“I’m fifteen and you clearly aren’t.” I stop him before his lips can find mine, before anything further can happen, before I rip his clothes off, before we do something we shouldn’t.
“I think you’re right.” He moves his hands away from my face, and I automatically miss the warm touch of another human.
“You know we can’t do this.” I gesture between us.
“Not until you’re sixteen, we can’t.”
I laugh at his statement – an assassin who has moral values about the age of consent for sex.
“No Lukas, because I’m a virgin and I’m not ready for sex. We both know I’m no ordinary 15-year-old girl. I’m anything but ordinary”
“I’ll agree that you, Anna, are not ordinary at all. You’re simply…extraordinary.” He kisses the top of my head and leaves me.
The next eight months pass the same way. I learn to focus on my senses, and to use my woman’s intuition to my advantage. Lukas does not again approach the subject of sex between us. I think he’s aware that when I’m ready, he’ll be the first to know.
Lukas trains me to use an array of weapons, from knives to everyday household items. Items that would not be considered weapons by the common person.
He also trains me in hand-to-hand combat and various martial arts.
On one particular afternoon, Lukas sends me into town. He’s already taught me to handle his car at incredibly high speeds. He also told me if I wreck his car, he’ll destroy me.
Driving down Main Street to the store, I park his Porsche and head straight inside. When I’ve finished shopping for what Lukas requires, I decide to take a walk in the gorgeous sunshine. The warmth of the sun caresses my skin and there are people bustling around, off to unknown destinations.
I head straight to the grocery store that provided sustenance for me when I first got here, before Lukas found me. I walk inside and am greeted with a smile from the older gentleman working behind the counter.
“Hi there. A little while back I was homeless and stole some of the fruit you have outside. I’m here to pay my debt.” I pull out a $100 bill as the old man stares at me, gob-smacked.
“I don’t understand.” His voice is confused.
“I stole from you to feed myself, and here is my payment. Thank you for providing food for me when I didn’t have the means to provide it for myself.” I drop the money on the counter and leave an old man staring at me, bewildered.
Making my way from the store, I sit on the steps of the library and just watch life pass by. People coming and going, completely unaware that sitting on the steps of the library, is an almost sixteen-year-old woman who could easily destroy them. With a simple hand maneuver, I could wreak havoc on their common, conventional lives.
Blending in, I watch a young man walk past me with a laptop under one arm and a phone attached to his ear.
“Dad, what they’re saying about me isn’t true.” I listen to this one-sided conversation quite intently, although I pretend I’m not.
“I didn’t hack into anything, well maybe, but nothing that important.” He stops and listens. “What’s the problem? I mean I’m valedictorian at Stanford. What else do you want?” I can tell he’s getting frustrated with his father. “Yes, Dad.” He sets his laptop down on the step below the one he’s sits on. “Sure. I gotta go.” He hangs up and brings both his hands up to cup his face.
“Parent issues, eh?” I say as I take a seat behind him to his right.
“Something like that.” He eyes me up and down but I duck my face away. With the sun behind me, it’ll make it difficult for him to clearly see my features.
“I hear you loud and clear. So you hacked into something, did you?” I try to contain my smile.
“It’s not like that.” He quickly becomes defensive, but then relaxes “Okay, maybe it is like that.”
“So you graduated top of your class at Stanford. What did you study?”
“Did you eavesdrop on the whole conversation?”
“You could say that.” He smiles at me and shakes his head.
“My name is…”
“No, I don’t need to know your name.”
“You’re different.” He looks down at the ground, and then tilts his head up to study me.
“I know. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” I extend my hand and his clammy, nervous hand takes mine. I get no feeling of evil from him. I get a good, calming feeling, and I think he’s someone I could use in my future.
Someone I could employ.
I think about my future and try to anticipate what needs I’ll have once I leave Lukas’s tutelage. I could use a hacker, a computer genius.
“What are your plans now you’ve finished college?”
“Dad wants me to go to work for him at his firm, but I just want to develop software programs.”
Smiling, I know that this man, who I estimate to be around twenty-two, will soon be in my employment. My plan is being formulated and refined as we sit on the library steps and talk.
“Well, I need to go, but here.” I give him the phone Lukas has given me. “Enter your number. I’ll find you when the time is right.”
He takes my phone cautiously and enters his number.
“I’m not sure what you mean, but you’re very intriguing. I can’t wait for that call…” He waits for me to give him my name.
“I’m 15.” I take my phone and see he’s entered his phone and pager numbers under the name ‘Hacker’.
“15? That’s a strange name.”
“And it’s the only one you’ll know me by. It will be in your best interests if you don’t let anyone know you and I met.”
“I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”
I leave this man, who will eventually serve a very useful purpose for me, sitting on the steps of the library as I make my way back to the Porsche.
A very useful agent indeed.
Hello, Agent.
