The Syndicate

  “I’m sorry. But you’re making me nervous with that in my face.”

  I say it even though it’s actually a small price to pay for encroaching on her property with the intent to kill, but, instead of laughing at my ridiculous statement or shooting me out of fear or anger, she backs away.

  She’s either going to let me walk out of here or call the cops. Either way, if she makes it any farther away from me, I won’t get another chance. She’ll have that gun pointed at me from a distance. If I rush her, she’ll shoot me for sure, and if I leave, she’ll call the police. There’s no walking away from this, because she knows my name.

  I make the quick decision to lunge for her legs. The gun swings out of her grasp and they both fall to the floor. I flip her over and lay on top of her, holding my breath in an effort to keep her scent away. After a short pause, I find my hands lifting her head to expose her throat. I expect her to scream, but she just sobs.

  It’s by far the strangest encounter I’ve ever had with a target, and my brain is trying so hard to slice her throat with this blade. But no matter how much I will it, my hand won’t move. I focus harder, but only see my sister’s face, and my mother’s.

  In all the ways I spin it, I know doing this wouldn’t make them proud. I sigh in frustration, breathing for the first time, and the scent of mangos and strawberries races up my nose. And now I’m on the verge of a breakdown too.

  “I can’t do it.” I think, realizing I’ve also said it out loud.

  I cringe, because I’ve shown weakness to the target, which is a violation of rule number one. Suddenly, it doesn’t matter. I can’t think straight, and all I know is that I’m laying on top of this girl with her face pressed into the carpet, and I can’t do it.

  I drop my knife and release her hair.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  She still sobs. “Yes you are.”

  “No I’m not.”

  I don’t even know what to do at this point. I’m sitting here, terrifying this girl, for what? The thought makes me sick, and, before I know it, I stand up and hand her the shotgun to prove it. She snatches it and crawls over to the wall, shaking profusely. I tell her again that I won’t hurt her.

  She clenches her eyes shut and continues to cry. Within a few minutes, she unexpectedly drops her gun. I’m tempted to bolt out of there, but can’t stop from inching my way over to where she sits.

  I kneel in front of her, not having a clue of what to do. I have no experience failing at an attack, and even less in dealing with female emotions.

  “Look, I’m not sure what’s going on here,” I say, reaching for her knee. She flinches away, and though something tells me to just get up and walk away, I can’t. My emotions have never been so twisted and confused. Not only do I not want to leave, my body’s being pulled to her like a magnet.

  “It’s okay. I won’t hurt you.”

  Suddenly, as if gaining a bolt of built-up anger, she snaps at me with fire in her deep olive eyes. “Then why did you come here?”

  I see hatred staring at me, and I can’t tell if it’s because she wants to kill my family or if she’s angry that I just tried to kill her, and then I realize it doesn’t matter.

  “Look—”

  “No, you look. I don’t want to be haunted by you anymore. So if you’re going to kill me, just do it already. I’m tired of the constant fear.”

  “What? Wait, what are you afraid of?”

  She starts laughing, and suddenly I realize the absurdity of the question.

  “Okay, I’m sorry. That was stupid. But I mean, you said you have nightmares. About me?”

  “No, just of that symbol on your arm. And monsters, a lot of monsters.” She looks at me pleadingly. “I don’t want to live like this anymore. My mom had the same nightmares, and she’s insane now.”

  What I’m hearing is a complete contradiction of what I thought I knew. She thinks we’re a threat to her.

  “If you don’t kill me now,” she continues, talking quickly, “you’ll just keep killing me in my dreams, and I’ll go crazy. Then they’ll lock me up too. So, please, just do it.”

  Wow. Is this girl serious? Now she’s asking me to kill her. Can this mission get any more whacked?

  “Listen, I’m not going to kill you, and I’m not going to haunt your dreams.”

  “Then what do you want from me?”

  I’m speechless, unsure how to answer, so I take a few moments to gather my thoughts. For the first time, I pay closer attention to her and notice her mint green and pink polka-dot pajamas. I contain a smile and for some reason decide on the truth.

