FEBRUARY 13, 2014. LVIV, UKRAINE.
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TEARS SLID DOWN the woman's cheeks, leaving behind tracks through the dried blood and dirt caked on her face. The mixture dripped off her chin to pool in the sink below that she was leaning over.
"You're a weapon, and weapons don't weep." The words echoed in her mind. She quickly wiped away the moisture staining her cheeks with her forearm.
The woman took one last judging look at her appearance, beat up and worn out, before deciding it was time for a shower. She carefully peeled off her soiled clothes and tossed them into the sink with a splat, to be dealt with later.
Crossing the linoleum-tiled floor, she turned the shower faucet on as hot as it could go and waited for it to heat up. Splotches of blue and purple painted her scarred back.
Once steam started to fill the entirety of the space, she stepped into the scalding water. Her eyes fluttered shut as she basked in the feeling of her entire body loosening up. The slight sting of the hot water hitting the few still unsealed wounds was oddly pleasant, she thought with a shiver as goosebumps crawled down her bare arms.
The woman bowed her head and watched as the venetian-colored mixture made its way down her body and into the drain.
Today was rough.
Her business liaison, Benjamin, had contacted her with a job lead. A combat mission; Infiltrate the warehouse, take out the target and any remaining personnel. No witnesses. She accepted and sure enough, a file had made its way to her.
White male, 191 cm, Large build. Noticeable identifiers: Blond hair, light eyes, cheek scar. Target and personnel confirmed to be involved in a human-trafficking ring. The target must be eliminated by midnight. Any evidence must be burned.
As always, her contact didn’t disappoint. Confirmed to be involved in a human-trafficking ring? Jackpot. See, although her job description wasn’t exclusively a gun for hire, she did take some pleasure in ridding the world of those much worse than her when the opportunity arose.
Call it selective thinking, but it really did help her sleep at night. Taking jobs some might label ‘of questionable morality’? She’s never had any problem with that. Doing bad things for a good reason? Water under the bridge.
It’s not what she was taught but something she’s learned throughout the years that she’s spent on her own. The average ‘inherently good’ person loves hearing about the positive impact such an act had, but not so much about the execution.
She had her target. But she had underestimated how many were in the ‘abandoned’ warehouse.
WITHIN AN HOUR after dissecting the mission file, she was out of her apartment and on her motorbike making her way to an abandoned warehouse on the edge of the industrial district in Lviv.
The woman parked half a klick away. Not close enough to be suspicious, but just far away enough that she wouldn’t be fatigued before the start of her mission.
Dismounting her bike, she removed her helmet, allowing her tousled dark hair to fall to her shoulders. Before anything else, she tugged a hair tie from her wrist and gathered her hair up, pulling it back and tying it out of the way.
Flipping up the bike’s front storage compartment, she stashed her helmet and took a moment to attach all her gear to her person. Two knife sheaths hidden in the shaft of her dark combat boots, and shoulder holsters. Packing light today.
The dark-colored jeans, navy, slightly-weathered cotton t-shirt, and black leather jacket she had quickly changed into all fit loose enough to allow for sufficient mobility, but not so much that she had to worry about them slipping off or getting grabbed at.
Finally, she pulled on a black mask to maintain her anonymity and made her way through back alleyways to reach the right warehouse.
As the structure came into view, she took a second to observe it. It wasn’t very large, only about three stories high. And it looked like shit. Broken windows, missing doors or doors off their hinges, and most of the exterior was marked with graffiti. Seemingly abandoned. Too abandoned.
“I got the fucking address wrong again, didn’t I?” She threw her head back in frustration and exhaled sharply. The coldness in the air made the stars especially visible that night. When she was a girl, she remembered being able to name all of the major constellations.
The woman pressed her eyes shut and shook away the memory. She wasn’t a girl anymore. She was a woman with a job.
She dropped her head and looked back at the warehouse. Contrary to popular belief, she did take her job seriously. If she had a deadline, she completed her mission before the deadline. Most of the time.
Judging by the size of the warehouse that stood in front of her, it was going to be an easy night. She put her hands on her hips and sighed. Better get started then.
The best point of entry appeared to be the main one. The night sky made a perfect cover for her to slip in unnoticed.
The front doors opened up to a wide corridor and much like the outside, the inside of the warehouse looked just as shitty. There was nothing but garbage, flickering lights, and old paint peeling off the walls—and it stretched on for the length of the hallway.
