Pretty Assassins

Pretty Assassins Chapter 9

The helicopter ends. I'm probably the most nervous out of all of this. Not too long ago I found out that Tom wants us to kill Pride's father. But what I didn't understand was why...

Turning to Pride I could see that this was affecting him. He hangs his head in a more focused way than I've ever probably ever seen. That was saying a lot as well. I've been staring at him for a long time and he hasn't looked up, not even once. That was saying a lot as well. Those sneaking stares he gave me were completely gone. It's almost as though I don't exist. The creature was coming out of Pride.

I get up when the plane lands. Pride isn't concerned for me at this moment. I had to figure out how to do this on my own.

As I grab my back I realize how heavy it is. The bag is a goodie bag provided by Tom truly who didn't even bother to fly with us. I look through my bag. I have a picture of the target, his address, his daily routine, a fake ID, a prepaid debit card, some cash, a prepaid cellphone, some prescription level sleeping pills, and a gun. This was literally an Assassin kill kit.

I grab the cellphone and the address and look up. I'm about to get off the plane when I'm blocked by this larger shadow of a much bigger man. When I turn I see Lust.

The only thing bigger than his shadow was the sword in his hand. He's taken the Katana out of its sheath. It's the longest katana I've seen him with. His specialty was swordplay. Perhaps Tom had left a gun in his bag at all but I knew Lust would never use it. He liked to do things old school. He liked to get up and close. And even with that big sword, I wondered if his prey would see him coming. Who knows when he'll just chop you up with that thing.

"Hmph," he grunts.

His eyes dart at me. The sun from outside the helicopter reflects on the blade and then he steps out of the helicopter with the same crazed look that I'd seen on his face before. There was a certain type of guy that was attracted to Desire. The crazy kind.

Two minutes later I'm getting off the plane with Pride and I follow him down the runway. At this point, the others have all scattered. Some people like Sloth and Lust went the conventional way of calling taxis. Others like Greed and Lust were headed towards the rental car. No doubt Greed would use her entire stipend to get the most luxurious car she could find. I'm not quite sure where Gluttony was, but by how fast he left the runway I assumed it had something to do with food.

"Hey..." I call out to Pride.

Pride doesn't stop walking. I'm looking at the back of his head. And actually, I have to admit he looked just as sexy from the back as he did from the front. He has such a muscular back and he arched over quite a lot when he walked. Then there was that butt. Even though the jeans I see the perfect arched figure that could only be attained by a ridiculous amount of squats. His ass sat higher than any guy I'd ever seen. He had a better ass than I did! I stare at it in complete jealousy wondering how it was so perfectly rounded.

"Can't take you with me this time," he states, "This time it's personal."

"You have to take me."

"This time you'll have to go solo.'

I shake my head. That wasn't an option, "You didn't see how Lust looked at me when I left the plane. He's not going after your Dad. He's going to come after me. I know it."

He stops.

At this point, I'm begging.

"You can hide."

"I can't hide. He'll find me."

"You're stronger than you think."

He keeps saying that. I almost growl my response as though I was the one who had the creature in me, "I'M NOT!"

I didn't get what he didn't understand about me being weak. I wasn't fucking pretending like he thought I was. I was weak. Weak as fuck. I remember I would have died a long time ago during training. The only reason I was given a second chance was so I could weaken Craving, who was Desire's best friend. The only reason I've ever been around was so that I could help in Tom getting rid of Desire. I was a pawn. A useless one at that.

"If I take you," he states, "You stay close."

"I'll stay close."

"You listen," he states, "And last thing."

"Yeah?"

"When the beast comes out. Promise me you don't try to stop it again. Promise me when the beast in me comes out that you find a good hiding spot and don't come back out until I calm down. OK?"

I stare at him. I nod and for some reason, I smile. He looks at my smile but doesn't smile back. It's as though he doesn't know what to do and end up just nodding. It's the cutest thing. He was concerned. The tension with him about wanting to find his father by himself was enough to make anyone deny a tag along. But he didn't deny me. He was saying it was OK. He turns around and starts walking. This time just a little slower than before.