  “I was sent here…to kill you.”

  Although she had to know that already, she looks like I’ve punched her in the stomach. Her head shakes.

  “It’s the truth,” I say, looking away. “But I can’t do it, so you don’t have to worry.”

  “How am I supposed to believe you?”

  “Because you’re a girl, and we don’t kill females.”

  “Who is we?”

  I look at her, not getting the question.

  “You said ‘we don’t kill girls.’ Who is we?”

  It’s not a question I’m prepared for, but, if I’m ever going to get out of this apartment without her calling the police, I better be somewhat forthcoming. Repositioning myself against the wall closer to her, I start explaining. Henri is going to be furious, but I don’t see any other way.

  “My family…we are protectors.”

  I hear a little laugh. Even though I’ve just attacked her, I feel defensive.

  “We are,” I explain. “We’re supposed to protect society from things called Hybrids.”

  “Hybrids?” she asks, her voice steady and less shocked than I expected. I glance her way and see her waiting patiently, and it gives me the urge to continue.

  “Yes. They’re creatures who bite humans, infecting them with a virus that will eventually cause the person to become extremely dangerous. My family has been around for centuries, and we seek them out and kill them before they can overrun society.”

  “And you’re here because you think I’m a Hybrid?”

  “No. Hybrids can’t be females. Honestly, I’m here because I was just ordered to kill you.”

  “Why?” she presses.

  “My Elder believes you’ll be the cause of my family’s downfall. And if we fall, the Hybrids will take over.”

  “I see,” she says cautiously.

  I’m not sure what to say next, because I’ve just dropped a bomb on her. I’ve informed her not only that monsters are real, but that she could be the ruin of the people who can rid the earth of them.

  I’m still at a loss for words when she speaks up. “I can pretty much assure you I’m not the cause of your family’s downfall. I couldn’t even kill one of you when I had a gun pointed at your face. How the heck am I supposed to wipe out all of you?”

  It hits me that she’s got a point, although, somewhere inside, I already knew she was no killer. If she can’t kill me, an attacker, when she had three easy chances, then she can’t kill anyone else. This girl is not a threat. So why in the hell was I sent here?

  I stand to leave. “I shouldn’t be here. I’m sorry, I really am. I won’t hurt you. Please don’t call the police.”

  I make my way to the door when she lunges after me. “Please. Don’t leave.”

  I turn, doing my best to ease away from her grip.

  “I don’t understand,” I say. “I just tried to kill you.”

  Practically clutching me, she pleads, “Please, you can’t go yet.” Fighting the scent of her shampoo or whatever it is, I step farther away from the strangest situation I’ve ever been in. “Please. You’ve shown me that I’m not crazy. You made me see that my dreams aren’t made up. There are monsters, and that symbol exists. Don’t you see? I thought the symbol was on the monsters, but it isn’t.”

  Something in me wants to stay with her, but I just can??
?t. My mind is clouded and my emotions are twisted. I need to go.

  “I’m sorry, Riley, but I can’t stay here. I have to go home and try to make sense of this.”

  “What’s there to make sense of?” she shoots back, stepping closer.

  “Let’s see, how about the fact that I was sent on a mission to kill an innocent girl who is supposed to kill my whole family of elite assassins, only she can’t kill a fly. And how about the fact that this same girl has had nightmares of Hybrids.” Her shoulders drop as she realizes her own mental well-being is not the only one at stake here. “So, please, I need to go, so I can think. I’m sorry. Again. But you don’t have anything to worry about. I’m not going to come back to hurt you.”

  And with that last promise, I walk out of her apartment, feeling more confused than ever. And something else is surfacing inside. An unfamiliar sense of yearning. And oddly, the more I think about it, and the farther away I drive, I realize that it’s a faint yearning to be near Riley Bennett.

  Chapter 7

  THE RESISTANCE

  My brothers and I have never talked about any of our missions, but tonight I need to talk Guard to Guard, with someone who thinks like me.