She rolled her eyes. Taking out a knife from her belt, she readjusted it so she held it in a reversed grip, with the blade facing out.
Why can’t I ever get an interesting assignment? She thought to herself.
Continuing her stroll, she waited for any indication that she wasn’t alone. She paused when she heard the creak of a door opening and murmuring as the sound of a few men having a conversation in Ukrainian entered the air. So the warehouse wasn’t abandoned, after all.
She scanned the corridor—there was nowhere to hide from view. She threw her head back in frustration before she noticed the old steel support beams running along the ceiling.
Seeing no other option, the woman inhaled deeply before boosting herself up with a kick off the wall—then using her enhanced strength to easily pull herself up and into a kneeling position on the bottom chord.
The woman exhaled shakily. She watched as the first man came into view. He was about five meters away and looked drunk out of his mind.
She shifted her footing and silently crept her way across the string of ceiling joists until she was above the intoxicated man.
Dropping down, she landed on the man’s shoulder and knocked him down to the grimy ground. She quickly climbed on top of him, her blade coming up to nick at his carotid artery and take him out. The woman then jumped to her feet and dragged the body away from the doorway.
Forcing herself flush to the wall, she watched as another man came out, distracted by the conversation he was having with his colleague. Too distracted to notice the woman come up from behind him and snap his neck. The other man’s shout was cut off by the blade slitting his throat.
She looked into the room they came out of, mostly empty, save for a metal table that had on it a small bottle of liquor. She quickly ducked into the room and swiped it, stuffing it in her inner jacket pocket.
Leaving the room, she walked further down the hallway. It seemed that they had been the only ones on that level.
At the end of the hall was a door. The woman brought her knife up in a defensive manner as she opened it. She breathed out in relief when she found the stairwell empty.
Carefully making her way up the flight, she paused slightly before she reached the top. A man was blocking the door to the second level. He had his back towards her and was smoking a cigarette.
The woman slowly snuck up behind him, carefully observing him before she pounced.
Clapping one hand over his mouth, she snapped his neck with ease. She turned and gently lowered him to the floor. She quickly checked his pockets to see if he had any sort of communication device on him. He didn’t. All he had was a pack of cigarettes and a metal lighter. Which she took.
“Ей!” Hey! A man shouted from behind her.
The woman froze. So much for the element of surprise. She spied the man over her shoulder, immediately displeased with his lackluster display to appear intimidating. Ah, what the hell?
The woman reached into her jacket as she spun around, grabbing a pistol from her shoulder holster before cocking the hammer back and shooting the man right in through the eye—uncaring of the noise that reverberated throughout the hallway. She was compromised anyway.
As if on cue, all the doors to the inhabited rooms on the second floor opened up. More than a dozen men walked out of them.
She was horribly outnumbered. Kneeling down, she stashed away her knife in its calf sheath and switched it out for another Glock. But they were horribly outmatched.
Their experience dulled in comparison to hers. They didn’t stand a chance. Now all that’s left to remember them by is the blood that stains the walls. And haunt her mind forever.
Coming up on another staircase, she eyed it carefully. It led to the last floor. She still hadn’t found her target yet.
Looking down at her boots and taking a step, she failed to see the man descending who tackled her to the ground. The impact knocked the breath out of her lungs and the guns out of her hands.
She looked up at the man on top of her and watched as he grabbed one of her guns, throwing it at the wall. He picked up the other one, fiddling with the hammer to cock it back. Idiot.
The woman lifted her arms and wrapped both hands around the gun, dodging her head to the side to avoid the shot that he finally managed to take. Bringing one of her legs up between them, she kneed him in his privates. A string of curses followed. He dropped the gun and brought his hands down to cover himself.
She pushed him off of her and kicked him back, right down the flight of stairs that led to the first floor. The woman turned her head before she could see the impact. The sound was enough to confirm he was dead, no need to check.
Pulling herself to her feet, the woman searched the area for her guns. One of them was splintered into useless pieces, no doubt from when the man threw it at the wall. The other was fine, albeit scratched up. But checking the magazine, it was empty. The woman put it back in its holster, chances are she wouldn’t be needing it anyway.
Grabbing onto the guard rail, she made her way up the flight of stairs. She briefly wondered what time it was.
This time, no man was guarding the doorway, making things much easier for her. In fact, the whole corridor looked empty, there wasn’t even any garbage. It looked clean.
It didn’t sound empty though, she could hear shouting down the hall. She decided to just get things over with and jogged until she reached the end of the hallway.
