Dieforme,Mr.Hall

June

There's blood dripping from my hand with every step I track towards Adrian's office but the blood is not mine. The workers on this floor plaster to the wall when I pass, prim Annabel even makes the sign of the cross on her chest as if to ward me off and a trickle of dark humour warms my chest, not enough to bring a smile to my face. If she warded off her husband everytime he brought his AIDs-infested cock to her every night, perhaps she would stop losing weight rapidly and thinking it's her diet.

Knowing everybody's business is my business, doing something about it is not but perhaps I'll slip the secret test result her husband conducted two years ago into her bag today. Oh, to be a fly on the wall when the realization strikes. I don't spare her another glance as I stride for the looming door and shove it open without bothering to knock.

Adrian looks up from his computer, a frown marring his forehead from my obvious lack of propriety but he of everyone knows that manners and propriety is the farthest thing on my mind. 

I walk forward and drop the bloody severed finger on his table, staining a piece of paper while the heavy diamond ring still stuck on the now-swelling digit twinkles. The owner is still alive though he probably wishes he was not, as the ring on the finger he lost is worth more than his life.

"How many times will I change my desk because of you?" Adrian asks but there's no real ire in his voice as the older man grabs a pair of black gloves, his eyes twinkling brighter than the diamond as he eyes the ring hungrily.

"Congrats, you get to keep this one as long as you wish." I reply sardonically.

He peers deeply at the ring and then flicks something that pops it open.

"Ah, there it is." He sighs, retrieving a tiny patch of powder hidden there that is surely more priceless than the heavy diamond that concealed it. I don't care.

Thirty jobs was the agreement and thirty jobs I have done, this was the last. I reminded myself of that when I sawed through my victim's chubby finger and swallowed the bile that crawled up to my throat. I'm free.

"Well, have fun with your new toy." I say, turning away, more than eager to put miles between myself and my boss. "You remember the agreement right? I'll get my sister ready for the surgery."

"Not so fast." He replies and I freeze, my heart stopping in my chest for a dreadful moment. I turn a glare on him and find him disposing of the diamond in a tray as he carefully avoids my eyes and a chill of alarm rings through me.

"What do you mean?" I bite out. "We are done."

He finally meets my eyes then and I see all I need to see. I'm the only one done with him, he isn't finished with me. The snake!

"We agreed!" I snarl, my fingers itching to go for the dagger sheathed at my waist. I dare not move a muscle, I can't trust myself not to go after him in a killing rage. "You fucking signed the contract. My sister needs that surgery."

"Calm down, June." Lucifer himself says and those words stroke the rage inside my chest to a boil. I rock back on the balls of my feet and count to ten. When I'm done, he's sitting again and I loosen the muscles of my body and prowl over to him, looming  over his desk.

"Give me one fucking reason why I shouldn't gut you where you sit." My voice comes out in a chilling rasp.

"Calm the fuck down and hear what I have to say." He hisses. "I have the cure."

Those words are like a heavy punch to my gut, knocking the breath from my lungs. I think I stagger a bit, but I catch myself on his desk, focused on the sick growing smile on his face.

"What did you just say?" I ask.

"You heard me right." Adrian says with a smug smile that says he knows he has me where he needs me. "What were the odds Dr. Leander gave your sister even with the surgery again? Twenty percent odds? The cure is hundred percent."

I'm shaking, a feeling of surrealism descending over me. I feel like if I dare to speak, this office will dissolve into a bittersweet dream that I'll be forced to wake up from.

"Are you fucking with me?" I ask and he says nothing. He doesn't need to, those clear blue eyes speak volume.

The cure exists. A manic laughter bubbles in my chest and I tamp it down harshly. I'm good at that, tamping down emotions. It is all I have done ever since my sister ingested a poison she never should have been exposed to and developed a rare, fatal and incurable complication. Ever since my sister started dying, I wanted to scream and rage and burn the world and everything in it down but for her, I appear as cool as a cucumber, lending her strength where hers is failing. Now Adrian says there's a cure?

"What do I have to do?" I ask, my voice hoarse from suppressing my emotions.

"One more job." He says.

"Done." I reply.

