5 Chapter 5

The next morning, I wake up to someone opening my apartment door. I quickly grab a dagger from my nightstand, flip onto my stomach and push my hand under my pillow, hiding my dagger. "I swear, if this is one of Wilker's break in drill's my apartment isn't going to be the only thing being broke into." I thought. My bedroom door opened, and I slowed my heartbeat to where it sounded like I was still asleep.

The person walked further into my room. I felt their presence come to the side of my bed and push my legs further towards the middle of the bed so they could sit. "You can pull that dagger out from under your pillow and stop pretending to be asleep." Garret said. I huffed out a breath and sat up. "How did you know I was awake?" I asked. "I didn't until I saw your hand under your pillow."

I scoffed, "So, that could just be how I sleep." I contradicted. He raised one eyebrow. "Well, maybe one night I will have to stay over, to see if that is true." I felt my cheeks turn red and my face get hot. I immediately came up with something to say. Not turning him down, but not agreeing. "Wow, real smooth. Practically inviting yourself over." He laughed, either not noticing, or not acknowledging that I gave him a non-answer.

"So, why did you break into my apartment this early in the morning." He smiled. "I didn't break in. I just came in." "What?" I almost screamed. "I left my door unlocked. I have never done that before." He laughs. "You think this is funny. What if Mr. Varro figured out, I killed his son, and tried to come get revenge?" This causes him to laugh harder. I whack him in the shoulder. "Stop laughing at me Garret."

He stops laughing long enough to hold up a key. I go to grab it from him, but he pulls it back. "How did you get that?" I yell. "I saw it on your counter the other day. Thought I should be able to get into this apartment without busting the lock." I immediately get an idea to get it back. "That isn't even a key to my apartment. You are lying." He shakes his head. "This is yours." "Really show me." He holds it up, just out of my arm reach.

I jump up, and towards the key. He sees me jumping and jumps up before I can reach my key. His arm catches me around my waist, and pulls me to his chest, while holding the key far out behind him. I shriek when I hit into him, and he presses his lips to mine. When he pulls away, he says, "You are going to be a lot sneakier than that with your plans." I attempt to push away, but he gets another kiss on my lips, not that I try to stop him.

When I get away, I walk into my closet. He follows and leans against the door frame. He notices my outfit and smiles. I am in my bra and some short pajama shorts. "If this is what I will see you in, in the morning, I am coming over more often." I roll my eyes. "Scram. I need to get changed." He raises an eyebrow. "I didn't hear a please in there." I give a fake smile. "Because I didn't add one, but I can add a few other choice words if you need."

Garret walked up to me. "What would those words be?" He backed me into the corner of the closet and my breath picked up. He had one hand on the wall next to my head. "Aren't you going to answer?" He asked. I couldn't speak. My words stuck to the back of my throat. "The cat got your tongue?" I finally got my words out. "No. There are no cat's around." He got an evil smirk. "You are right. So, I guess I will have to improvise."

He kissed me, and I didn't bother to close my mouth. When he pulled away, he turned, "I guess you are all talk and barley that in the first place, because I didn't hear any choice words." He walked out of the closet before I could say anything. After he left, I let out a shaky breath. He popped his head back into the closet. "Maybe you aren't even talk because it seems like after I leave you, you are always breathless. Even when we didn't do much talking."

"Get the hell out." I yell. He lets out a roaring laugh and walks out of my room. "He can be so infuriating sometimes. Why can't I just shove him away sometimes?" I get dressed into my suite, and only have my two new daggers, and the ones that go into my breast pockets. When I walk into the kitchen, he already has breakfast made. "So, you are not useless after all." I say.

I sit down and start eating. "You could say thank you." He says. "You are right. I could say thank you." I smirk at him. It takes two seconds for him to come up with something to say. "I guess I just won't make you breakfast anymore. I skills aren't appreciated here." He pretends to look hurt. "You are so right. I hate your cooking so much. That is why I am eating it right now." He laughs at me and I finish eating. I notice he barley touches his food. "What is wrong?" I asked.

He shakes his head. "Nothing. Let's just get out of here." I cross my arms and put a pout on my face. "I am not going to leave until you answer me." He looks at me. "Yes, you will, because you have to get to the Guild." I shake my head. "Nope." He puts my plate in the sink and puts his food in the fridge. "I am going to walk out the door and you are going to follow." He walks out the door, but his head pops in a half minute later. I haven't moved.