~

"There's liquor in here..."

The room is old and stinks. Seeing the old bottle of gin is shocking, to say the least. It's completely full and it looks kind of dangerous. The only thing looking more dangerous is Pride. I notice that he sweats a lot more than the average man. He doesn't say why but I think it's something his crazy father did to him. By the time we get to our motel room for the night his shirt is soaking wet and he takes it off. I look at his rippled chest as though this was a strip show. My eyes stare at his thick, dark nipples with sweat dripping down. His abs are popping carved down like a piece of steak. I'm amazed and just when I think my dick is about to get hard I look up and notice him staring at me.

"Everything OK?"

He quickly digs in his back and grabs an undershirt that was included in our little black duffel bags.

"Everythings OK. Just wondering something. Did we have time to get a room?"

It's later that day. The car we rented was a beat down Chevrolet.

"My dad doesn't stay at the address that Tom has," Pride explains, "He's too smart for that. It'll take anyone else a long time to find them. There's no need to rush. I know exactly where we are going."

He sounds confident but in a heavy way. In a way that tells me, he takes no pleasure with reuniting with his father in any way. He walks into the bedroom and stares at the two beds. He puts down his black duffel bag on the bed. I notice how light his bag looks. He barely was given anything. Remembering how he attacked people at the tower, I am not surprised. He didn't need anything to do his job but his bare hands.

"What happens when you see him?" I ask.

"I don't know. I'm sure we'll figure it out. I'm sure the point of all of this was so that we could figure it out..."

I turn to him seeming confused.

"What are you talking about?"

At this point, he's on his bed sitting off the side. I get on my bed and set off the side as well. We are facing each other. Our knees are about a few inches apart. Pride's eyes settle on mine in this really weird way as though he's reluctant to keep talking.

"Haven't you figured it out? You haven't been around Tom enough maybe. But let me tell you this. Everything he does is for a reason. He had to have known that address my father gave was a ploy. The house is probably riddled with booby traps. He knows I'll find him first and he knows that I'm going to bring you."

"You think he wants to test you?"

"No."

"Then what?"

"He wants to test you," Pride explains, "Don't you get it? I saw him one time talking to Sloth. He told her to set you up so that Lust will go after you."

"You're kidding..."

I'm shocked.

"She was the same one that got Greed pissed at me," he explains.

"Did you know that Gluttony had an ex-boyfriend that he was obsessed with that looks just like you. He met him here at the Institution. The same guy that Lust stole away from him."

"I don't get where you are going."

"I'm saying this is all about you. All of it. Me, the choices that Tom made for everyone else here. They were all around you. This mission Tom knew I would bring you along. He knows those other agents don't have a chance of finding my father. For some reason, he wants you there when I meet my father?"

"What do I have to do with your relationship with your father?"

"I don't know but I know Tom. There's something up. And I think that's why you should stay here and not with me."

"You're crazy. Lust is out there. Sure no one may be able to find your dad, but Lust doesn't care about your dad. I'm telling you that I KNOW he's after me."

"More reason not to follow me. Lust will follow us right to my father's place if he's out there stalking us."

"So you're going to sacrifice me?"

"Of course not," Pride responds, "You can defeat him."

I look at Pride and I swear to god at this point I'm irritated, "You are crazy. You really are."

"I'm going to take a shower and get ready for bed. I want you to think about it. You don't need a hero. You went through the same training as these other assassins."

"I failed."

"No, you didn't. You're alive. It's because you belong here. You are powerful. Tom knows. I know. It's time you showed Lust."

I roll my eyes, "I need a drink."

For some reason, he smiles. It's one of the rare times he smiles and he has a brilliant smile. It makes me hate him less. I don't get why he believes I'm something that I'm not. Even the way he smiles at me it's as though he's having a conversation with some young prodigy. I wasn't a prodigy. I would have known the millions of times I almost died during training in the Assembly. Some kids just didn't make the cut. Sure I was one of the only ones alive that weren't strong.

But that was just by chance.

By the time he comes out of the bathroom, I'm already drunk. So drunk that I cat-call him as soon as he comes out of the bathroom.

