The rules I’d been made to live by compounded in my skull, pounding with an insane headache. She was a weakness. She was an enemy. She knew too much.

She has to die.

My jaw ached from clenching so hard, and I howled like the wolves who’d kept me company all those lonely nights. The last of my humanity filtered away. I was about to kill the only person who might’ve had a chance at saving me.

And I couldn’t stop it.

Icy cold obedience flowed in my veins.

I launched at the woman intent on ruining me—intent on ripping my past and secrets from my broken corpse. She had the audacity to say she could fix me. There was nothing left to fix. I was a highly trained Ghost. She had to go.

Soon, she wouldn’t be a threat. Soon, she’d be dead.

She screamed as I grabbed her from the door and shoved her face first into the carpet.

My knees slammed against the floor on either side of her body; my hands wrapped around her throat. The unprotected muscles of her neck were an aphrodisiac to my need to obey. My need to kill.

I revelled in the power of my fingertips as I dug them deeper and deeper into her flesh. The pain in my body from the fight diminished, blocked off just like I’d been trained—allowing me to focus entirely on the mission at hand.

“Fox! Stop it!” Her voice wobbled and wavered before I squeezed harder, cutting off her air supply. She made a pitiful wail in her chest, thrashing beneath me.

Her arms flew back, fingers desperately scratching at my forearms. Her nails drew blood, slipping with red, losing traction. The coppery stench of blood filled my nose.

Her hands struck my thighs, my elbows, flailing around, hitting anything in reach. Her body convulsed as the terror of dying hit her central nervous system.

Her fingers locked around mine; her touch only made it worse.

The fog returned to my vision, turning everything blizzard white. I no longer knew where I was. All I knew was I had to kill her before my handler found out. He’d punish me if he knew someone had guessed my secrets. He’d find more victims for me to maim.

She was a liability. She was detrimental to my mission.

“You always were reliable, Fox.”

My heart raced in pride. My coach, my trainer—my father for all intents and purposes—smiled, but didn’t pat my back or shake my hand. Unnecessary touching wasn’t allowed. “I think you’re ready.”

My heart thudded for a different reason. I wasn’t ready. Never ready.

Standing as tall as my fifteen-year-old frame would let me, I said, “Yes, sir. Of course, sir.”

His eyes shone, knowing what I’d finally agreed to do.

I wished I could kill myself. After this, there would be no one left.

I just agreed to kill my brother.

The final step to finishing the transformation from human to Ghost.

Zel suddenly stopped scratching my arms and twisted her body. Her left leg scissored outward, kicking as high as she could go. Her hand flew to her tangled hair.

I squeezed harder.

She grunted with the last few dregs of oxygen in her lungs; her fingers erupted from her hair, clutching something.

The thick pulse of blood in her veins chugged harder, inching closer to cardiac arrest. My eyes smarted, wishing I didn’t have to be such a coward. I just wanted to be free. I didn’t want to kill this woman. I liked her. I cared for her. I wanted to keep her.

But just like everything I wanted to keep, I wasn’t allowed. They all had to die. Every single one.

I bellowed as something sharp plunged into my calf, followed by a slick withdrawal. Another hot, burning slice joined the symphony of agony as Zel plunged the serrated weapon into my thigh.

A Ghost prided themselves on working through pain—nothing would stop our objective, but the flash of torture brought clarity.

What the f**k am I doing?

I scrambled off Zel and scuttled back. Far, far away. Away from touching distance. Away from killing distance.

The white fog from my eyes withdrew, helping me to focus on the present and not the past.

I’m out. They won’t know if I don’t kill her. I no longer belong to them.

The sudden tsunami of relief crushed my lungs. My head fell forward as I let my hands drop to my sides. I didn’t have to kill her. She was safe. The conditioning ebbed away, popping into nothingness in my blood.

I didn’t care about the crimson gushing from two gashes in my leg. I didn’t care about the red-black stain pooling quickly beneath the wounds. All I cared about was ending my miserable life.

