hiss. "So he's within every right to not pay me. Because of you, I couldn't do my job!"

Stacy trembled once again from the rise of her tone.

"Now, I'll ask you one last time," Zoey hissed, psychotically staring into her eyes. "Why did you come with me?"

"I needed the money, in fact, I still need it," she quavered in response.

Zoey continued to glower, her snake-like eyes remaining unfaltering.

"Please, just let me explain," Stacy pleaded.

Zoey exhaled an irritated sigh before proceeding to sit back down on the wooden chair.

"Spit it out, your pitiful expression is making me uncomfortable," she seethed.

Stacy took a deep breath, feeling the bitter judgment radiating from her expression.

"It's about my mother," she explained. "She's ill, and the sickness she has takes a long time to kill you, but I heard it's painful. And the only known cure is here, in Rosemania. I had no money, in fact, I still have no money, and I needed to find a way to travel here for free and to use my half of the reward to buy the cure from the local merchants."

"Well then, wouldn't it make sense if you killed her while you had the chance?" Zoey angrily asked. "You're just making the situation worse for yourself."

"At least now her death isn't my personal doing. Besides, didn't the king want her executed? That was his first choice after all."

"So that's what this is about, avoiding personal responsibility." The indignant look Stacy received from her made chills run up her spine.

"Let me put it this way," Zoey continued calmly, unlike her unhinged outbursts just minutes earlier. "I'm an assassin, a murderer, I've accepted it, I've moved on from any sort of guilt I feel. In this line of work, that's precisely what you need to do in order to be effective. Pulling off stunts like this, are not effective."