Chapter 14: Goodbye Sister

The following day, Olivia was in her office at City Hall, sipping from a cup of black coffee while scrolling through a most-wanted list that was being displayed on her desktop's screen, when she stumbled upon Essen's picture among some very notorious murders, psychopaths and child molesters. She paused for a good five minutes, looking fervently at his picture. It grieved her spirit to see him among such manner of criminals. Joel, what have you gotten yourself into? She wondered on edge, no longer having the desire to finish her cup of coffee. Suddenly, her smartphone began to ring.

"This is Olivia speaking," she said, but no one answered back. "Hello?" She went again.

"The Detective didn't murder Captain Briggs," the person on the other side of the phone finally answered with a distinct auto-tuned voice. "It's a lie, all of it. But you already knew that. I've been watching you. I know you're secretly working to prove it. To prove that he is innocent."

"Who is this?" She demanded with suspicion and weariness.

"I can't tell you my identity over the phone. I was instead hoping we could meet in person."

"Why would I want to meet with you, a stranger who hides behind a voice modulator? For all I know you could be the real killer trying to lure me to my doom."

"If I was the real killer you'd be already dead. Please, Miss Steele. We need to talk. I don't know how much time I have left. I have something to give to you. Something that may prove the innocence of the Detective. I know that's what you want."

After a few scenarios of overthinking and holding her breath, Olivia succumbed to the offer. "Okay, where do you want to meet?" She then asked.

"I'm downstairs," the person replied, hanging up the phone in her ear.

Ultimately reaching downstairs in the main lobby where there were a lot of people dressed in suits and ties going about their daily business, Olivia looked around in hopes of seeing this mysterious person whom she wasn't sure was a male or female. She held her phone out in her hand in case the person decided to call back. However, she received no such call. People just kept on walking past her like she was invisible to them, exiting and entering through a revolving door. This continued for the next ten minutes.

Feeling like a victim of a nasty hoax, she gripped her phone tightly in her hand and turned around to head for the staircase leading back to her floor. In a huff, she started to walk. Then all after a sudden, a man in a big brown trench coat and cream-coloured Panama hat bounced into her as he tried to walk in the opposite direction. She hastily turned around to confront this rude man, but when she did she found out that he was already waiting for her to turn around. The man thereafter removed the dark eyeglasses he had on, to reveal that he wasn't a man at all. It was Jade underneath the hat and in the big trench coat.

"What is the meaning of this?" Olivia flabbergasted.

"Sorry, but this is for your own safety," Jade answered, subtly preventing her from creating a scene that would have warranted for unnecessary attention.

"Who are you!?" Olivia shouted quietly.

"Who I am is not of importance, Miss Steele. What I possess, however, is," Jade then swiped the screen of her phone and instantly information began to be copied onto Olivia's phone.

"Who are all these people?" Olivia wondered out loud as a list of names jotted down her phone's screen with the last two being Judas' and Antonio's respectively.

"These are the names of people that I and my sister were instructed to assassinate."

"What?" In disbelief Olivia asked, looking around to see if anyone had heard what she believed she had just heard.

"Scientists...businessmen...politicians. Their bodies were never found. That is why you haven't seen these names before. The police Captain, your friend, made sure all evidence including the bodies were destroyed; cremated at the police morgue."

"Wha..."

"We screwed up with Judas Strange. We shouldn't have killed him in the open like that; especially in front of your beloved."

"Look, I don't know where you're getting at with this, but I don't wanna know. I'll let the guards deal with your crazy ass," Olivia responded, looking over at two security guards walking up to them from the revolving entrance door.

"Wait. That is the night that Detective Essen got involved. The night his life was ruined," Jade blurted out, stopping Olivia from signalling the guards who she then allowed to walk past her.

"Well, you've got my attention. What do you know about Joel?"

"All I know is that he dug a little too deep into Judas' death; got involved with a man named Antonio Versalez. By this time he had become a serious liability to our employer. We had to get rid of him somehow and what other way to do that than to make him public enemy number one. So we framed him. The truth is it was my sister who killed both Captain Briggs and Mr Versalez."

"He's being framed," Olivia deduced, gridlock with thoughts. "Who is your employer? If I'm to believe what you're telling me is true, I need to know the name of the scumbag that is supposedly behind this."

"His name is Victor Gable," Jade informed her with sweet satisfaction.

"I knew it. I knew something was up. That old man didn't seem right to me. Just yesterday he paid me a visit. He was forcing...no...threatening me to believe that Joel was guilty. But I know Joel. He would never do any of those things. Despite our history together, he was always a good person with good intentions. Which brings me to this question, why are you coming to me with this information now, seeing that you've admitted to being an accomplice in the assassination of countless people?"

"I was once his bodyguard...his entourage...his yellow assassin. I have done some really bad things for him, Miss Steele and I know I'm deserving of much worst. I'm prepared to face those punishments when they come, but he is evil and he must be stopped."