"Goddam!"

A sober me would have cared but a drunk me who was panicking about Lust and realizing I was on my own if Pride left me didn't. My tongue almost hits the floor when he walks out of the room. First off there was his face. His wet hair was all sexy and silky wrapping around his perfect face. His skin almost glowed. He has a towel wrapped around his waist and when I do my cat-call you would think he was embarrassed by how red he gets.

He tries to play off whether or not he's flattered by walking over to me, grabbing the bottle out of my hand and seeing how much was in there.

"My mother used to drink this," he explains.

"Drink some."

"I never drank."

"Never?"

He shakes his head, "I remember asking once. My mother left it on the counter. When she was pregnant with me he never let her drink but after she had me she became an alcoholic. A violent one at that. He never let me drink. My father felt like it would interrupt whatever drugs he had me on at the time."

I pause, "Why couldn't your mother drink?"

"My mother was on special drugs. They were trying to recreate it and I'm not sure it worked."

"Recreate what?"

"Something called Blood Bound. Thousands of years ago there was an assassin. The greatest assassin in the world. An assassin who had the ability to learn other people's skills by watching them and somehow within a matter of minutes...sometimes even seconds could defeat any other warrior using that warrior's own abilities against them."

"That is quite a skill."

"I didn't say skill. It was ability. His father before him could do it and his father before him. The ability ran through my family for generations, but mixing genealogy made it was less and less likely that the skill would be passed down through DNA. Sooner or later, however...my father came along and desperate to create another Blood Bound warrior he experimented in gene slicing even before he had me. So when my mother was pregnant with me, she thought that I would be Blood Bound. He was so sure that I was but he knew. There was a sign that you are blood bound."

"What sign."

"You cry blood..."

"That's sick," I state.

He laughs, "Yeah. Thank god I never had it. But my father, disappointed, began experimenting in stronger and stronger things to make up for his failure of me not being blood bound. And that's when he started animal texting."

Fuck.

"I'm sorry," I state.

He looks heavy. Real heavy, "Maybe I should take a drink of this."

He drinks it and immediately starts coughing out. I don't think he expects it to be so powerful.

"You people drink this?" he asks.

"Usually we mix it, but we don't have anything to mix it with so. Here. Let me help you."

I grab the bottle out of his hand. He gives me a look and for a moment I think he's going to tell me he doesn't trust me to do this. But I'm wrong. He looks me deep in my eyes and leans his head back. I stare at his big Adam's apple. It was beyond sexy. Clearly, that is why his voice is so deep. I pour the liquor down his throat.

And I can see it hitting the sides of his lips.

And before I know it my tongue laps the side of his lips sucking at the alcohol. I am shocked that I have the balls enough to do what I just did.

"Fuck sorry."

"Did you lick me?" he asks, laughing before raising his eyebrows, "Like a dog..."

I stare at him. I'm not sure how to describe it but I thought for some reason that would be something he would like. Him being a creature and all.

"Did that offend you?"

"Kind of," he states, pausing for a moment.

Things get awkward as we are sitting there. We keep looking at everything in the room outside of each other. I can't believe I fucking licked him on his lips. Who fucking does that? I keep telling the man he's not some animal and to prove how human he is I decide to fucking lick him? I press myself onto the bed at that moment and throw the covers over me.

"Going to bed."

"Wait---"

"Yeah."

"Why'd you do it?" he asks, "Why'd you lick me?"

Was that what he was thinking about the whole time that he was quiet? I turn to him and realize that he's still sitting up and seeming very alert. He seems so nervous. And then I remember. I've had so much more experience than he has had. This was the first experience for him. And at his age, this was a really big thing.

And then I realize why he's offended. It wasn't the fact that I licked him. It was the randomness of it. It was the fact that he was confused.

"I shouldn't have," I state, "What I really wanted to do was kiss you?"

"Oh," he states and then pauses for a few seconds before reluctantly asking, "Then why that? Why the kiss?"

I shrug, "I'm attracted to you. We've been bonding. You have my back. I have yours. So I felt safe enough to try to do that to you."

He pauses nodding.

"So like I guess-----what are you looking for?"

