It had been three years since he
had met that man with the horrible scar. Three years since he had given his
freedom up for a woman he barely knew. Three years ago today. Ever since that
day Cierra and him had been training and breaking their bodies to follow Kay
and his demands. Today was their last day of training, their final test. Jeremy
exhaled, relieved that it was finally the end of training, but he didn’t know
what today’s test was. The other tests they had told him their purpose, had
prepared him for them in every way. He was terrifyingly efficient at combat.
There was absolutely nothing that his physical prowess would not allow him to
do, and his cunning was unmatched save perhaps Kay himself. There was one thing
that always seemed to mar the perfection he had seemingly achieved according to
Kay: love. Jeremy had a streak of good in him that had gotten him to trouble
with Kay on more then one occasion in the past.
Jeremy opens his eyes, his daggers
held limply in his hands. He wore what he felt most comfortable in these days.
Fitted black pants, a plain white shirt, and a hooded leather jacket along with
some combat boots. Cierra had always teased him when they started dating about
his new look, she had told him he was trying to look to masculine. He didn’t
care. They’re just clothes. He looked around the room he was in, and it was all
white, with a glass ceiling above him. He was waiting on Kay.
He glanced back down at the
polished, spotlessly white daggers in his hands. They were his favorite weapons
and when his instructor told him to choose something for his final test he knew
there could be no other option. He’d found them with Cierra on one of their
many “dates” into the forested area around the city, if you could call hunting
for old junk dates. They were his favorite though because they were longer than
most daggers, almost as long as short swords and they were slightly hooked on
the end. They didn’t do much damage going in, but coming out…
“You think I won’t do it huh?”
Jeremy says, a playful edge in his voice.
“You’re to stiff! You would never.”
Cierra says it in a matter-of-fact tone.
He rubs his head, almost
reluctantly as he releases a sigh of resignation at her observation.
“I do wish I could run away… from
Kay, the contract and all of it.”
“Run away to what? I’d rather be
here, with purpose.”
She had always liked the idea more
then he had, but he had grown accustomed to it over time.
“I just feel like… it isn’t right.
I want more, I want to be more.”
She nuzzled against his side as
they lay there on the warm grass, pulling him closer to her.
“We can be more.” A smile tugging
at her lips.
He pulled her into him and kissed
her deeply, and as he pulled her he felt something jab into his side daggers.
His mind snaps back into attention
as the door in front of him opens and it’s Cierra, holding her signature
chakrams in each hand. He looked at her confused, and he noticed her smug
determination. He couldn’t focus on the weapons though she looked absolutely
stunning. She let her long hair fall down past her shoulders, its dark brown
pallor making her pale features stand out against the plain white dress she had
on. He never understood why she fought in a dress, mobility he assumed but he
didn’t really care too much about her lack of modesty.
“Well now that you’re both here,
the final test can begin.” The sound emanated from the earpieces that had been
surgically infused into their skulls.
“What’s this about Kay? Jeremy
asked, his voice wavering slightly.
“Your last test is the ultimate
test of survival. One of you must die.” Kay sounded smug, but why he didn’t
understand.
Jeremy looked at Cierra; the
helpless look on his face was met by one of grim determination of her own.
“Let’s get to it then.” With that
she threw one of the chakrams at Jeremy, his startled being only able to roll
left away from the attack.
“You can’t be serious…” His voice
breaking, watching the chakram divert its course to follow his roll.
“You heard him, I’ve just been
using you this whole time anyway. I knew this would come.” Metal on metal is
heard as her chakram collides with his dagger, falling to the ground. She
flicks her wrist slightly and the chakram returns to her grip, ready to be
thrown again.
“But… what about us… we could…”
Heartache dripping from every word, but she merely moves forward towards him,
throwing both of the chakrams at him.
“I don’t care about you, did you
really think I wanted to spend time looking for junk, wasting my time getting
close to you? Kay told me long ago only one of us could leave here.”
