CHAPTER 9

Dear diary,

       I know that the body can understand why the heart beats faster from time to time. Yeah, yeah, whatever, I have studied anatomy too, in case there is any injury during missions. Most of the times I get a rush when my heart beats, but there are times when my body goes numb. I can't feel my legs anymore and fail to move, like my feet are glued. I have no idea why it happens. One moment I'm sitting on a chair, chilling and the second moment it gets heavy. I wonder is that what they call fear?

       Love, Sam.

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"Where did she go?"

"To get some air, maybe?"

Gustavo carefully watched the motion in Samantha's stance of walk and figured it out immediately.

"She needs some space." He told the other three.

"Whatever." Christina commented and turned the other way with Larry.

Those two.

Sumire looked at them and faced Gustavo again with puppy eyes. "I'll have the lasagna!" She said with a toothy grin.

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Samantha climbed up to the water tank and sat comfortably. The 50 years old apartment building above the sewage junction was rumoured to be haunted by a ghost; once a resident of the fifth floor of this building who had found out the secret doorway down to the basement and had to be executed for that; by the glorious hands of The Keres.

Every time Samantha visits the base, she comes up here, to the highest point of the locality and watches the cold city; also the glitter like stars when the sky above is not cloudy. She smells the cool in the wind and sighs in content, feeling the soothe on the nasty scars on her heart.

Ms. Clara Burke. Silver haired lady in mid sixties; altocalciphilic; a natural smile always tugged on her lips due to facial muscles configuration.

She never forgets the name of her victims. She never forgets the way they look happy just before death shadows over them and the second life is about to leave their bodies; she never forgets how likely it tries to crush her heart seeing the contrasting change in color of their faces by the moment they realize their fate.

Good or bad, every person on earth has someone they love or someone who loves them. She doesn't think about the monsters like her who have none, but still sometimes she wonders if she will ever break down from the burden of the pain and agony of the nameless, faceless who had suffered the loss of love by her hands.

Samantha took a deep breath and closed her eyes as the wind picked up. A soft thud on the roof below her introduced the presence of a person but it didn't alert her.

"Can I join?"

She opened her eyes and removed the hand from her side which she was balancing her body on. Soon enough, a vital entity occupied the place beside her.

"It's beautiful up here."

For a little while they just sat close and enjoyed the silence. A faint music of some club was reaching their auditory senses at times and a car or two passed by the alley down the building. If paid enough attention, a cricket could be heard chirping somewhere with the rhythm of a heartbeat.

Samantha couldn't see anyone else within the reach of her conscious world and so she let her guard down. Slowly she shifted sideways and placed her her on the solid concave shoulder of her privado. He reciprocated the gesture and leaned on; hanging a hand around her shoulder.

He knew this cue very well. He knew this was one of the rarest moments on the history when the goddess of war, The Keres was vulnerable and tired; when she had made some kind of truce to stop the battle inside her and too exhausted to talk about it. He knew and he stayed silent; letting her be because he knew that's what she needed most at the time.

Another broken soul who can empath with her emotions.

"When was the last time you had a shower?" He asked, after he saw her looking around calmly, still on the same position.

"Yesterday morning." She answered with a chuckle.

"That's why you smell like a salmon!"

"And you smell like tuna!"

"Hey, we should hang out more!"

"Dude, you live like thirty kilometers away!"

The Great Sapphire Regency was also thirty kilometers away from her home.

"Yeah so what? You can introduce me to your friends! That girl Avery seems nice!"

"Your taste has degraded son! Mommy is disappointed!" A hurl of laughter passed through the air. "And besides if I bring you there, they'll not only faint seeing the ape face of yours but also gonna freak out on the fact that I have a friend."

"You should keep yourself more sociable! It's not safe otherwise... "

"Gus, can we not?"

"Okay." He said immediately.

Samantha rose her head from his shoulder and looked downwards.

"They didn't do anything."

"Who?"

"The two girls who were with the bastard."

"You can't control everything Sam. Shit happens all the time."

"But why did they have to die? They didn't do anything!"

Collateral damage is a very common thing in assassinations, Samantha knew that. But how does it make any sense when they are just innocent people who happen to be present on the spot just as a pawn of nature's pattern game?

Gustavo didn't say anything except letting out a sigh. He repeated the words that came out of her lips over and over again inside his head. He was intrigued with her use of vocabulary. He didn't know whether to be happy on the fact that his friend showed signs of emotions or worry about the out of character behaviour of her that makes her what she is.

Samantha was conflicted herself about the unfamiliar things occuring to her mind. Is she getting soft? What if she fails to erase these kind of things from her brain and it disrupts her career? What if emotions get the best of her and she makes a mistake?

She was annoyed as well as ashamed of what was happening to her; too soon to handle that all of a sudden; and she was also worried about herself for the fact that she might have to face the emotional consequences of her choice which she never did before. She has never regretted her decisions and she has never looked back.

For a while an image was trying to pop up from her subconscious being related to the same kind of conflict her mind was wrapped around now. That's right, the 'just a guy in the bar'; was devicing her mind too. Never in her life, has a physical form of a human being affected her this much, leave alone the way he seems to approach things and sees the world. She knew something had moved inside her from the moment he had walked out of her sight and she knew that she would never see the world as the way she saw before. A foreign sentiment was changing her perception of life sprouted from only half an hour of that conversation and was making her mind hazy thinking about the possible outcome of that feeling if she lets it infect her.

But for some reason, she dared to let it in, surprising herself; for she was curious about the person. She was curious about the factor which made her think like that.

It almost felt like a challenge.

For a moment she thought that she can share that with Gustavo; she almost opened her mouth before words even formed inside her brain when suddenly a shrieking sound came across the end of the alley.

Fucking thugs.

A quick glance was exchanged between them before they jumped down; through the sunshades and pipes. After they hit the ground within seven seconds, they spotted two dark figures cornering another two. As they stepped forward silently, they saw the bad guys holding knives in front of what seemed like a couple. The guy was determine to protect the girl hiding behind him.

Chiche drama series.

"Now now, if you value your life, hand over all the goldens you have!"

"Please no! We are far away from home! We need the money to return!" The guy was trembling but managed his voice.

"We don't care! Hand it over or I won't hesitate to slit your throat and take your girl! She will be a great treat tonight, eh partner?"

"Damn right!"

Between the evil laughter, another voice spoke up, "How about I give you a treat?"

Both of them whirled around and met the feral gleam of two pairs of eyes within the dark. A second later they both were pinned to the ground with palms stabbed on the pavement to sides of their heads, before they even realized what just happened.

One of them shouted something incoherent in pain but Samantha slapped him shut, "you're gonna get out of here and never look back. Not to them, not to anybody. Otherwise I'm gonna hunt you down and make a feast of every organ in your body and I'm gonna feed you your own soup! Now run away before I ask for judgement!"

He stared up at her for a single second before he got the hint.

"Ahhhhhhh! It's the Keres!"

The other one freaked out too.

They released the low lives from their grasp and saw them flee, stumbling. A grin spreaded across her lips by the irony of the situation. One minute ago these imbeciles were threatening people for life and now they were running for their own.

The dumbfounded couple just stood there, probably hearing the name Keres; and as Samantha turned around to look at them they were about to piss their pants.

"What are you still doing here? Go away!"

The couple escaped from there and they stood for a while in the dark.

"There's no way out of this."

"Hn!"

"Let's go, Atticus said he has things to discuss."

The creatures of darkness or the nameless protectors; no matter how they put it, there is literally no way out of the tasks universe throws at their almost self made fortune.