He's asking me this as though he's seen someone ask someone about it before. It's a strange question in our situation. It wasn't like we were on a dating site or something. We were assassins. I was looking to survive. That's what I was looking for. But I know that answer would confuse him more than likely. It wasn't like he had a bunch of people using sarcasm around him while he was locked underground. I knew it would go completely over his head.

So I do what he does. I get as honest and blunt as possible.

"I'm not looking for anything. But I am attracted to you and I think you're attracted to me. Am I right?"

He pauses.

"Yeah..."

"Why didn't you act on it?"

He pauses, "I didn't know what to do?"

"You have to figure it out..." I state pausing and realizing him breathing heavy, "Am I making you nervous, Pride?"

"Yes."

"You should leave out for a little bit, take a walk. Never mind I said anything. Right now you're not quite ready and tomorrow is a big deal. One day we can revisit this conversation."

He gets up off the bed listening to me. I watch him as he walks to the door. He looks down. I wonder if he's defeated. I hope I didn't make him feel insecure at all. This is a strange time for him. Maybe tomorrow when he's less nervous I'll have a conversation about him. I'll let him know that some things just come naturally and we don't' have to plan it.

But as he gets to the door he doesn't leave.

He locks it.

And then he turns to me and drops his towel, "I want to revisit that conversation now..."

"Pride?"

My eyes lift up. My face folds a few times. There is his long dick between his legs and every second it gets stronger, longer, thicker as he makes his way towards me. A huge shadow falls over the bed, making me feel so small. The humidity from the shower comes off his perfect body. His eyes are the eyes of a predator.

Slowly he lets out this deep long carnivorous moan.

"Pride..." I say again.

He crawls over me, pinning my hands down as he climbs my body attacking. That's the only thing I can call it. An attack. A sweet attack as he begins to kiss me slowly from the bottom of my thighs to my crotch area. I think he's going to be nervous when he gets to my dick like some virgin 14 years old not knowing exactly what happens if you play with it too much.

He devours it. I know he hasn't sucked dick before. I'm sure of it. He would have mentioned it. It wasn't like Pride was fucking bashful. So to realize my surprise when the first time he attempts to suck dick he literally deep throats, chokes almost to the point that I think he's going to turn blue and then pulls back out and tries even harder to stay down longer the next time shocks me. Spit runs down the side of my dick and I'm thrusting my hips forward."

"Oh god!" I call out.

Big mistake. I've called too much attention to my mouth. Before I know it his interest has turned to my mouth and I'm before I can close it his tongue has gone deep into the back of my throat. He explores it for a long time and I've never kissed someone in such a wild way. He goes from rough to soft and then almost even romantic when he uses his thighs to separate mine and slides in between. He's staring deep in my eyes the entire time.

"Prepare," he states.

"For..."

I'm so unsure that I am puzzled when he pushes the tip of his dick. He tries deeper and when he realizes he isn't getting anywhere he stops and stares at me frustrated probably by the fact that his dick is wanting something that it can't have.

"Spit..." I state, "Like this..."

I spit on my hands and rub it on my asshole. I don't have to glide his dick back. He comes back with a vengeance and this time he succeeds. This time he goes deep. It's slow but intentional. He wants to fill me as much as he possibly can and he manages to do it. My eyes roll to the back of my head and my mouth dries when he begins to stroke, aggressively, not ceasing even when I squirm. He seems puzzled more in his eyes at times by my reaction but when I start smiling I realize he doesn't slow down.

This is pleasure. Pleasure in the greatest ways and I can see that he's happy when he smiles.

"I think I wanted to do this with you since the moment I met you," he states.

"Same here. It feels so good."

"I think I need to release," he explains.

He strokes me longer and then he keeps his promise. He doesn't pull out. That doesn't even seem to occur to him. But it's OK. I want him to feel it. I want him to experience the best of it for the first time. So when I feel the rush of man fluid fill my hole I pull it in, squeezing my asscheeks tight around his dick and I hear him make the sexiest man I've ever heard in my life. By the time he's done he's over me panting, his eyes rolling.