As I drive back to Lukas’s building, an emotion I haven’t felt before suddenly hits me. Contentment. I think what I’m doing is right for me. I mean, my life choices are limited, but I’m pretty sure this is what I need to–no, this is what I’m meant to be doing.
As I hit the button for the garage door to go up, I see Lukas standing in front of me with his legs hip width apart, his arms crossed over his chest and a sinister smirk on his model’s face.
He’s standing back far enough so I can bring his car in and park it as it’s normally done. I stop the car and get out, making my way around to the trunk to get the few bags out. Lukas doesn’t move to help me.
“Training.”
His only word to me is intended to get me into the right headspace. What he doesn’t know is I’ve been in training mode every minute of every day since my emotional breakdown. As I turn my back to Lukas, I hear him stepping toward me on the balls of his feet. He may think he has the upper hand, and I’ll let him to continue to believe it, because I’m still his apprentice and I still have things to learn from him.
I hear a crackle of electricity, like a buzzing of raw electrical current and I do what I have to, so I’m not caught by whatever the fuck Lukas is going to throw at me. I crouch on the defensive. Lukas comes at me with a handheld device and before I get a chance to block his attack, he pushes the device into my ribs.
My ribs feel like they are cracking. My muscles are trying to fold in on themselves and my skin erupts in a heated inferno.
I scream out in pain as Lukas straddles my legs and removes the device.
“Get up.” he stands away from me and gives me his hand to steady myself, but I don’t take it. I can do this. “Turn around and head into the family room.” The sofa has been pushed aside and the center of the room is cleared of everything except a table, two chairs next to each other and a black machine that sits on the table top. I walk over and look at the machine.
“Polygraph training.” Lukas indicates which of the two chairs I should sit in.
“A lie detector?” I ask.
“This is something you may never need, but if you get caught by the police you may very well need it. Either way, you’ll learn how to beat the box. Now, I’m going to strap you in. These electrodes will read your pulse, your respiratory rate, blood volume and skin response. For every answer you give that is actually true, I’ll tase you. For every untruthful answer you give me that the machine detects, I’ll tase you. You felt the effects of the taser. This isn’t going to be comfortable, and we’ll likely have to stop because there’s only so much your body will be able to take. But I’ll be the judge of that.” I nod my head, aware any argument is totally futile.
“When you’re strapped in, the person administering the test will need to get a baseline from you to recognize a true or false response. So you need to be completely in control of your body. Any little flicker will be picked up by this machine.”
Automatically, as I’m listening to Lukas talk and my body goes into its calming mode. I can already feel my pulse begin to slow, and my heart beats a little slower. Almost like I’m hibernating and relaxing my body, getting it ready to strike.
“Is your name Jessica White?”
“Yes.” Without warning I get tased in the ribs. I double over in agony.
“Straighten up now.” Lukas commands, and I need to do as he says.
“Is your name Fiona Lord?”
“Yes.” Another taser strike on my exposed arm. I’m starting to feel sick and it feels like a golf ball is sitting in my throat. But I straighten up.
“Is your name Lucinda Fitzpatrick?”
“Yes.” Taser to my stomach. It contracts tightly, and the tightening quickly turns into a spasm. But I straighten up.
“FOCUS!” Lukas yells at me. I take a second to compose myself. I close my eyes and breathe. Henry always taught me to breathe in and expel it out. Focusing and centering.
“Is your name Anna Brookes?”
Without hesitation I say, “No.” I’m not tasered.
“Is your name Jessica White?”
“Yes.” Lukas hits my thigh with the taser. The contact is longer than it has been. An instant fire builds in my thigh, feeling like it’s being sawn in half. My entire body starts to spasm. It’s not just my stomach that’s affected, but my head is clouded and now tears have burst from my eyes. He releases the taser.
Instantly, I straighten up, silently asking for more of this grueling torture. Not because I want it, but because I need to learn to control myself totally, and learn to do this job with total control.
“Is your name Anna Brookes?”
“No.”
“Is your name Fiona Lord?”
“Yes.”
“Is your name Lucinda Fitzpatrick?”
“Yes.”
“Is your age fifteen?”
“Yes.” Taser, again.
“Fucking focus, Anna. You think this is tough? You think this is the worst you’ll get? I’m teaching you to save your fucking life here. This could be the difference between jail or a bullet in the fucking head. Fucking focus! Stop this bullshit.”
Nodding, I try and straighten as much as I can, but my body is letting me down.
“Do you love Henry Brookes?”
“No.”
“Is your name Anna Brookes?”
“No.”
“Session over.” Lukas releases me and leaves me to consider everything that just happened. As quickly as he started the training, he’s finished for the day.
For the next three weeks, we continue on the polygraph training, and every day the taser strikes become fewer and fewer. Until the last day when the taser sits, taunting me, on the table as Lukas starts his questioning.