I didn’t deserve to live. Not after the atrocities I’d committed or the lack of strength I had to ignore a lifetime of training. I was ruined, and there was no way I could change.

Zel had guessed everything right about me, but she’d also shown just what a lost cause I was. There was only one way to end my suffering, and it wasn’t through the gasping, wild-eyed woman slouched in front of me.

Zel squirmed into a lopsided upright position, one hand rubbing her tender throat. Her lips were bluish-white from lack of oxygen; she watched me with tears glassing her eyes. “Don’t touch me, you ass**le!”

My eyes dropped to her bloody outstretched hand, smeared from stabbing me. She brandished her skinny blade in my direction. “That’s twice you’ve tried to kill me. I’ll murder you if you try for a third.” Her voice wasn’t soft and melodic; it rasped and croaked from strangulation.

“Do it, operative.”

“Finish it.”

My hands clenched as the commands siphoned through me. I shook my head, trying to clear the conditioning. The need to kill throbbed just out of reach, making me wish I could peel off my skin and find the switch to deactivate it.

I needed serious f**king help. She’d never forgive me. I’d never forgive me.

I deserved an eternity of purgatory.

Zel climbed onto her knees, double-fisting the knife. “Who the hell are you?”

I dropped my eyes, looking detachedly at the wounds in my legs. The red seemed to twist and helix into shapes. I became entranced watching the droplets spread into a larger stain on the carpet, turning black to deep red. Who am I? I don’t know. I’ll never know who I was before they broke me.

I deliberately poked the oozing wound in my thigh with an unforgiving finger. I winced, hissing through my teeth. The cut wasn’t big, only a centimetre in length, but it was deep.

I’d been stabbed, beaten, and tortured more times than I could remember, but Zel was the first female—the only woman—to ever inflict harm on me.

My eyes flew up at the thought. Every injury had been given by a man. Either sought out by fighters or retribution from my handlers.

My anger toward Zel changed to deep respect. Something untangled deep inside me, unlocking long forgotten needs. I wanted companionship, friendship—someone I could rely on to never let me get out of control.

It was as if the sun entered every recess of my brain, chasing away the darkness and despicable past leaving me to see clearly for the first time in my life. Hazel was strong enough, brave enough, stupid enough to put up with me. I could suddenly breathe easier, and the hatred for myself ebbed just a little—leaving me suspended, tingling with hope.

I drank her in: her fire, her temper, her amazing strength. She was fierce and quick and smart. She’d prevented a Ghost from killing her. No one had been able to stop me mid-mission.

I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but what could I say? How could I put into words the epiphany Zel gave me from stabbing me in the leg? She’d knocked more sense into me with one action than anything she’d screamed at me in passion. She may never forgive me, but I’d fallen more under her spell and had no chance in hell of letting her go.

Panic raced in my veins with a compulsion to tie her up and never let her out of my sight again.

“What’s wrong with you, Fox?” Zel snapped me out of my thoughts. She sat braver, slightly recovered. Her lips were parted, eyes wild, and the buttons in her shirt had torn open revealing lace-cupped br**sts.

I couldn’t tear my eyes away. “Everything’s wrong,” I murmured. My heart thudded with lust, so different to the driving throb of taking her last night. This was different. It was laced with something deeper, more profound. I wanted to be deep inside her. I didn’t want to come fast or search for a quick release, but just feel her heat and rest a while.

Rest.

Sleep.

A chill seeped into my bones, and I dimly wondered how much blood had spewed from my body to floor.

Perhaps it was best if I just let go. Let death finally take me.

Anything would be easier than the constant fight—even if Zel had shown me hope.

A rustling caught my attention and I craned my neck to look at Zel standing above me. “You move and I’ll stab you.” Her green eyes glowed and the knife stayed pointed in my direction. “Stay there.”

The incredible urge to say ‘yes, sir’ filled me with amazement.

Oh, my f**king hell.

By earning my utmost respect, she’d somehow earned a top hierarchy in my mind.

