PROLOGUE

Blind anger... Simple hatred... Fear...

Those emotions swirl around in my head as I’m running straight down a darkened corridor with a katana in hand. I’m running blindly towards something when I suddenly feel myself falling. In the dark I can see something spiralling away from me. The katana falls out of my hand as my anger ebbs away. As I watch I begin to feel calm and passive. With realisation I see that the spiral is my hatred and fear and anger. Then I wake up.

I wake up, and I find myself focusing on my living dream and my worst nightmare sitting in the same chair next to my bed. He’s calmly peeling an orange as though he didn’t know I was awake.

“Good evening darling. Ready to get back to work again?” He glances up to give me a quick smile before returning to his damn orange.

When it was all peeled he set the orange down on the nightstand and began to pull off his black blazer. I close my eyes as I move to lie on my back, thinking about the next few hours. I should get paid double for all the extra work I put in after hours. Too bad I’m only a teenager.

I opened my eyes again as he unbuttoned his trousers. It wasn’t like him to take this long to undress. With a groan I got out of the bed and went to find my katana.

I wish I had a new partner. I don’t know how I ended up with him.

Then I remembered… It all started when my parents were relocated to France and I was stuck going to school in the UK. I should blame my parents for where I am right now. Sleeping away my days in school while staying awake nights to perform special favours for money…

“Are you ready yet?” I shout into the other room. “I’ll go and do it by myself if you’re not ready.”

I smiled to myself, knowing what his answering snarl would be. He can’t stand the idea of being left out.

“I’m ready!” he snarled. “Get in here.”

He was in the middle of adjusting his shoes when I threw the gun towards him. “Dammit Gwen, I hate when you do that.”

His left arm was placing the gun on the bed while his right one held the shoelaces in place. “Want me to try that with you some day?”

Empty threats. He wouldn’t even think of trying that with me. I’m too valuable to him. “Yes.”

He growled, knowing I had him figured out. “It’ll happen when you least expect it. Now let’s go.”

I picked up my katana and slung it over my shoulder before I grabbed a yellow duffel bag that had the name of my college on it. People seeing this would think that I was a student going to kendo practise. In a way they would be right. I’m a student and I was going to go get some practise out of the techniques I learned. It’s the simple truth of a larger picture.

He slipped the gun into his black coat and walked out of the hotel room. I waited ten minutes, checking the room for any forgotten memorabilia and dousing the bed and the chair with lighter fluid. Right before I left I opened all the windows and dumped the contents of a whole two bottles of perfume on the carpet in front of the door. I feel guilty whenever I need to harm someone else in order to protect myself. In this case the maid who’s going to walk through that door is going to have her sense of smell deadened by the concentrated perfume. So she won’t smell the kerosene on the bed.

I walked out of the hotel into the busy streets of inner London. Young entrepreneurs and tourists walked along the street, cars busily honking at each other in the road, and the sounds of town life echoed in my ears. I merged into the crowd and casually manoeuvred my way to the café down the road and stepped into the line to order a café au lait. A few seconds later I can feel him standing behind me, my gentle shadow. A very dangerous shadow with guns or not…

Together we left the café and I’m quite sure the people who passed us were giving us second glances as we walked by. It might not be everyday that they saw an average-looking, green-eyed Asian girl who looks like she’s just seventeen and wearing casual black clothing with a katana and a bright yellow duffle swung over her shoulder standing next to a tall, handsome man dressed in expensive black clothing. We’re both wearing black, but the way we wear it is the difference between a street punk and a sophisticate. Or maybe it’s just my paranoia that makes me think the people we walk by can notice these tiny differences. It is very dark, after all.

No matter, we’re supposed to blend into the dark. No one should pay much attention to my katana. I should pretend to be his cousin that he’s escorting home. We’re both instruments of the dark, and I live for this. I kill for money but he kills for survival. The methods we use to eliminate our targets keep us from questioning the reason for our cruelty.

We kill because we’re hired to do it… because for one of us it’s the difference between eternal life and for the other it’s because we’re required to do it to save the other one from being killed.

Guess which one I am. Guess how I was sucked into this. Guess what I plan on doing…