Kicking open the double doors and stepping over the threshold, she scanned the room in confusion. A gym?
The room she had entered was built like a workout studio. Wood floors, mirrors lining the walls, exercise equipment everywhere, and at least fifteen men, standing in the center of the space in workout clothes. The occupants had been waiting for her.
Some were armed with knives, while others just stood clenching their bare fists. The only similarity between them all was the same cold, hateful glint in their eyes.
Who could blame them? She was covered in their comrades' blood.
“Хто наступний?” Who’s next? The woman clicked as she raised a sharp brow, her complex mind swiftly switching to Ukrainian with ease.
The men looked around at each other before one of them, at the front of the crowd, began to laugh. The woman narrowed her eyes.
As she kneeled down to pull her knives out of their respective hiding places, another man, next to the asshole stupid enough to laugh at her, slapped him on the chest and gestured toward the woman.
“Ви знаходите там щось смішне?” Do you find something funny over there? She shouted, standing up to her full height.
This made the man chuckle once more before he crossed his arms over his chest. “Милі ножі, вони зроблені з пластику чи щось?” Cute knives, are they made out of plastic or something?
“Ти знаєш, що таке сорокопуд?” Do you know what a shrike is? Ana asked, ignoring his words—for now. The woman flipped her knives so she held them in a Filipino grip, with her forefingers on the spines of the knives, and watched with disinterest as some of the men nervously clenched their fists.
Shrikes are passerine birds of the family Laniidae. The family name, Lanius, is derived from the Latin word for ‘butcher’. Shrikes have coined the nickname ‘butcher birds’ for their…unusual feeding habits. They often kill more prey than they need at one time.
But why let it go to waste? Shrikes will impale their prey on spines or barbed wire for safekeeping, and for ease of tearing it apart later. A creature capable of truly gruesome tendencies.
She explained this to them with a shrug, her plump lips curling into a wicked smile beneath her cloth mask.
“Знаєш, як мене називають?” Do you know what they call me? The woman said, tilting her head as she grew closer to the crowd. “Сорокопуд. Не може бути більш відповідним.” The Shrike. Couldn’t be more fitting.
Her patience quickly waning, she chose to strike first. She crossed the room in quick strides and launched herself at the man who tried to shut the other asshole up before. The rest of them parted to avoid getting trampled by their comrade.
Kneeling over the man, she brought the blade up to his neck, applying the smallest amount of pressure, lightly pricking his skin. She watched in contempt as he begged her to let me live, please god let me live, I have a wife–
Pathetic. The other men looked on in horror as she mercilessly ignored the man’s pleas and slit his throat, his blood spattering all across the wood floor and spraying their faces in red.
The woman looked up—the visible part of her face covered in blood—and searched around the crowd circling her for the man who had a lot to say before.
All the others had been rendered immobile by shock, failing to act immediately, which would have been their best shot at taking her down. Their loss.
By the time they shook themselves out of it, she was already onto the next. To the man who laughed at her.
Leaning back and shifting her weight onto her left hand, she brought her right leg around and hooked her foot in the bend of his knee, pulling him towards her. Once he dropped, she pushed him on his back and straddled him. Just so she could look him in the eyes when she sliced him from ear to ear. Watch the fake apologies and pleas die on his lips as he choked on his own blood.
“Сука.” The man under her growled out. Bitch. She tsked in response.
“Вони виглядають як вони з пластику?” Do these look like they’re made of plastic? She traced the tip of one of the blades across his neck and sneered. Although he could not see the bottom half of her face, he could see the crinkle in the corner of her eyes. She was smiling. “Сука.” Bitch.
It was the last thing he saw.
She looked up once again, taking in the expressions painting the stained faces of the men surrounding her. Most displayed disgust, others looked pained, but they all shared the same sentiment. They wanted to fucking kill her.
They bared their teeth and clenched their fists, slowly closing in on her. She slowly stood up.
And one after one, the men came at her, but she was too fast. So one after one, when they attacked, she already had her blades at their neck. Mowing them down without batting an eye, no need to make sure they were dead. Years of training and decades of killing had instilled a confidence in her skill set that never faltered.
And as she watched the final man’s face, so full of anger, contort to pain and confusion as she slowly slid her knife across his throat, slitting it. It didn’t faze her.
Not as she watched him discard his own knife to bring both his hands up in desperation, to try and prolong the inevitable. Not as she watched the blood release out of his carotid arteries, pouring through the gaps of his fingers like a waterfall. And not as he dropped to the floor and convulsed before he took his last, shaky breath.
