Healing The Assassin's Heart

Pigs

Might be a possible trigger warning for some. Read with caution.

(Male lures away a child)

Lyla age 12

“Lyla Bear, why are you always busy on the weekends? You never get to come over anymore.”

“I am training.”

“For what?” Domino asks

“For life. What I’m made for. I told you I was different. All these years you never noticed?”

“I have. But it’s a good difference. You’re so protective. I don’t see any other friends or cousins or sisters as protective as you. You even beat up that girl for your cousin that hurt his feelings. Why do you like to fight?”

I looked at my best friend. She was so sweet and caring.

“Domino, there is something inside me that, if I don’t train and get the aggression out, I could hurt people. You’re the only one that really knows this, besides my Papa Roberto. Not even my mom or dad knows the extent I can go. You’re the only one I talk to normally. Everyone else I don’t talk to. Not even my family.”

“Why?” she asked all big eyes. She got braces this year and, with her coke bottle glasses, she looked really weird.

“Because you are my best friend. You are here in my heart, I don’t know how to explain it.”

“My mother says we are soul sisters. That in a past life she thought we were twins and were part of the same soul. She’s never seen two girls closer than us.” She smiled at that. I gave her a small smile back. That kind of made sense.

“Did you hear about Lisa Mathers?” she asked me.

I paused painting her nails. We were in her bedroom. I came to her house after school today because I had training all weekend. I was going on my first real human hunt with Papa Roberto. He said a very bad man needed to be found, and I was the perfect bait. I couldn’t wait.

“What about her?” I asked, resuming painting her nails.

“She got sent away to another school. Someone beat her up. I can’t say I’m sorry to hear it. She loved to cut my hair at school. I had to beg my mom not to go to school and start up a fuss. That would have been embarrassing.

“She made you cry, Lisa did, I mean,” I said.

“Well, yeah. I had to cut my hair really short because of her.”

I looked at her. She had to get a pixie cut. With her glasses, braces, and the smattering of freckles on her face, it was really unfortunate.

“I just wish I would have seen her get beat up. It would have been satisfying.”

I shook my head. “You’re too soft-hearted. You probably would have told the person that beat her up to stop,” I said, blowing on her fingers.

“You’re probably right. Hey, do you think you can spend the night?”

“I have training at six in the morning,” I said.

Her shoulders slumped. “Oh.”

“But I’ll text my mom and ask if I can stay until ten.”

She perked right up. “Okay. Did you see the way Ray Evans was staring at you today? You’re so pretty Lyla. I wish I was as pretty as you.”

“You are Domino. Especially in here,” I said, laying my hand on her heart.

She smiled blindingly at me. I stayed with her until I had to go home. We played video games and ate junk food. I was going to pay for that tomorrow.

“Are you ready, mi tesoro?”(my treasure), Papa Roberto asked me.

“Si, papa. I just sit here and cry,” I said,

“Yes. I’ll be over there.”

It was noon. For the last six hours, I worked out with papa and daddy, and then papa and mama helped me practice with knives. I can now throw at fifteen feet and hit the bullseye every time. I had lunch, and now I was on my first hunting mission. We had tracked the prey and figured out this was his favorite hunting ground. He liked little girls with dark hair. I fit that description. I sat on the bench. My mama, papa and aunt Becs were somewhere in the crowd of people. The park was really busy this Saturday. It was Spring and a wonderful 70 degrees. I sat on the bench and tried to think of something sad. My chin was to my chest, and I was swinging my feet on the bench. I may be 12, but I could pass for 4 years younger because I was so small.

I thought about how sad Domino was when Lisa cut her hair. I had found her in the girl's bathroom crying her heart out. She had been shaking, and there was snot all over her arm and upper lip. Her eyes were red and swollen. When I finally got the whole story out of her. I took her to the principal's office. They called her parents and she went home. I waited for three days before I got revenge for Domino. I wanted to cut Liza’s hair off, but they would know this was in retaliation for Domino. So I did what came naturally. I let the beast within come out, and I beat her up. She lost her two front teeth and I broke her nose. She never saw me coming. I waited for her in an alley. I knew she walked home from school. I followed her to observe her routine. Papa would have been impressed. When she walked by the alley, I called her name and ducked behind a dumpster. I watched through a crack as she stopped and looked. She called out ‘who’s there?’ I smiled and called her name again. And then I said something she couldn’t ignore, because I knew how greedy she was.

“I found a purse with like a thousand dollars," I yelled. She was so dumb. She came running into the alley. I tossed a rock so it landed behind her. At the clatter of the rock she stopped and turned. I pounced. I used the hood of her jacket to pull over her eyes, and I just wailed on her. I pulled out chunks of her hair and left her with bald spots. Before she could recover, I ran across the street and watched from a bench as some elderly woman found her and called an ambulance. I made sure there was no camera footage of the incident because I did it in a place where there were no cameras. Papa always told me, you had to think smartly and think about what could go wrong and have a solution for everything.

So, I thought about Domino and her sad tears. I hated seeing her cry. I let some tears fall and pretended to be distraught.