"Well, be that as it may...I believe you. I don't like him one bit, but Victor is a very powerful man. I don't see how w..."

Out of the blues, Olivia's voice began to fade away into the background as Jade from the corner of her eyes took notice of two Chinese men dressed in black jumpsuits emerging from the revolving entrance door, looking about the place as if they were looking for someone. She then glimpsed behind her and saw another Chinese man walking down the staircase.

Olivia's voice then came back into focus."...but you are right about one thing. He must be stopped."

"Walk away now," Jade instructed Olivia, stealthily staring straight at the men who were now closing in on their location.

"What?"

"As we speak, three Dai Lee assassins are closing in on us. We have two choices before us. One: stay here and get caught together, after which we are most definitely guaranteed to die. Or two: we both walk away on our separate paths; you with the evidence I've given you to use to clear the Detective's name, and I on my path to redemption. With this choice, we both may make it out of this with our lives. I choose the latter, how 'bout you?"

With unsurety all over her face, Olivia then turned around and began to tediously walk towards the staircase, trusting that Jade was being serious. Jade, on the other hand, walked in the opposite direction towards the revolving exit door. By putting on the eyeglasses and holding her head down low with the hat, she tried her best to conceal her identity. But she was already spotted by one of the men who then informed the other two men via his earpiece.

She was unaware that she had been discovered until one of the men came up to her and hit the hat right off of her head. Another then grabbing her trench coat, pulled it off to reveal that she was already wearing her yellow assassin outfit underneath it. Moreover, removing the coat also revealed that Victor's sword was strapped onto her back. At the same time, Olivia halfway up the stairs stopped to look back after hearing the commotion at the entrance. Right there she found out that Jade was telling the truth. Now she feared for her.

"She has the sword!" One of the men then alerted.

"Get her," another said.

Reacting fast, Jade dropped onto her knee and spun back one of her legs on the shiny floor to effectively trip all three men who had foolishly surrounded her from behind. Then to conceal her identity she pulled up her mask and ran through a crowd of people who had stopped at the entrance to video the brawl on their smartphones.

On running down the steps leading up to City Hall, a biker suddenly stopped right at her feet. It was another Dai Lee assassin. Then just when he was about to pull out his gun to shoot her, she grabbed his arm with her legs and instantaneously flicked him off of his bike and onto the pavement where she dislocated his shoulder bones. People going up and down the steps witnessed this and began to scatter in all directions when they saw the other men running down the steps towards her with guns in hand. Making use of the opportunity, Jade jumped onto the man's motorcycle and squeezed hard on the bike's handles, causing it to take off with tremendous speed. However, it did not take too long for the three men to find bikes of their own. A chase was then initiated.

With the stolen sword proudly strapped onto her back, Jade swiftly drove between the slower moving vehicles on the road. The men did the same and started to fire their guns at her once she was in range. Rocking the bike from left to right, she skillfully dodged the bullets coming here way; bullets which ended up shooting out car glasses and causing multiple car collisions along the busy thoroughfare.

Seeing a truck up ahead carrying large metal pipes stacked upon each other, she thought of an idea. She magically then pulled out the sword from its case for the first time and arrogantly held the staggering four-foot-long sword in her hand, silencing Victor's theory that no one could remove it from its case. The truck driver seeing her through his side mirror with the sword, panicked and decided to make an urgent U-turn. Unknowingly to him, this was what she was waiting on. So she sped up for a time, then she dramatically tilted the bike on its side while crouching on top of it. Many sizzling sparks were produced in the process due to friction between the bike and the asphalt that it was rubbing against.

Now dangerously close to the edge of the carrier section of the truck, she made one quick slash at the wire cables that held the large metal pipes in place before she and the bike completely slid under.

Then like an avalanche, the stacks of pipes went tumbling onto the asphalt where they violently tripped the men off their bikes. Meanwhile, Jade was safe on the other side of the truck which had stopped horizontally in the middle of the road. In a manner of badassery, she slid back the sword in its case and sped off, leaving the trail of destruction behind. Deep down she thought that it would be smooth sailing from here on, but she had gravely mistaken.

As her sister in her purple assassin get-ups was running parallel to her on the high rooftops of some adjoining apartments. She then stopped at the edge of the last rooftop and aimed a sniper rifle at Jade's back. Merci had a clear shot to take her out, but for some reason, she didn't. She instead shot out the motorcycle's rear wheel, causing her to lose control of it as it skidded. Jade quickly pulled it over and ran for cover in the underground parking lot of a condemned nine-storey building that hadn't completed construction. There she was confronted by her fellow assassins who happened to all be men.

"Traitor!" One of the men impatiently yelled, getting ready to challenge her in a sword fight.