"What are you going to tell Wilker when he asks why you staid home." I thought for a second. "I couldn't come in because one of the Guild members put something in my drink, and it made me sick to my stomach." "But I was the only one that ate with you, he knows that. Who could someone put something in your drink?" I smirk as he thinks about it.

"Wait a minute, are you actually going to tell him that?" I nod. "Fine. I will tell you." He sits down. "I don't want you to do this fight tonight. Last time you froze up, and it caused you to get hurt." My mouth falls open. "How do you know about that?" I completely ignore his words about my safety.

"Wilker told everyone to meet at The Pitts. He was making a deal with the owner, and that when you won the fight tonight, we were going to have a chance to celebrate more missions for everyone. We all started bidding on if you would win or not, and how badly you would both get hurt."

I pound my fists into the table. "I bet that you would win and that you would get out with minimal injuries." I scoffed. "So Wilker told everyone this?" I ask. "Yes. Why?" I plaster my biggest, fakest smile on my face. "Because, I have to have a word with him." I am at the guild in less than five minutes. When I storm into the guild, I get two halls in before I hear something. "Oh no. Everyone take cover. Jaycie is livid. Fear her as she storms the Guild." Zachery is right behind me.

I spin, grabbing his arm, shoving it above his head and slam my dagger into his sleeve. He goes to pull it out, but I grab his other arm, and pin it next to him with my other dagger. "Just shut up Zachery." I walk off leaving him like that. He can't get the daggers out of his sleeves. One of his friends come to take the daggers out, but I stop him. "If anyone frees him, I will personally kill them." His friend backs off. "What. No." Zachery says. But I walk off, making a mental note to visit him my talk with Wilker.

I storm into Wilker's office. I slam my fists into the top of his desk, making two huge holes in the top. He actually looks shocked as I pull my hands back to my side, healing them quickly. "What the hell." He said. "Why did you tell the whole Guild that I was going to fight tonight? And that I was going to win?" Wilker walked around the desk and looked were my fists went through the wood.

He looks as me with concern. "Jaycie. Sit down. Now." "No." I yelled. "Why did you tell everyone?" He immediately pulls his head back in shock. "No?" I smirk. "Yes. I told you now. Now answer me." He opens his mouth to say something, then closes it deciding not to key me up further up. "Smartest thing he has done in a long time." I thought. "I can tell anyone one about the missions I give you. And you told me you were going to win."

I checked my anger and took a deep breath. "I may have told you that I will win, but now I know everyone is expecting me to win. What happens if I freeze up again? What happens if I do lose? That would be two fights in a row, and really didn't need that pressure on me." Wilker now had a look of disbelief on his face.

"Pressure? You really want to pull that pressure crap on me? No. I know you. You have never suffered under pressure. Out of everyone in this guild, you work under pressure the best. I don't even want to hear that sentence come from you again." Wilker seems slightly mad that I am made up that excuse. "Now why are you really mad at me?" He asks.

"I didn't want everyone there. I have not had the best luck with pit fights lately. And you have never told the whole guild about any of my missions before. Why did you do it this time?" He seemed dumbfounded. "I have never told them before because it never concerned them. If I get this deal, and people coming in to hire assassin's will be directed to us. Meaning everyone. Every time we get one of these deals, everyone always celebrates."

I kept my scowl on. "You could have warned me first." He sakes his head. "I don't need your permission to tell something to someone." My retort come out without me even thinking about it. "I don't need your permission to tell someone about the mission where you got me caught, doesn't mean I will tell everyone." I hear a growl come from him. "You are to never bring that up again." "Someone still mad about the incident that gave me this scar?" I point in the general direction of my knee. There was a scare the width of a finger and about six inches long. And that was after I healed it using all my power.

"Jaycie, shut your trap, now." "I have a point." I say. I dagger flies at me. Or right next to me. I jump out of my chair. "You know very well I feel bad about that. I got you back as quick as I could." I scoff. "Yeah, two months later. I was on the verge of death when you found me." His eyes are simmering. "There was no way I could have known that if I pushed you out of the way of three daggers flying at you, you would go into one of their traps.