"Can we do that again? Like everyday...forever?" he asks me.

I look at his face. Innocent but somehow still managing to be sexy. Looking down at him I realize that I'm amazed. This man was perfect.

"Maybe if we can escape. We can go back to your home town."

I get up.

"You're leaving?"

"Just was going to go clean up..."

"No. Lay with me..."

This wasn't about sex. I know that when I lay on his chest. My head pressed close to his heart and his hands circling me. He's staring at my forehead. He's holding me. Really holding me, unlike I've ever felt in the world.

"I like being around you. I don't think there is anything about this experience I should like but for some reason, that's not the truth."

He pauses.

"Do you want to leave this place?" he asks.

"Tom won't let us."

"I didn't ask what Tom wanted. I ask what you wanted."

"Of course I want to leave this place. Maybe take me to see where you were from. Make new memories to replace the old ones."

"Fine. After this mission we leave," he explains.

It's just like that. Black and white. Nothing to it. I look at him and I'm almost amused.

"What you going to do? Punch, kick and bite your way out of there?"

"Who's going to stop me?" he asks.

He means it. He fucking means it. I look over at Pride and I believed him. I don't know why it never really occurred to me.

"Tom's afraid of you," I state, "He can't control you. You really can break out of here. You can fucking break us out of the Assembly. Oh my god. If anyone can do it----it's you."

"I will do it. I promise," he states, "I'll take you back to Arlington."

"How'd you know that was where I was from?"

"I didn't."

There is a pause.

"Why'd you mention Arlington then, Pride?"

"It's where I'm from," he states.

Weird. We were from the same place.

This was not a coincidence.

"Pride..." I start panicking.

"Go to sleep. We finish this mission. I'm not sure what Tom has up his sleep but we won't be around to find out. Right after I kill my father. We're leaving," he explains.

I should feel secure about what he's saying but finding out that we were from the same place makes me feel anxious. There was no way that was by chance. I always felt this connection with Pride. It was a connection that I wasn't sure about.

But it was real.

~

We arrive at the house and pull up to the front.

"We aren't going to sneak in."

"No point. If we've gotten this far he knows he is dead. He won't try to escape. My father works in probability," he explains.

"Should I stay in the car?"

"No. I want you with me..."

That's when he reaches over and grabs my hand. Feelings his fingers so gently against mine makes me feel as though he's been thinking about what happened last night. I'd fallen asleep in my arms and woken up to him staring at me. He wasn't some gentleman. There weren't roses and breakfast around. It hadn't occurred to him, I guess, but I was OK with that. I didn't want a gentleman.

Looking at Pride now I realized I like it. He is refocusing more on what he had to do with his father but I wanted to be there for him. That's why I stop him before we get to the front door.

"This it?"

"This is one of his hideout spots. It wasn't where I grew up. The house in Arlington is still there but my mother stays there now."

"Are you ready for this?"

"He needs to pay for what he did to me," he explains, "This isn't about Tom. This is about me."

I lean over and manage to break through the lock. Luckily I learned that back in high school. As we get through the lock the house definitely seems like the house of a fucking weirdo scientist. No other way to describe it.

But it was quiet. Real Quiet.

No one was home.

"He's not here."

"He's close," Pride states sniffing at the air, "I can smell him. He hasn't been gone for too long."

I nod and walk around. The house seemed dreary. The house was a grey blur behind the rain-washed windows. It was large, certainly, almost intimidatingly so. On climbing out it took a more detailed form, natural grey stone with all the hues mother nature can provide. The paintwork on the trim was brilliant white, flawless and the path wound to a double oak front door was loose pea shingle.

I walk over to a room. A room that seems to have some interesting things on the wall.

"Pride," I call out, "In here!"

Pride walks out. At this point, he is wearing black but Pride has heavy footsteps. He's not really the kind of sneaking around assassin. He's the assassin you heard coming and you had a chance to run but probably didn't get too far.

As he approaches he looks at the desk. The desk is polished with papers. Emails. Emails that were printed out.

"What is it?"

"My father was trying to get in contact with Desire," he explains, "Wants to share information with him. They haven't met yet but they are supposed to meet soon."

