At five years old I lost the only family I’d ever known, so I had nothing left to lose. I was untouchable, bent on vengeance. At 10 years old I escaped the intrepid foster care system. My body was abused and defiled by set after set of fake parents who only loved the welfare they earned by giving me a bed. Each bruise thickened my skin, each blow hardened my resolve. By fifteen I was an unstoppable force of havoc, and I’d caught the right attention. I found the men I was looking for. I slit their throats just as they had done to every member of my family. Their blood was warmer than I expected.
The CIA was the first to notice my talents. I became the youngest secret agent on their payroll, but my senior field agents all feared me. Trained assassins looked at me with reverence and respect. They trained me how to kill and make it look like an accident. They trained me to watch and investigate my targets without raising suspicion. Soon they realized their mistake. The thing with the government is that they need to feel that they can keep you in line, that they can give you all the training you need and make you their dog. But I didn’t have much in common with their German Shepherds. They couldn’t control me, and they’d made a monster out of a villain. They wanted me dead but they had no way to kill me. So they burned me. I ceased to exist, yet I was tailed constantly. None lived long enough to report back on my activity. I was rogue and invincible. I had more skills than I needed, and the world of ‘business casual’ bored me. So I became a contractor. I only worked for the worst of the worst because with the CIA on my back, I couldn’t just list myself in the classifieds. Villains always seem to know how to find each other.
***
I was 25 when I was hired to watch her. It felt strange to be a voyeur in the world of this unassuming young girl, but when a mob boss hires you to do something, you do it. He wanted me for the job and was going to pay whatever it cost to get me. I was the best of the best.
She left home when she was 15, and her father feared what she knew. He feared that she would testify against him. After all, he was a man who liked his women to be girls, and he didn’t seem like the type to make a distinction between his own daughter and a piece of ass. She had every reason to hate him, to want to ruin him. He didn’t know where she went when she left, and none of his men seemed to be able to find her. He’d sent minion after minion after her, and after three years he was growing more and more frustrated as most of them came back empty handed, and others didn’t come back at all.
“You can’t be sure she will testify. Do you really want your daughter dead?” I asked him. I was breaking the rules. An assassin doesn’t question his employer. But she was an 18 year old girl, barely a legal adult. I thought of myself at that age, and how dangerous I had become, but surely this girl wasn’t like me. I didn’t want to kill her, but I needed the job.
“You don’t know my daughter. She’s a rebellious little bitch. If she testifies it will destroy everything I have built. I want her to be quiet, so if she has to die, then she has to die. I am asking you to keep an eye on her. Make sure she isn’t planning to testify. And if she is, kill her… Tell me, are you the right man for the job?”
“I can keep her quiet. I can make sure she never testifies” I said.
We made an agreement that I would watch her for as long as it took for him to feel confident that she wouldn’t testify. I didn’t know how long his patience would last.
I got to work immediately. I hunted her down. It wasn’t easy, but I was good at my job. I’d found countless hidden operatives during my time with the CIA. I started browsing the slums first. I figured a teenage girl, even one with mafia connections, wouldn’t be able to afford her own place in the city. I found her in the park. I hadn’t expected to find her somewhere so out in the open. How the hell did none of her father’s men find her? I guess they didn’t expect her to be hiding in plain sight, and who knows about the ones that never returned. Had they had the misfortune of finding her on her guard? Maybe she was more like me than I thought.
She had a ukulele strapped across her chest, and she was idly strumming it, her foot tapping along with every note. The instrument case was laying open and empty beside her. I pulled my hat down over my eyes, slid behind a thick oak tree and sat down. I began thumbing through the newspaper clippings I had pulled about her and her father. All of a sudden I heard the most beautiful sound that had ever fallen on my ears. It was so clear and rich as it rang out, reverberating off of the trees and silencing even the birds.
“Someday I’ll wish upon a star
Wake up where the clouds are far behind me
Where trouble melts like lemon drops
High above the chimney top
That’s where you’ll find me”
I peaked my head around the vast tree trunk, immediately smitten and completely dumbstruck that such a sound could come out of a human being. Her empty ukulele case was now filled with crisp green bills.
“Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high
And the dream that you dare to
Why, oh why can’t I?”
Her bell like voice echoed through the crowd she had drawn as the last note danced out of her beautiful mouth. She smiled. If her voice hadn’t utterly defeated me, her smile sure did. It reached from the corners of her full lips all the way to her brilliant blue eyes, that even from a distance stood boldly against her tan, olive skin.
After the applause ended and the crowd dissipated, I watched her pack up her things. I followed her to the subway station, where she repeated the performance and left me just as dazed as the first time. When she boarded the train, I boarded the next car over and kept my eyes trained on her strawberry blond hair through the blurry window. Two stops became five, then ten. The subway cars were emptying, and I worried that there would be so few people that my presence would raise her suspicion. We were just three stops away from the end of the line, on the outskirts of the city when she finally got off. I waited until just before the doors closed to follow her out. There were few people on the street that weren’t homeless or browbeaten. I was glad for my choice of sleuthing clothes, and pulled up my hood. She dipped into a doorway that was so nondescript I nearly missed it. I ducked into an abandoned house nearby and began the stake out. When she left in the morning, I picked the lock. I hid my cameras throughout the shoebox apartment, except for the bathroom. For some reason that felt wrong.