"I was about to duck. It is your fault that the dagger stuck in you shoulder." He had saved me though. I had just killed one of there buddies, but the leader threw three daggers at me. Had he no pushed me, I would most likely be dead. "Look, Jaycie. We are way of track. Just stop." We both fall quiet. After a few minutes, I turn to the door. As I walk out, I say, "I need to go check on Zachery. I know he didn't learn his lesson yet, but I can't keep him there till he does. I would be thirty years dead by that time."

"What did you do to him?" Wilker asks with shock strong in m his voice. I smirk and walk out. I would have to pay for that later, but I am still mad at him. He follows me, and after a couple of feet, the sound of Zachery's shouts. When we get there, Zachery is livid. Anger has him looking like an animal. He is pulling at the daggers, but the wings, act like anchors for the daggers, making them stick.

There is a large crown around him. The assassin that tried to save him is standing there, giving them your threat. When Garret see's you, there is amusement sparkling in his eyes. Zachery locks eyes with me and says, "You can't keep me here forever. When you let me down, I will kill you." Wilker just throws his hands in the air, turns and leaves. I hear him say, "I am done stopping your fights. If you kill each other, well that is two less assassins I have to deal with. This has to happen eventually." "Finally, he has stopped butting in."

I walk up to Zachery and pat his cheek. "Is someone just a little mad?" He turns and tries to bite my hand, but I pull it away. "You are digging your own grave." He screams at me. "Good thing I can jump really high." I say as I wink at him. Garret scoffs at that statement. Under his breath he says, "Yet you couldn't jump six inches." I glare at him. "He offered his hand before I had the chance to jump."

Zachery is still ranting on. I decide it is best to let him down, so I put one hand on each dagger and pull them out at the same time. I turn and run off. As I stick my daggers in their sheaths, he follows. I am a faster runner though. I run through the halls laughing. "This is a great exercise Maybe we should do this more often." I taunt over my shoulder. The growl he lets out sends chills down my back. The end of the hall turns left and right, but not straight, so when I am less than a foot from the wall, I do one-eighty and start running back the way I came. He smashes into the wall and my laughter rings through the halls. He is immediately running after me again.

I pass back through the hall where I had him pinned, and all the assassins laugh as I run back through with Zachery still after me. I speed out the front door and into the streets. Zachery is right behind me, and plenty of the assassins follow us. After a few miles of running, I stop in a dead-end alley. He is standing on the open end and walks towards me with a menacing laugh. All the other assassins are on the roofs looking down at us.

"What happened to your taunts? Not as brave when you are cornered?" I smirk. "Why would I waste my words on a dead man." "Oh, you wouldn't be, you would be using the last of your words." There is ten feet between us, and he stops. "This is it. One of us are dying tonight." I think. "I would ask for any last words-" "No thanks." I say cutting him off. "I don't like all the dramatics."

With that he lunges at me. I have just enough time to dodge him. I pull out my daggers and turn around just in time. Our daggers lock together. I knee him in his crown jewel, and he stumbles back. I let him come back at me. He swipes a dagger at my face, and I make the mistakes of going down instead of back, because with his other dagger, he gets me from the bottom of my ear to the tip of my chin.

My face rings in pain, but I ignore it. We both are throwing defensive and using offensive moves. We both get several attacks on each other. I finally get him in the back with my elbow, I hear a crack when I hit him. He goes flying to the ground with a howl of pain. I put a dagger to his neck ready to kill him. Everyone if cheering for me.

But all the sudden, I can't kill him. After everything he has put me threw, I thought it would be easy, but I remember the missions we had together. How we fought at each other's back, trusting each other with our lives. Literally. And when I heard he had got captured, the fear that had rushed through me. The few times where we were nice and civil with each other far outweigh the times we fought with each other.

"Kill me already." He howled. I sheathed my daggers and put my hand on his back. I had broken some of his vertebrae with the hilt of my dagger. I healed him and stood up. "I can't. It should be easy for me to kill you, but I just can't. I have fought with you plenty of times, but I can't kill you. For worse or better, I can't kill you." I turn and walk away. But seconds later his hand is grabbing the hair on the top of my head and yanking my head back. He dead-knees me and I fall to my knees. His dagger is at my throat. "Sadly, for you, I am not that sentimental."