"Explains why Tom wants him dead," I state.

"My dad resents Tom for not being able to control me. When he demanded I be returned to him after Tom failed, Tom denied him. He kept me around, locked up. Desire was Tom's public failure, but I was always his private one."

"You know a lot about Tom."

"For some time he was like a father to me. He was kind. He shared things with me, but once he realized he couldn't control me I became a liability."

"Interesting. Look he was looking something else up."

I open up his computer. He definitely hasn't been gone for too long because the screen lock isn't even on. I look in his inbox and I see something. An email.

"A birth certificate..." I state.

"What's the name on it?" he asks, "Is it Victor Ward Jr. That's my name..."

I laugh, "Cute. Victor..."

"Vic," he responds.

I repeat the name. Vic. I smile at him and he bites his lips. I liked the name. I look down to see if his father for some reason had a copy of his birth certificate but instead I just stare.

"No..." I respond, "Roland Peyton."

"Roland Peyton?"

I am shocked.

"Why does your dad have my birth certificate?"

We notice the sound before we hear him walk in. At the moment he walks Pride looks over suspecting him. He doesn't attack though. There is no need. I look at Tom's father and see how sickly he looks. He looked like he was going through stress or something. It wouldn't take much to kill him and perhaps he knew that too. Maybe that's why he finds a seat in the room and sits. He doesn't greet his son. He barely looks at him but I see the way that Pride looks at his senior.

He looks pissed.

"Tom sent it to me..." Dr. Ward says when he sits at the desk.

"Why?"

"Same reason he made one of his assassins meet me, seduce me and make me fall in love. The same assassin pretended to be my wife and gave me the idea to manipulate the genes of our child. Your mother that is..."

I look over at him. I'm shocked.

"Mother was a member of the Assembly?" Pride asks.

"Her codename was Willful Ignorance. I knew her as Ashley. Ashley Ward. But she wasn't. She was just another assassin, living a double life. She was Desire's mother. She seduced me and I thought for such a long time that it was real. But it wasn't..."

I look over at Pride. Desire was his brother. Our biggest enemy was his brother.

"Desire is his brother," I ask.

"Desire is the only other assassin with the potential of being blood born. The Blood Borne DNA never ran through my family. It ran through your mother's. She was actually Tom's lover, but no matter how many times they tried to have children together, it never worked. Tom couldn't have one of his children become Bloodborne. So Tom sold her out. Who better than the top genetic scientist in the world? She came into my life...reluctantly. She wasn't good at hiding it. She resented me even when she was pregnant. She resented you the moment you came out. In order to ensure that her fake life never affected the potential of her real heir Desire, your mother did something dramatic that Tom just revealed to me. I wasn't aware. No one was, but her."

"What did she do? What did Willful Ignorance do?"

"She switched you out at birth to hide the true identity of the potential blood born."

"I'm not your son?" Pride asks.

"No..."

"Then who is? Who is the possible Blood Born assassin."

"She became desperate to protect Desire almost immediately. She even made me run away to get you away from Tom. We went into hiding. At times I thought she was mad enough to kill you to protect Desire. She paraded around some fake son that she presented to TOm as it's not a possibility. At this point it is definite. Unless Desire shows proof that he too is a blood born assassin, I believe we are already in the presence of my real son."

He turns to me. Impossible. Pride and I were switched out at birth. All of a sudden seeing Pride collapse to the floor I realize the truth.

The reason that his father blended his DNA with an animal using injections was that he wasn't Blood Born. He didn't have the blood born trait and the father became desperate. But the only reason the father became desperate was to please a mother. A mother who was really pretending to be in this relationship by her boss. And her boss was Tom.

Pride was right.

This was all about Tom.

No.

This was all about ME!

"Roland," Pride states, "Your eyes..."

I realize that I was crying. Crying because Pride was in so much danger because of me. I was crying because I wasn't who I thought I was. I grew up in a good life. I grew up in a happy life.

I grew up with HIS life.

And he grew up with mine.

That's when I rub my eyes and realize why he's so surprised my tears, "Oh shit."

I was crying blood.

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