She loosened her grip on her knives and they fell into the growing puddle of crimson as she paused to catch her breath.
Then she noticed something. There was no more shouting, no more booming gunshots echoing around her mind. Just silence. She looked around, there was no one else coming at her, no one trying to sneak up on her. It was just her. Her and the dozens of fresh corpses.
It was after the deed was done—when she was alone—that her remorse showed.
She grimaced, suddenly hyper-aware of everything around her. The gritty feeling of dirt beneath her fingernails. The sound of her ringing eardrums getting used to the deafening silence. And that god-awful smell. It was one she was intimately familiar with but one she could never get used to. Blood.
So much blood. Staining the walls—everywhere she looked, there it was. She scanned her reflection in the gym’s mirrors. Her clothes and mask were soaked in it, her face glazed in it. It was overwhelming, the coppery smell so strong and intense it made her want to gag.
She could feel her throat tightening as her lungs squeezed shut in protest of the heinous smell, her heart racing as that familiar tingling sensation spread throughout her body. She tried to get herself to breathe, to focus on anything but the plethora of bodies around her, to make herself calm down before her condition worsened.
She closed her eyes and started counting back from one hundred. One hundred. Ninety-nine. Ninety-eight. Nin– She could still feel her heart rate rising and her breathing getting shorter.
Before she could resume counting, a loud bang followed by a string of what she could only assume were curse words too muffled to make out, sounded in the distance.
Her eyes snapped open to lock onto the entrance doors of the studio. Her panic attack long forgotten. The last thing she needed was to be caught or killed in an abandoned warehouse full of dead bodies. Her hand reached into her jacket and shoulder holster but tensed when she felt her hand grab air.
She switched hands to check her other side but stopped once she remembered. Fucking empty. The magazine was empty. And she had no more ammo.
"Goddammit." She muttered, squeezing her eyes shut as she pressed the palm of her hands against them. Her gun was practically useless and both her knives were either lodged in someone’s jugular or in a puddle of blood that she most definitely was not going to go through to find. She dropped her arms, turning around and darting towards the room’s large windows.
Clenching her fist, she put it through the glass, not even worrying about cutting her hand open. Her fingers curled around the windowsill as she took a peek down. She was at least twenty meters up. If she jumped, her chances of surviving the fall were low. And even if she did, there’s no way she’d be able to make it safely to her bike with a spinal fracture. She wouldn't be able to heal that fast.
She whipped around when she heard the doors of the gym get kicked open again, this time off their hinges. A man walked in; 191 cm, cheek marred by a gnarly scar, and built like a tank. Her original target.
If she were a religious woman, this is when she would’ve started praying.
“Хто ти, блядь, є?!” Who the fuck are you?! The man was furious. He took out a bowie knife from the sheath hanging off his hip and started to advance toward her.
The woman was starting to panic, she could try to fight him off hand-to-hand but she was already at a huge disadvantage.
Turning back towards the window, she grabbed a shard of broken glass and then took a defensive stance.
She waited until the man was closer and took his first swing at her to strike, waiting almost as if it were in slow motion as the blade of the bowie swept through the air, coming down at her. She dodged it, using her slightly smaller stature to her advantage—ducking underneath his arm as she brought up the hand with the glass, effectively making an incision in his abdomen.
The man growled in pain. She brought her arm up, ready to strike again but he caught on quickly. He dropped his knife and grabbed her wrist, using his other hand to grab her by the neck.
The man's stubby fingers dug into her throat, the toes of her boots just barely hovering above the ground as he lifted her up. Gone was her cocky demeanor as she continued to try and break the hold he had on her wrist, eyes bulging and face beet-red as her oxygen was cut off.
She felt nothing but pure joy when she finally managed to catch him in the eye with the piece of glass.
The man winced and tossed her away towards the windows. She landed on her back, groaning for a few seconds before noticing the pained expression on the man’s face as he turned and gave his back to her.
Using his disorientation to her advantage, she quickly stood back up and used the gymnastic rings that hung from the ceiling to lift herself up and wrap her thighs around his neck.
She reached down and grabbed a rope from the equipment storage rack next to her, wrapping it around her target’s throat and pulling it taut until she heard his gagging cease.
The man struggled but her grip on the rope was too strong for him to break. His oxygen supply was running out, causing the man to fall to his knees. The woman was sent rolling out in front of him.