  It’s 2 a.m. when I knock on Dani’s door. He doesn’t answer, but he sleeps like a baby, so I knock harder. After a few minutes, he cracks open the door enough for me to plow my way through. His blond hair, which is normally perfectly feathered over his forehead, is shockingly all over the place.

  “What the hell time is it?” he mumbles.

  “Two,” I answer back unapologetically.

  “This better be good, bro.”

  “Oh, it is,” I say, finding myself pacing his room like Rosie does mine.

  When I finally gather my thoughts, I spill. Not even hesitant to do so, because I trust him.

  “Dani, what I’m about to tell you, you have to swear not to mention to anyone, especially Henri.” Now his groggy expression turns to confusion. “Look, I know we aren’t supposed to keep secrets in the Syndicate, but this is big, and I need help making sense of it.”

  “All right.” Out of habit, he starts combing his hair forward with his palm. “Stop wearing a hole in my rug and sit down.”

  The both of us huddle at the foot of his bed, and I tell him everything except the strange yearning sensation mustering inside me. When I’m done, he studies me closely.

  “You moron,” he finally says.

  My jaw drops, suddenly fearful that I’m too weak to fulfill a necessary job. “What?”

  “You idiot. You don’t go sending yourself to the ER, you dope. What if she was some sort of monster-alien-Hybrid-beast? How the hell would you have fought her with stitches?”

  I can’t help but laugh before I plead my case.

  “I had to see her for myself. I couldn’t go into it blind.”

  “Right. Well?”

  “Well what?”

  “Well, is she a beauty or a beast?”

  “Dani. Seriously, man. What am I supposed to do? What would you do?”

  “Depends on how cute she is.”

  I nudge him hard enough to jar my stitches and flinch. “Ouch.”

  “See. You dope.”

  “You’re not helping. Be serious.”

  “All right. Okay. That’s some freaky stuff. I don’t even know. I’ve never thought about killing a girl, but if the Readers see it, then—”

  “But that’s just it, Dani. The Readers didn’t say that she kills any of us. How dangerous can she be?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t think straight in the middle of the night, but we’ll figure it out. We’ve got fourteen more days before the next Circle. Just get some sleep and think it through in the morning and we’ll go from there. I trust your judgment, Vasi. If you think she’s harmless, then don’t do it. But if you decide she needs to go, and you’re having trouble with it, I’ll do it for you. No one will ever know.”

  Somehow I’m fighting a surge of bitterness at his offer, when it’s actually a nice gesture in terms of our code. Even still, if I can’t harm one curl on her head, I won’t feel right letting someone else do it.

  The rest of the night goes by in a blur. I try to think rationally about all possible reasons for this unprecedented situation. I try to think about what the Reader could’ve mistakenly seen and what needs to be done to fulfill my destiny. But all I can think about is her.

  I lie, feeling the throbbing in my side, and it only makes me remember the bright lights of the hospital and the perfect way her curls fell past her shoulders. And then I think about the disarray of those same curls as we practically wrestled in her apartment. I cringe at the recollection and then can’t stop smiling at the visual of her holding a gun.

  Images of her shaking hands and pleading eyes ricochet inside my skull, but somewhere intertwining with those images, I see bravery, and it makes me smile again. Then, I’m angry, frustrated, and annoyed all over.

  Mentally and physically exhausted, I finally fade into a brief sleep.

  My morning starts off later than usual. I can’t seem to find the energy or the desire to have breakfast, so I lie around until I feel the need to clean myself up.

  My long shower makes me realize that my last twenty-four hours have been unproductive. It’s like I’m wandering around aimlessly, and it bothers me to no end. I feel lost and unmotivated.

  The urge to shoot hoops briefly comes, but I pass because my stitches are too new. Instead, I decide to go for a drive, when I see Rosie making her way down our wing. Her room is down the hall from mine, so seeing her is no surprise.