I’d done it. I’d found what I’d been searching for and constructed a replacement for my handlers. If I could learn to obey Zel’s every command—to find that sweet surrender of never thinking, always obeying—I might find freedom.

I would belong to her body and f**king soul. She could order me to do anything and I would, regardless.

That’s not freedom.

I wanted to laugh. I wanted to curse. I hadn’t found freedom. I’d just replaced one prison with another.

My head swam as I closed my eyes. I’m f**ked.

The sound of the door locking gave me something to latch onto, but I let myself drift—welcomed the vagueness, the coldness, ignoring the intermittent shivers and lightheadedness.

Sighing, I let myself tumble back into memories.

The stars above glittered in the black velvet sky. A small flurry of snowflakes made their way into my pit when the wind blew from the northeast.

Frostbite was my only friend and I lay on the icy ground with only leaf matter and mud for insulation.

I made a promise.

The first opportunity, I would kill myself. This wasn’t a life. It was servitude. I would be better off dead than alive and doing the devil’s work.

Crossing my seventeen-year-old fingers, I swore on the moon.

“I will kill myself to avoid more orders. I’ll put myself down like the predator they’ve trained me to be.”

My eyes flew open. I’d forgotten that promise. It’d been pushed to the depths of my mind as more and more travesty was layered upon me.

But I could keep that promise now. I didn’t have to search for someone to obey, so I could fall back into old patterns. I could control my own fate for once.

The pill.

My head flopped to the side, looking toward the wardrobe. I couldn’t keep putting people around me at risk. I was too messed up; I needed too much help. To think I could change was a fairy-tale. I wasn’t the handsome knight who won the girl—I was the scarred troll whose only purpose was to be killed.

It was time to end it.

The day my handler tossed me out, he’d given me a goodbye gift. His parting order had been to swallow the pill and erase myself from existence. I fought the command for days, not wanting to die.

But every day I suffered a slow death of misery.

Zel wasn’t my cure after all. There was no cure for my disease.

Rolling onto my elbows, I hoisted myself up amongst multitude of aches and spasms. The beating from Poison Oaks made my muscles stiff and unmovable. More blood gushed down my calf and thigh as my heart pumped harder with exertion.

Putting pressure on my leg hurt like a motherfucker, but I walked like normal, forcing my body to move around the injury. I’d worked with worse. I’d gone days with a broken femur or collarbone to finish a mission before I was given any medical care.

The two slashes Zel gave me were nothing.

I left a trail of red behind me as I entered the wardrobe and shoved aside rows and rows of black attire to reach the safe hidden in the back. Squashed into the racks, hidden by cashmere and cotton, I punched in the fourteen digit code and cranked open the door.

My old life greeted me in a gust of memories.

“It’s complete. Do you feel the brotherhood, the shared power and awareness?” my handler asked, stepping back and surveying his handiwork. He passed me a mirror. I held it up, angling to see over my shoulder.

My back had been transformed from adolescent skin into a canvas of disaster. Every symbol closed my throat in fear—they’d marked me forever. I would never be free.

Keeping my despair hidden, I nodded. “Yes, sir.” Those two little words. The only conversation we were allowed. Every response required nothing more than ‘yes, sir.’

“You did good. You took a while to see reason, but you obeyed in the end.” He slapped my burning shoulder, smearing fresh blood from the tattoo. “Do you agree?”

My eyes flickered to the small boy’s corpse in the corner of the room. Lifeless, blue, starting to smell. I’d done that. It’d taken me weeks to break, but they’d done it.

I was theirs.

“Yes, sir.”

The gun lay like a sleeping enemy, resting beside five hundred thousand in cash, and a small medicine bottle with one word on the label.

Konets. Russian for ‘end.’

This was the end.

Unscrewing the lid, I tipped the innocent blue pill onto my awaiting palm and stared. What would hell be like? Would I survive more unhappiness?

I’d passed up all rights to go to heaven on my seventh birthday. I knew I had no chance of finding the pearly white light people spoke of.

Looking down at my leg, I frowned at the soppy wetness of my trousers. The blood hadn’t stopped. I could just bleed to death.