She turned and used her end of the rope to yank him towards her, kicking him square in the chest and making him stumble back towards the windows. He landed on his ass under the sill. Her steel grey eyes narrowed as an idea came to mind.
Running past him, she leaped at the warehouse windows feet-first, kicking them open and off their hinges as she flew through them—still gripping the end of the rope.
The woman looked up and watched as the man slowly choked to death as she safely plummeted toward the ground. Another idea came to mind as she landed on her feet. Wonder if it’s still here.
The woman patted at her jacket before she pulled the bottle of liquor from her inner pocket. She uncorked the alcohol and looked down at her t-shirt. Too soaked to light. She wracked her mind for something else she could use.
Pulling off her mask, she examined it. The front that covered her face was also soaked, but the back of it was mostly dry.
Tearing the gaiter in half, she stuffed the dry piece of cloth into the bottle. She then took out the pack of cigarettes and metal lighter from her breast pocket.
Before tossing the pack, she took out a single cigarette and brought it up to her lips. Flicking open the lighter, she lit the slender tube and the piece of cloth, letting the flame spread before hurling the cocktail into the warehouse. Any evidence must be burned.
Taking drags from the cigarette as she walked away, seemingly unbothered by the burning flames engulfing the warehouse behind her, she only had one thought on her mind.
Thank god she’s not a religious woman.
SHE WAS DANGEROUS when she got into that mindset. It was like a sort of switch got flipped and she couldn’t do anything other than surrender to her lowest instinct.
There were so many of them...
She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to will away the memories haunting her from only hours before.
She had lost control. All those years she had spent desperately trying to prove the academy wrong but after her performance tonight, they couldn't have more right.
She was a weapon.
And the Mistress said weapons don't weep.
When she finished washing her hair and scrubbing off all the blood and grime that had accumulated on her body during the night, she slid to the floor of the shower and hugged her knees, silently watching as the water rained down on her bruised body.
It was an odd feeling, seeing the world go by like normal when you don’t feel the same. Like the water raining down on her, no different from the way it always did. It just…felt off. It felt…overwhelming, like the warmth that enveloped her would somehow swallow her up entirely.
The woman quickly forced herself to get up and turn off the water. She grabbed her towel and absentmindedly dried herself off before putting on some clothes to sleep in.
As she walked out of the bathroom and made toward the makeshift nightstand next to her bed, a strange scratching sound coming from somewhere in her apartment made her pause. Better not be those fucking mice again, she thought as she looked around like a madman—then she spotted it.
There was a black cat outside her window, stuck in the window box, shivering in the cold February air, its eyes struggling to keep themselves open and lined with tears. She walked over and pulled up the window.
Looking him over, he looked like he had been through some shit, with tiny scars marring his dark fur all around. The most prominent one was the thick scar going across his chest, between his sternum.
She debated whether or not to bring him in. It was the smarter choice not to. In her line of work, she didn’t have the time to take care of anything. She also didn’t need the distraction. But she saw how the feline’s eyes lit up when she opened up the window, he was a fighter.
“Hi there, koshechka,” She cooed, gently gathering the black cat up in her arms. “How did you get up here?”
The feline seemed to meow back in response. Closing the window, she sluggishly made her way through the whole apartment, switching off any lights and making sure all points of entry were secured. Once satisfied, she headed back to her bedroom, the cat still wrapped up in her bruised arms.
The woman settled the cat onto the bed before taking a seat as well. She needed to call Benji and let him know the mission was a success. Grabbing her Blackberry off the nightstand, she looked through her contacts but paused when she saw the time read 05:27. Too late early to call him and I should get some rest anyway, she thought.
Looking over her shoulder, she sighed. The cat had made himself comfortable next to her pillow, purring and cleaning himself. The corner of her mouth twitched up.
“What am I going to do with you?” The cat paused his cleaning and narrowed his eyes as if to say, you really expect me to answer that? The woman shook her head and snickered as she stood up to pull back her bed covers.
Cautiously, she lowered herself into the bed, taking care to not bother the cat. Basking in the feeling of the cool sheets on her exhausted and sore body, she tensed when she felt the cat snuggle into her neck. The realization that this was the only type of affection she’s received in who knows how long made her tear up again.
She closed her eyes and let a single tear fall before bringing her hand up to scratch under the cat’s chin.
“I’m sorry,” She whispered to no one in particular. The cat nestled his head further into the crook of her neck. Reaching over the makeshift nightstand, she turned off the table lamp. “I’m so sorry.”
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To be continued…