I watched her for months. Following her to the park and through the subway systems as she earned her meager living. Every time I heard her sing, or caught her smile, or watched her hand some of her hard earned money out to various beggars, I grew more and more infatuated with her. She was so beautiful I caught my breath every time I glanced at my monitors or found her sitting in a coffee shop. When she’d swipe her long hair over her shoulder I found myself dying to know how it smelled. I wanted to know if her laugh was as breathtaking as her singing voice. In all the time I’d watched her, that was something I’d yet to see her do.
After a year my burner phone rang. LUCIFER came across the led screen, the endearing name I had given my employer.
“I am getting tired of waiting around, William.”
“Sir, I have been doing my job, she hasn’t shown any signs of testifying.”
“I’m not paying you to do nothing. I’m tired of waiting. I’m giving you the order.”
“But sir… I told you she hasn’t shown any signs of testifying.”
“I don’t care. I won’t keep paying you indefinitely. I am not a patient man. I’m done waiting around. She is too much of a liability. I don’t care about our agreement, I am paying you good money. Kill her,” he said with finality and hung up.
I’d had to step into an alleyway to take the call, and when I resurfaced, I had lost track of her. I scanned the vicinity. Nothing. I jogged forward and peered around the corner of a brick building just in time to catch her disappearing into a tattoo shop. Instead of waiting outside as usual, I made a decision. I followed her in. Before I could regret my decision and back out, two ice blue eyes connected with mine.
“Hello,” she said, “I’m Stella.”
“Will” I said, smiling back at her. I couldn’t not smile back. Her’s was so contagious.
“So, what are you here for?”
“Oh, uhh, just having a look around, not really sure what I would want” I said, effortfully pulling my eyes away to pretend to look at the samples. “What about you?”
“I’m getting a tree. On my back. It’s a memorial sorta.. For my mother” She said, with a weird look on her face, like she had surprised herself by volunteering such personal information.
My heart was pounding out of my chest. I didn’t know what I was doing. Well, I thought, I’ve already broken the cardinal rule, it’s too late to turn back now.
“Oh, I’m sorry” I said, and took the seat next to her. I looked up, granting myself the privilege to look into those stunning eyes.
“It’s okay. She died eight years ago. I’ve been wanting to get this tattoo for a while”
“If you don’t mind my asking, why a tree?”
And so it began. That day went by in a blur. I don’t know how long we talked, but when the artist wiped down her back and told her she was done, I was surprised it was done so quickly. Then we went outside and it was dark. We’d been talking for hours. I had fallen in love with her from afar, but after spending hours hearing her bear her soul to me, I fell in love with her all over again. She was so much more than her long silky hair and gorgeous looks. Her personality, by some supernatural feat, was even better than her singing voice. I couldn’t wrap my head around how soulful and kind she was. How did she have it in her to care so much and be so strong? I was amazed that a daughter of such a horrible man could be so good.
“So, um, Will, uh, do you want to grab coffee?”
“Uh… it’s,” I checked my watch, “nine p.m.”
“Oh, right. Never mind,” she said, starting to turn away with a look like a dejected puppy.
“But, I’d love to grab dinner,” I blurted.
“Oh,” she smiled, “that sounds perfect.”
I bought her dinner at the nicest place in that part of town, which wasn’t saying much. I made a few good jokes, and she made a few better ones. I heard her laugh for the first time, and it felt like christmas. When we’d both finished up she asked me a question that nearly knocked me off my feet.
“Do you want to come to my apartment?”
We spent our first night together, and it was so much more than I ever imagined it to be. The way she moved, the scent of her body, it all left me in a trance. For a few hours it distracted me from the pressing issue. But in the morning, the sun was a grim reminder of the chilling order I’d been given the day before. There was no way I was going to kill this girl. I refused to be the man that takes this graceful creature out of this world. So I made another decision that would change my life. I would break my contract. My new mission was beginning. I would protect this girl with my life.
For the next month I stayed by her side. I brought her to my apartment, where I thought she would be safer. Every day I would tail her wherever she went, making her think I was off at work. I kept an eye out for her father’s goons. Everything was going well, until I started noticing I was not the only one watching Stella anymore. I killed the first few easily enough, but when one went down another would take his place. Something needed to change. So I took a week away from my relationship bliss, and I followed through with some of my other contracts, and asked for favors of old contacts who owed me them. I’d pulled in about 2 million by the end of the week. It was time to get Stella the hell outta dodge.
I walked through my front door with my excuse waiting on the tip of my tongue. I couldn’t wait to wrap my arms around her slim waist and whisk her off on what I’d have her believe was the vacation of a lifetime. The smile was already plastered on my face as I rounded the corner.
“Stella! I’m home! I’m sorry I was gone so long, but I promise I will make it up to you.” The words came out of my mouth before the sight registered in my brain. Shit. She was standing in front of an open door. The lock was lying broken on the floor. She had found the headquarters of my operation, the room I had kept under lock and key so she would never find out that I had been watching her. How stupid of me to underestimate this street smart girl.
“What the fuck is this?”
“Stella.. you weren’t supposed to open that” I said.
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