"Not so fast." He says again and pulls out a file, dumping it in front of me and turning to the first page. The man that looks out from the page looks like an arrogant bastard, it's there in the way he stares down the camera- as if everything in the world is beneath him. "He has something you must retrieve and once you do, you must kill him."

I flinch back as if I was struck and my skin is prickling, my eyes burning when I turn my glare back to Adrian.

"You know my rules." I hiss. "No death."

"I believe this is a special occasion that calls for special changes to your 'rules' don't you think?" He asks, stippling his fingers together and returning my glare.

My ear pops with pressure and I stagger back a step. There is the sound of screaming but I think it's just my mind. I flit through all the possibilities like a rat stuck in a maze. No death, I will not kill anyone but on the other hand, it's this stranger's life for my sister's. Will Adrian give the job to another if I refuse? Most likely. There are many others that will take it without questions, many of who will make this man beg for death. I can make it quick for him, painless even and his death will not be in vain. I cannot let someone else take my sister's one chance at life.

My mind settles, a terrible calm coming over me as everything shifts into perspective. I suck in a long steadying breath and meet Adrian's expectant gaze as I pick the file up.

"He's mine." I say and he breaks into a jovial grin.

"If it makes you feel better, this is the man that made sure H&K walked free." Adrian adds.

That's the company that ruined me and my sister's life. My fingers tighten on the file and a smile pulls at my lips.

"Then consider him already dead." I reply and he grins, clearly pleased with my reply.

~~~

The temperature of the shower is up to nearly scalding as I stand underneath it, letter the deluge of water and heat wash away the grime and dirt of the sins I've committed in the night. I can still hear the man screaming as his finger came off, taste the bitter acidity of bile at the back of my throat. It took me a while to locate that one. Ingenious really, to hide his most valuable asset in his wedding ring but the ring could have been in the Amazon forest and I would have found it.

Outside, my door beeps loudly and opens, followed by footsteps and I don't bother asking who it is.

"Did you bring dinner?" I call out because I left the bathroom door open but he doesn't answer. I turn off the scalding faucet and step out, avoiding my eyes in the mirror as I wrap myself in a towel.

Ryder is holding the file I left on the table and his expression is dark as he turns to me.

"What is this?" He snarls. "I thought you did your last job."

"I did." I reply, patting my hair dry with the smaller towel.

"Well this doesn't look like it." He snaps.

When I'm done telling him everything, he blows out a long breath and I allow him a minute to digest it all.

"That fucking bastard!!!" He explodes, the file scrunching in his fist. "I'll fucking kill him."

"Not before I get Evelyn's cure." I reply, dragging the box of take-out he brought closer. Chinese, nice.

"How are you so calm about this? He wants you to kill someone!" Ryder growls and I wince and look to the window.

"Louder, I can think of no better way to spend my evening than explaining to the police that 'kill someone' is our bedroom code."

"I'm serious June!" He snaps. "Tell him, you can't do this job."

A flash of anger surges through me, incinerating my own fear and shame and hesitancy. "Don't you dare tell me what I can or cannot do." I hiss. "I will do 'anything' if it gives my sister a chance at life. You think I'm overjoyed at this? I hate it Ryder. But if I need to kill this one man in exchange for my sister's life, who are you to tell me I can't?"

I don't like how shaken I feel, how exposed. I stand, my back ramrod straight as I walk to my cabinet and pull out a bottle of wine, trying to breathe through the cocktail of emotions choking me up. When I turn back around, I'm more in control of myself.

"You're right, it's not my place." Ryder says slowly through the hard clench of his jaw.

I draw in a long fortifying breath. "I need you now more than ever, Ryder." I whisper, clasping my fingers tightly together.

Silence stretches between us with the weight of my request. I'm asking him to help me one more time,

as he has helped me through most of my jobs, but this time I'm asking him to be my accomplice to murder. I feel wretched and wicked to ask this of him but I press my lips together and wait for his reply. Finally, he sighs.

"You know I will always have your back." He replies. "Anything you need."

I exhale shakily and smile. "He'll need a new personal assistant soon, make sure I'm the peak candidate." I say, handing him the file.