“Hey little girl, are you lost?” I looked up into the eyes of a blue-eyed man who had no right being in the park around children. Papa found out about him through an underground network that he told me he’d tell me about one day. He said he was tasked to take care of this man, and he thought he’d make the perfect first hunt for me.

“Yes,” I said quietly.

“What’s your name?”

“Tasha,” I whispered.

“That’s such a pretty name. Do you want to go with me, and I’ll help you find whoever it is that’s lost you?”

“Okay,” I said, taking his offered hand. I let him lead me out of the park and down the street.

“You see that blue truck right there? That’s mine. Are you okay with getting in the truck with me?”

“Yes,” I said.

He smiles at me and I smile back. He unlocks his truck and helps me inside.

“Buckle up,” he said.

I watched him go around the front of the truck, and open the driver's door. Before he can get in, a figure comes up behind him, hitting him with a pressure point that knocks him out.

“You okay, Tesoro?”

“Yes, papa. What now?”

“Now, we will take him to our farm.”

Papa opens the back of the truck and transfers the man to the back seat. He then gets into the driver’s seat, picks up the keys the man dropped on the floor and starts the engine.

Thirty minutes later we pulled up to an old farm.

“Whose place is this papa?”

“This is our place, bambina. This is where we will chase the man and you will get your kill. Then I will show you what to do with the man’s body.”

“Okay.”

We got out, papa grabbed the man, and we chained him up in a barn. Papa walked me over to a table and explained all the different instruments and what they could do. I was particularly fascinated by the skinning knives. Papa told me a story that I couldn’t believe about aunt Lia and her carving skills. My sweet Aunt Lia was a vicious woman. I had a whole new respect for her.

The man moaned.

“Just in time,” papa said.

He picked up a folder and stood in front of the man. I stood next to him and started. The man opened his eyes.

“What’s going on?”

“Devin Prescott. You have been judged and sentenced to death for the crimes of p*dophilia, and child r*pe. I think it is fitting for my granddaughter here to be the one to take you out. Don’t you?”

“You have the wrong guy. I was just helping her find her family. I've never touched children in a vile way,” he said.

Papa drew out disgusting pictures and held them up to the man. My eyes turned frosty, the man looked at me and gulped.

“She’s no child,” he whispered.

“She is, she’s a very special one. Go on bambina. Go prepare.”

I left them and took a pile of clothes into another room in the barn. I changed from my little girl's dress into black leggings, a black long-sleeved shirt and black running shoes. Lastly, I strapped the knife sheath that was with the clothes to my right thigh. I put my black hair in a ponytail and then braided the tail. There was a container of war paint, my papa called it, and I put some on my face like I’ve seen my daddy and mama do when they go out on missions together.

I came out of the room. The back barn doors were wide open. Papa stood there looking at his watch.

“He had an eight-minute head start. Happy hunting Tesoro. It’s time to see how well you’ve been trained by all of us.”

By all of us, he meant himself, Papa B, aunt Becca, mama and daddy. All five of them have trained me in stealth and tracking. Papa took me hunting, and I knew how to kill and skin animals. This was just a different kind of animal.

I nodded and took off at a steady pace into the woods that surrounded the barn. My eyes caught deep footprints in the soft ground, some muddy and some that scraped moss. I saw broken twigs and crushed grass. I listened and could hear harsh breathing and snapping wood. I followed the sounds. He sure was slow for having an eight-minute head start. The man was not in shape. A few minutes later, I hear a crashing sound. He fell and I chuckled. I spotted more signs of disturbed earth and crushed plants. When the man let out a startled yell, I followed the direction. All was quiet around me. No birds chirped, no insects buzzed. I slowly crept over a log and around a thick tree. There the man was, his clothes disheveled, dirt on his face, hands, arms and legs. He was breathing harshly as he leaned against a fallen tree. He was examining his ankle.

“F*cking tree stump, came out of nowhere. Where the f*ck am I?”

His muttering had me shaking my head. This man had no clue what was about to happen. Slowly, I circled behind him. As I got closer, I could feel adrenaline rush through my body. My focus zeroed in on the man. I took the knife out of the sheath I had strapped to my right thigh.

Suddenly a squeal went through the air and a pig came rushing out from under a bush nearby. The man shouted and then threw back his head and started laughing. His hand to his heart. That was the last action he ever took. I stepped up behind him, yanked his head back by the hair and drew the blade across his neck.

His eyes widened as he yanked himself away from me. On his knees he scrambled away, one of his hands to his throat as he started to choke on his own blood. I stood there smiling as blood flowed from between his fingers and soaked the front of his shirt.

“Won’t be naughty anymore, will you?” I sing songed as I waved my knife side to side in front of his face.

Slow clapping had my head turning to Papa who came out from behind a tree.

“Very good, Tesoro,” he said, as we watched Devin Prescott bleed out. His eyes dimmed of life and his blood was seeping into the ground where he collapsed forward.

“What now papa?” I asked.

“Pigs, Tesoro. They are such resourceful animals. Let me tell you how they can help us with a dead body.”