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11

Howling noises flooded my ears as I stared at the open space of night sky above of me, a sight that normally would've calmed my jangled nerves if it were any day but this one. Andy held her Pistol, which she liked to call Ender, at point, paying no mind to how the figure at the end of it was trembling uncontrollably in its fear. "An," I breathed, watching as it turned to mist in the cold of the night. "Do we really have to do this? You promised that Tabitha was the last. You told me no more kills." I tried reasoning with my partner, which was a fruitless endeavor in all its cases. She was a ruthless woman, dedicated to her mission no matter what or who it cost.

 

"You're too soft on them, Nova," she looked over at me, still holding Ender in its cruel stare. "This one has information about the trade. Brady owes me. I supplied him with more than enough of our product to take care of his little problem," she spat the word as if it was turpentine on her tongue, "and I don't mind taking one of his down if it means I get my money." The figure at gunpoint shook a little harder upon hearing Andy's heartless statement, and made a quiet choking noise.

 

"Quiet!" I growled. If the poor soul had any hopes of escaping alive he needed to be quiet. At first glance, my partner seemed merciless, but she'd listen to me. I was the only person in the world that she trusted, even if it seemed like I was no more than a dog to her. I'd been there with her during the worst; in all those tearstained memories that she tried so hard to rid herself of. Her efforts were in vain, though. The memories made her stronger, even if they had turned her into the monster she succeeded to convince everyone she was. But not me. Somewhere in there was the girl who I’d called sister ever since the day she showed up on my family's doorstep. "No," I tried the word out for the first time in years. "They'll find us if you keep killing every person that stands in your way. Just because there are bigger enemies out there doesn't mean they don't see you, Andy. They see everything. Ever since that dead maniac came alive and murdered the president, they've been watching," I put my hand on her shoulder, which I noticed was shaking ever-so-slightly. "Waiting to see if anymore of us are gonna die and then resurrect like he did!" my words came out angrier and louder than I meant them to.

 

She squirmed in my grasp, feebly trying to relieve her shoulder of my hand's stiff embrace, and I saw her eyes shine with an emotion I didn't think she was capable of. Fear. "What then?" her voice shook with the strange new feeling, and she momentarily lowered Ender. "It's not like we can just wipe their memories, Nova! My parents may not be have been the most loving people in the world, but every day I thank God they did me at least one favor in their crappy lives. All the times they yelled at me, every time they beat me senseless because I told my brother to run, you know what they did? They gave me the strength I needed to leave that sorry place and find somewhere of my own. A place where I could be the one to make the rules. A place where I could finally create the thing I'd been trying so hard to stop dreaming about. The monster that would fight back and kill the people who made my life a living hell..." she trailed off and I shook my head in disbelief. I knew we'd been selling poison for a long time, but she'd never fully came out and said what was in those little vials. I had always thought it was because some part of her wanted to deny it, so as to spare me from the harsh reality our world had become since the assassination. But, no. The gruesome smile she wore on her face at the mention of her monster told me something her words would never. She was still the hero in her story.

 

"Andy..." I whispered, trying to meet her murderous gaze with my own, but all I saw in those gray eyes was hate and a fierce longing for the impossible world she had created for herself in her mind. I could see it. The only way she thought she could get there was killing.

 

My feeble voice wasn't enough to break her from her proud, psychotic haze. The horrible words of truth slipped from her mouth with a sickening ease. "Creating the perfect disease to kill untraceably is an accomplishment that no one else on this earth can claim. Of course, calculating which elements were perfect for the job was difficult, but finding a way to come by those elements was indescribably harder. It's not often you find a man so...willing to do anything for a girl like me. I barely had to lift a finger to make him infiltrate the lab where they were held." she wiggled her fingers in a teasing way. "It's a shame that when the police came for him, he betrayed his loyalty to me. That's why he never lived to serve the prison sentence they were sure to serve him. He didn't even have a trial. The police never believed him about me, though. They blamed it all on insanity, and, it fit quite nicely when they found him the next morning, his wrists slit and facedown in a river of his own blood." her words finally made a connection in my brain that never had before.

 

"It was my brother..." the words came out with an unmatched anger. "You tricked us! When you showed up at our doorstep all alone and in rags, it wasn't coincidence, was it? You know, I never believed his insistent rambling that you weren't what we thought you were when they took him. I always blamed his uncontrollable behavior on that girlfriend he always talked about, and that he just wanted to escape the reality of what he'd done, but now I see. It was you all along. You were the girl he met in the park, and paid me not to tell our parents about. He must've told you to show up like that, to eliminate any suspicion, while he was really sneaking the enemy right into the safety of our home. And what better way for you to sink your claws into him even deeper? It was a perfect plan, truly. But what I want to know is what made you think I'd just sit here and let you keep killing people once I learned the truth." I tightened my grip on her shoulder, but she only smiled triumphantly and continued with her mad story.

 

"That disappoints me, dear." she made a clicking noise as she shook her head. "You don't even want to know how I managed to slit his wrists. Well I'll tell you this much," she whispered in my ear. "It's not hard to prick someone with a syringe when they walk by you in handcuffs. By the time I made it to the prison, the poor thing was already dead. However, I didn't slit his wrists to obscure the true details of his death, the illness is untraceable. I slit his wrists to empty his body of all blood. If I hadn't, his might be a different story. Perhaps even similar to the man that killed President Thompson." Andy's behavior was that of an insane person, bent on revenge, only she thought she was in the right.

 

I made a grab for Ender, but she grabbed my wrist and twisted it hard, making a crunching noise as the pain shot up my arm. All the words I had wanted to say escaped my mouth at once in a horrible, anguished squeal. "W-wh-y-y?" the word found its way out between my pained gasps. "W...wh...y.. him?" I indicated the figure still at gunpoint with my eyes. She only smiled as if I'd passed some kind of test she had set for me.

"Do you mean to say he's not in my way?" she asked, an evil edge in her voice. "That I should spare him?" I nodded in response, cradling my wrist against my chest, an unruly tear slipping down my cheek. "Very good, Nova." she moved Ender to point at me, and my eyes widened in shock. "He's not the one who's in my way... You are." And the last thing I knew in this world was Andy's evil smile and the sound of Ender firing for one final time.