With an emotionless face, my body in total submission to me, and a look of pure death in my eyes, the first question comes.
“Is your name Anna Brookes?”
“No.”
“Are you twenty-five years old?”
“Yes.”
“Are you an only child?”
“No.”
“Do you have sisters?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have one sister?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have ten brothers?”
“Yes.”
“Are you adopted?”
“Yes.”
“Is your hair blonde?”
“No.” Lukas moves his gaze away from the machine’s readout and looks up at me. I say nothing to him as his evil look is quite evident. He goes back to looking at his machine.
“Are you a killer?” A small smile twitches on my lips.
“No.”
“Would you kill me?”
“Yes”
Lukas’s head lifts in an instant and he stares at me for what seems like hours, but it’s only thirty-two seconds.
“Would you really?” He doesn’t look at the machine for this answer, but I’m in the zone and looking him in the eye, give him my lie detector answer, or maybe it’s the truth.
“Yes.”
He looks down to check the readout and shakes his head. “Training over.”
Lukas pushes his chair away as he stands and it topples over backward. He leaves me to detangle myself from the wires and pads as he angrily stalks to his car and leaves with a screech of the tires.
When Lukas returns, he remains quiet, going through the motions and completely detached emotionally from me. Our training schedule intensifies and there are instances when I’m sure he’s trying to hurt me. Especially when we’re in hand-to-hand combat.
Just before my sixteenth birthday, Lukas manages to rip my arm open with a flick of the knife he’s wielding. He doesn’t take me to hospital; for people like us, hospitals are not an option until we end up on a slab in the morgue. We sit at the table and Lukas stitches my arm up with no anesthetic. The pain is almost intolerable as he roughly jabs the needle into my already sensitive arm and continues to pull through the surgical thread.
“There are three others, Anna.” He doesn’t lift his eyes. Instead, he keeps hacking away at my arm.
“What are you talking about?”
“There are four of us who are as good as each other. No one else comes close. Four top assassins. We all know who the others are, and at some point, three of us will be wiped out. I hope I’m the last one standing.”
“Why are you telling me this, Lukas?”
“You need to know to always watch over your shoulder. There’ll come a time that you’ll be known, and the others will try and destroy you.” His words cause me to clear my mind and carefully consider each thing he said. Four top assassins, and I’m being trained by one of them.
“Who are the other three?”
Lukas smiles and a flash of pride crosses his face. “All men. All extremely dangerous, but most of all, they are hungry enough to try and erase every other challenger.”
Sitting in silence, I’m still as Lukas puts the last stitch in my arm. Thirteen in total.
“I have a birthday present for you, but it won’t be here for another six weeks.”
“I don’t want to celebrate my birthday, Lukas. I want to forget it.”
“Good, because I had no intentions of throwing you a party, but you’ll accept my gift.”
“Okay,” is all I can say.
My birthday comes and goes, and Lukas keeps training me. We’ve moved on to guns, from different styles of sniper rifles to semi-automatics. There’s no type of firearm I can’t fire without precision and control. Lukas’s small tell-tale signs that he’s impressed, shocked, or just plain frightened start to creep into his day-to-day actions.
His leg twitching.
A squint in his right eye.
Running his tongue along his top teeth.
And sometimes I see the smallest jerk of his left pinky, just stretching out and instantly relaxing.
These signs are evident when he hands me a weapon and asks me to shoot.
“Do you remember how I said your birthday present would be here in six weeks?
”
“I don’t forget anything, Lukas.”
“Well, your present has been delayed by a month.”
“That’s okay. I can wait.”
The next month passes as quickly as the last fourteen months have. A complete blur of activity, our training sessions don’t ease up. But now I’m keeping up with Lukas and my injuries are minimal.
One night I’m lying on the sofa reading when Lukas returns from one of his outings. He silently stands in front of me and throws a Saks bag down next to me. I eye it and then look back at him.
“What’s this?”
“Open it.” He tilts his head toward the mystery bag.
A laugh escapes me. “No Lukas, you can open it and take whatever the hell is in it out.”
I watch his left pinky jerk. He grabs the bag and tips it upside down. Inside I see a black, long-sleeved top, fitted cargo pants, a black ski mask, and black hiking boots.
“Your birthday present arrived. Get ready.”
My birthday present?
My. Birthday. Present.
A target.
A hit.
My first hit.
My stomach flips, my hands start to shake, and a chill engulfs my entire body. This is what I’ve been training for. This is what Lukas has been teaching me to do.
I need to calm my erratic breathing and get my body under control.
“Ten minutes, Anna,” Lukas yells from upstairs.
Still sitting on the sofa, I focus on my breath, trying to tame my excited body. I push everything that’s not supposed to be present aside.
My mask finds me.
A peaceful, eerie serenity engulfs me.
“Anna?” Lukas is standing in front of me questioning my lack of black clothes.
The HiT Series Page 23