  It’s a welcomed encounter, because she brings normalcy into my life, and that’s something lacking right now. I’m about to say “hey” when I see her suck her teeth and roll her eyes. My head bounces back in reflex, and I look behind me to see if anyone else is there. It’s just me.

  “What’s that about?” I ask as she gets closer. Without answering me, she brushes past and huffs in disgust, but I grab her elbow. “I said what’s that about?”

  She swings around and jerks herself free, deciding not to hold back.

  “I know you left last night, and I saw your bloody towel in the bathroom,” she hisses. “How could you?”

  She’s looking at me with a disgust that I’ve never been faced with, and it shocks me momentarily. By the time it registers why she’s so pissed, she’s halfway down the hallway.

  “Rosie, would you stop? Please.” I catch up to her, and in a whisper I say, “It’s not what you think.”

  “The hell it isn’t. What? Did you kill a cat?”

  “Keep your voice down. No, I didn’t kill a cat.” I lift up my shirt to show her my bandage. “I’ve got stitches. I was cleaning it this morning. That’s what you saw on the towel.”

  Her shoulders relax, but she crosses her arms, waiting for more. “Fine. I was going to,” I admit. “I even cut myself so I could pay a visit to the hospital, but—”

  “You stalked her?”

  “No! Well, sort of.”

  She starts walking away, and I go after her again. “Rosie. Stop, damn it. I didn’t do it.”

  We’re in front of her room now, and she looks at her door, then at me. “But you will.”

  “No I won’t,” I say firmly.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I already tried.”

  She sucks in a breath, so I quickly finish, “I didn’t go through with it. But I found out some more about her, Rosie. She has nightmares about Hybrids.”

  “What?” She pulls me into her room and closes the door, where I spill everything. It’s more than I told Dani, and I still feel the same sense that suddenly our two-hundred-year-old code of secrecy is going to pieces.

  “You can’t kill her, Vasi.”

  “Haven’t I just finished telling you that?”

  “Yeah, but I mean, no matter what Henri says.”

  “I know.”

  “But, you have to figure out what’s going on with her
, and you have to mark it in the book or else Henri will get suspicious.”

  That’s something I didn’t think about.

  “If I mark that I killed her in the book, that would be lying. That’s a blatant disgrace to the Syndicate. I’d be disowned.”

  “No one owns you, Vasi. What’s the worst that can happen? And besides, you have a right to be the head of the Syndicate. Not Henri. You can disown him if you want to.”

  My vision is getting cloudy and the room spins as the voices of Henri, Stefan, and Valentin ring in my head: “Do it, Vasi. Save our family. Save the people.” And then I hear my father saying, “Listen to your intuition, Vasi. Do what it tells you.”

  Then my sister’s head comes into focus, and I see her big browns melting into me like syrup, and I hear her and my mother saying, “She’s just a girl, Vasi.”

  “Damn it.” I jump up, grunting at the sharp pain shooting in my side.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Without further explanation, I wander through the halls until I end up in our supply room. And I don’t mean food supplies. I mean our underground weapons and training facility, surrounded by soundproof walls and impenetrable locks that can only be opened with a ten-digit password unique to each Guard.

  I’ve brought myself here to focus on the destruction that I’m trained to do. I survey the custom-made stainless-steel knives and blades, and high powered rifles and guns with silencers.

  Explosives, ropes, anything that can be used to seek out, attack, and kill—all are within my grasp. My hands trace over the weapons, and, as I admire the fine craftsmanship, a calm sense of purpose comes over me. I’m an assassin. This is what I want to do, what I will do.

  To a Hybrid.

  A Hybrid. I felt it before, but know it now. I’m not going to harm a girl.

  These weapons are not meant to be used on Riley Bennett. That much I know.

  And since I won’t lie about my abandoned mission, it’s time for me to see Henri, again.

  By the time I reach his study door, I decide not to tell him anything about the encounters with Riley. It’s not necessary for what I need to accomplish, and I don’t want him thinking she personally affects me.