I close my eyes, ready for him to pull that blade across my neck. "Open your eyes, look at me." I open them and he is staring at me with a vengeance. "Go ahead." I say calmly. I have stared death in the face, shook hands with the darkness, but I have never felt this at peace with life as I did it. I am ready to die. After a second, Zachery starts to pull the blade. I feel the sting of it. I am staring into his eyes, and I see all his anger flowing out and my blood colors my neck.

My neck starts to howl in pain. But I don't let any myself let out any screams. The tip of his blade reach into my neck, and starts to dig in. As I feel it about to rip through my vocal cord, I whisper, "I am sorry." He freezes. "What?" But I can't talk. My eyes are watering. The pain has built to almost intolerable levels. His dagger is shaking. He pulls it out and let's go of me. I crash to the ground. I see black in the corner of my eyes. It starts to spread across my vision.

But when his dagger was pulled out, it was done in such a way, that it didn't do any damage. He is staring down at me. I am bleeding out. My life is flowing out of me, riding on my blood. He stares for a moment longer, before closing his eyes. He is fighting himself internally. I look at the sky and see an assassin pushing through the crowd on the roof, trying to get to a drainpipe. Garret. Trying to get down her to save me. But all the other assassins fall into a knee and put the blade of their dagger to their forehead. What you do when a fellow assassin is dead or dying.

Finally, Zachery falls to his knees next to me, and starts healing my neck. When it is completely healed. I am still lying still. My eyes are wide open, and I could see everything. I can't move at all. My body won't respond. Zachery looks up and yells to the others. "Come down and help. Now." The ones on the roof, jump at the opportunity to save me. Had Zachery not aloud them to, there was nothing they were aloud to do. As feet land all around me, they form a circle around me. It is huge. They all touch a hand to some part of me and start healing me.

I start to move. My heart starts racing. My body racks with pain now. I let out a howl of pain. I can't even stop it. Tears fall down my cheek. Every sign of pain start showing on me. I can't stop it, when they all back up, I can move again. I push myself up and stare at everyone. They all saved me. When it came right down to it, they saved me, didn't let me die. I wipe the involuntary tears away and take a deep breath.

Out of everything that has just happened, the only thing I can concentrate is the fact that Zackery had not only tried to save me on his own, he had called on everyone else to help. I lock eyes with him, and we instantly have an understanding. We will always fight, but it is obvious we will never be able to kill each other. I give him a small, tight lipped smile. No matter how many times I threaten to kill one of my fellow assassins, I can't bring myself to do it.

I look around and lock eyes with Garret. He is shaking, and he is breathing hard. I almost want to hug him, but I can't because everyone else is hear. I slowly stand up and offer my hand to Zachery. He looks at it as I am about to slap him. He grabs it and let's me pull him up. He immediately steps away and says, "I guess the whore sees another day." At first a wave of rage flows threw me. But I just end up giving a small laugh.

He almost killed me, and he still insults me. As a group, we use back alley's and roads to get back to the guild. Wilker is standing there and staring at me and Zachery. We are both walking side by side, but we aren't trying to kill each other. When we get to the door, he points to the both of us and to his office. He walks in front of us, and when we get in there, Zachery falls to his knee. I go to do it, but Wilker grabs my chin and lifts it. I am looking straight at the ceiling. He inspects my neck.

After a second, he talks to Zachery. "Well, stand up already and tell me what happened. He is still inspecting my neck, making sure I am not too badly hurt. Zachery tells him everything that happened, from the chase to everyone saving me from death. Wilker wraps his hand around my neck and sends his healing threw neck. I almost relax my shoulders in relief. My neck still hurts of course. When Zachery is done, Wilker says, "Jaycie, sit a rest all day, send your healing through your neck every now and again."

I nod, he turns to Zachery. "I am honestly you aren't dead." I hear Zachery's words, but only faintly. "Me too." "Now that both of you won't kill each other, I need to say. I won't be stepping in anymore. If the other has a mission though, try not to hurt each other that bad." We both nod and he shoos us out of his office. Zachery heads to his room and I go to the window seat that faces the front of the guild and stay there until it is time for my big fight.