Jeremy flips over the chakrams, but
they shift direction mid-air coming up behind him. He’s momentarily confused,
but a blue light warps around his body, and seemingly sucks him in. He appears
beside Cierra facing the opposite way, his daggers still at his sides in his
hands.
“I don’t believe you… Kay did this.
He did something to you. You aren’t the same Cierra I know. The one I love!”
The chakrams fly back to her with a
twitch of her wrists, but shift their course for his back instead as she says,
“To love is to destroy.”
He spins
bringing both daggers upward just in time to deflect the chakrams away, a
single tear sliding down his cheek. She uses his current unawareness to slip
out a small knife from around her knee, and brings her leg in kicking his own legs
out from under him. He anticipated this; falling backwards he uses one hand to
spring backward, bringing a leg up kicking her in the jaw at the same time. The
force of the kick sends her sprawling across the floor, and she drops the knife
in the process. Standing up, her eyes are livid with anger as she flicks her
wrist and the chakrams return to her grasp.
“DIE!” Is all she screams at him as she throws her chakrams
at his body for the last time. He doesn’t even bother to turn around, but
instead is engulfed by that same blue light. He appears behind her and smashes the
hilt of the daggers into the side of her temple. She crumples to the floor
unconscious and he slumps to the floor beside her tears openly spilling down
his face.
“Finish
her.” The earpiece momentarily cackles to life, but is accompanied by silence
once again.
“No, I
won’t. She’s done fighting I’ve won obviously I won’t harm her anymore then I
have to.”
Three guards appear in the door then, two of them holding
him back, keeping him on his knees as they press guns to his head. The third
stands over her unconscious body, and levels the gun at her forehead. Jeremy’s
scream is drowned out by the sound of the bullet jumping into her skull, and
then all he sees is black.
He walks
around the building now with a sort of aimless and joyless outlook. He has dark
circles under his eyes, his lack of sleep since they murdered her clearly
visible. That’s what he knows it was, murder. Yet she was perfectly okay to do
kill him, why couldn’t he do the same? He recalled a conversation a few days
after she died screaming at Kay, and the cold indifference he seemed to regard
her death as if someone had just told him his lunch was ready. That’s all he
saw us as from the beginning, an asset, of course he accused Kay of it.
“Obviously you’re an asset, you’re a perfect killing
machine. Once you begin taking out my targets you’ll realize how much better
you are now that you don’t have love to interfere with your judgment.” Kay had
said this as if I would find it relieving.
“Cierra is dead, that deal we made three years ago is over.
What makes you think I’m going to do anything you ever tell me do?” His voice
hot with choked back tears.
“What else are you going to do? The world is dying and I am
trying to breathe new life into it. Sacrifices have to be made Jeremy.”
“She didn’t sacrifice herself, you killed her and I don’t
want to be a part of any group who kill people just because it’s convenient.”
“Then leave,” Kay said deceptively calm, “but you have no
life outside of us. I have everything you need, and the only life you have
now.”
That one got Jeremy’s attention because he was right. He
didn’t have anywhere else to go.
“I will never forget this…” Jeremy said, standing up but
with more resolve then he had had before.
Kay smiled, a smile that still chilled Jeremy to the bone
every time he saw it.
“I hope you never do.”
Jeremy looked back, a puzzled look on his face. “Why?”
“Because,” Kay said as he took a drink of a dark liquid in
his cup, “the broken make the best followers.”
Jeremy opens the door as he leaves, shaking his head in
disgust.
But here he was, back at this mans door a couple weeks
later.
Why?
Because he had nowhere else to go, and Kay knew it as well
as Jeremy, and now came the assignments. The leaders that were opposing Apeps
that he was supposed to get rid of, it seemed like a good way to fill his time.
Make him forget
Cierra, and her betrayal.
The pain that everything about her had been a lie caused
him. He listened to Kay’s instructions on his first target in a place here in
Signet City. A man named, Alexander. He only half listened, still distraught
over Cierra, over his newly found gaping hole in his heart, and his current
situation with Kay.
Kay was right about one thing though; the broken do make the
best followers.