But Jade wasn't going to have it. She decided to attack first. So she drew out the sword and made one quick swoop with it. To everyone's surprise, it not only chopped the man's sword in half but also went straight through a twelve inch-thick enforce steel beam, like a heated knife through butter. Woah, she said in awe inside her head as her eyes became mesmerized by the sword. Yet almost immediately the entire building started to quake.

"That was the main support beam of the building you idiot," the same Chinese man chastised with his eyes wide open.

In a matter of minutes, it was every man for himself as they all struggled towards the only exit they could see. Sudden dread then came upon them when they saw a large portion of the building collapsing and blocking this exit. Desperately looking for another way out, Jade discovered a broken exit sign and led the race towards it. One by one the building claimed the life of the person lagging the most behind with huge debris falling from above. Jade was the only one who managed to clear the building on time. Everyone else was seemingly killed off when the building finally collapsed in on itself.

Jade afterwards stopped to catch her breath. Surely she was deserving of that, especially after everything that had just escalated in the last fifteen minutes. Unfortunately, it wasn't going to be so. Out of nowhere someone grabbed her from behind and tossed her to the ground. It was her sister.

"Jade, what are you doing?!" She asked, watching Jade as she flipped back onto her feet in a fighting stance.

"Merci, stay out of my way. I have to do what's right," she defended, pulling out the sword.

"So allowing your brothers to be crushed in a building was right?" Merci criticized, slamming down her rifle into Jade. Jade, however, quickly blocked it with the face of the sword. The two then braced against each other with equal strength.

"They are not my brothers."

"Jade, there are strict rules in the Dai Lee and disobeying the Grandmaster's wish is the most offensive. We were entrusted to Victor and we have to remain loyal to him at all cost."

"Is that what you tell yourself? We were exchanged for money not entrusted."

"Jade, you need to stop this rebellion."

"And you need to ask more questions. Tell me, haven't you asked yourself the question...that how is it your master is in good health all after a sudden?"

"Asking questions is what got you in this very situation," Merci wittingly remarked before they pushed off each other.

"Merci, I saw him with my own two eyes consulting with a jinn, a demon. That's where he received his health. He pretends to be a peace bearer in the public's eye, but we both know what he really does behind closed doors. The many people he made us kill for him and his friends. I told you there was a larger picture we weren't seeing. Now I fear we may have helped him to bring about something very evil into this world."

"Jade, I'm going to give you one last chance to change your mind...to end this madness."

"I'm sorry, Merci, but my mind is made up. There is nothing you can say or do to change it. I will stop Victor if it's the last thing I do."

"I'm sorry too," Merci bitterly uttered before getting ready to use the rifle on her sister. But Jade acted quickly and chopped the rifle in half with the sword before she could get a chance to use it. Merci with another trick up her sleeve thereafter pulled out a small handgun and pointed it in her chest while she left herself open.

Tears then came to Jade's eyes when she looked and realized that her sister was holding her at gunpoint, eagerly waiting to squeeze the trigger. It's important to note that this was different from when Jade held her at gunpoint. Jade was never planning on using it on her, but in this case with Merci having the upper hand, it was uncertain.

"So that's it huh? You're just going to kill me?"

"You left me no other choice, Jade. I have to stop you before you bring anymore disgrace to the Dai Lee."

"If you are going shoot me...do it, because I'm never going back. No more Victor. No more Dai Lee. No more following orders. I'm my own person now. I rather die right here...right now doing the right thing than to live and serve that devil another day," Jade proclaimed, fearlessly walking up into the gun.

"What are you doing?"

"You're here to kill me, right?" Jade asked, throwing the sword to the ground. "I'm making it easier for you. Now do it. Shoot me! Shoot your only sister...your only family."

"I'm warning you. I will do it," Merci cautioned with teary eyes.

"Come on, don't back down now. You're on a mission remember? Have the decency to see it through. Shoot me!" Jade pressed with fully formed tears flowing down her face. Grinding her teeth in frustration, Merci hesitated, but Jade continued, insisting for her to, "Shoot me. Shoot me!"

To her surprise, Merci threw her gun to the ground and yelled, "No! Okay. No. I can't shoot you. I---I can't do it. I thought I could, but now that you're here...I have failed the Dai Lee. I have failed Victor," she wanted to cry but she fought valiantly to keep the tears at bay.

Jade realizing her sister's agony, out of compassion took a hold of her hand. "Come with me, Merci. You don't have to go back to that monster. We can be free together."

Merci for some reason then aggressively pulled away her hand from her sister's tender clutch. "Go. Leave the city and never return. Victor will kill you if you do."

Jade knowing Merci, knew that her response meant that she wasn't going to run away with her. So she wiped away her tears and said, "Merci, take care of yourself," before going over to pick up the sword.

"Leave the sword," Merci side-eyed her.

"No. It belongs with me," she held the sword to her chest.

Not wanting to argue with her again, Merci just held her peace.

"Merci, leave while there is still time," Jade urged one last time before running off with the sword.