CHAPTER III - LEARNING TO KILL
1752 Words
Iris understood one thing after leaving the underground vault.
For two days she remained inside the hidden complex, reading journals until exhaustion blurred the words on every page. She copied important names into a notebook, memorized maps of safe houses, and studied the countless records her biological father had preserved.
Every discovery answered one question while creating ten more.
When she finally stepped back into the abandoned church, the outside world felt different.
The wind carried the scent of rain through the broken stained-glass windows, and sunlight streamed across the cracked stone floor as though nothing had happened.
But everything had.
She was no longer the woman who had entered the church searching for answers.
She now carried knowledge poweful enough to start wars.
Money could buy time.
Weapons could win battles.
But neither would keep her alive.
Everyone hunting her had spent years killing without remorse. If she wanted to survive, she needed someone who knew how they thought.
Among her father's journals, one namr appeared more often than the others.
Dante.
No surname.
No photograph.
Only one sentence repeated several times.
"If I fail before my daughter is ready, find Dante. If he refuses to help, tell him I kept my promise."
That was all she had.
It wasn't much to begin with, but her father's journals were filled with coded references only someone patient enough could understand.
Several pages mentioned forgotten ports, abandoned warehouses, and villages that no longer appeared on modern maps. Iris spent hours comparing old records with current maps, slowly piecing together a trail that someone had deliberately scattered across dozens of notebooks.
After weeks of following old records, forgotten safe houses, and coded messages hidden inside her father's journals, Iris found Dante's whereabouts. He lives in an abandoned fishing village along the coast.
The village looked forgotten by the rest of the world.
Collapsed wooden docks stretched into gray water. Empty fishing boats rocked gently against weathered posts. Most of the houses had been abandoned years ago, their roofs collapsing beneath years of storms and neglect.
Only one small cabin showed sighs of life.
Smoke drifted lazily from its chimney.
Several stray dogs rested peacefully outside as an old man repaired fishing nets beneath the afternoon sun.
He looked nothing like the legend she expected.
His gray hair reached his shoulders. Deep scars crossed his hands, and his right knee forced him to walk with a slight limp. He spent his mornings repairing fishing nets and his evenings feeding stray dogs.
His movements were slow but deliberate.
Even while working, his eyes quietly observed everything around him.
He seemed like an old man who had left violence behind.
Until Iris stepped onto his property.
A knife buried itself in the wooden post beside her head.
The blade sank deep into the timber with a sharp crack.
She hadn't even seen him throw it.
Her heart nearly stopped.
"I was aiming for your shoulder," the old man said calmly. "You moved."
His voice carried no anger.
Only certainty.
Iris slowly raised her hands.
"My father sent me."
Dante laughed.
The sound was brief and humorless.
"Your father has been dead for years."
"He left a message."
She repeated the sentence written inside the journal.
For the first time, the old assassin's expression changed.
The faint amusement disappeared from his face. His eye, hardened by decades of experience, seemed to drift somewhere far away.
Silence settled between them.
Even the stray dogs stopped moving.
Finally, Dante sighed.
"So... he kept his promise."
He turned toward his cabin.
"Follow me."
The cabin was simple.
Old books filled rough wooden shelves. Maps covered one wall, marked with faded notes and pins whose meaning Iris couldn't understand. A cast-iron stove warmed the room while several carefully maintained weapons rested inside an unlocked cabinet.
Nothing appeared luxurious.
Everything appeared useful.
Dante poured two cups of tea before sitting across from her.
For several minutes, neither of them spoke.
Finally, he looked directly into her eyes.
"You have his eyes."
"And my mother's?"
A shadow crossed his expression.
"You have her kindness."
Life with Dante was nothing like Iris imagined. There were no speeches.
No encouragement.
No shortcuts.
Only pain.
The first lesson began with a simple wooden knife.
Dante tossed it toward her without warning.
"Attack."
Iris attacked.
Within seconds she was lying flat on her back, struggling to breathe.
She hadn't even understood what had happened.
Again.
She lost.
Again.
She lost faster.
Every mistake earned another bruise.
Every hesitation put a blade against her throat.
Whenever she asked what she had done wrong, Dante simply answered.
"Everything."
Days became weeks.
Weeks became months.
The bruises slowly became fewer.
Her reactions became quicker.
The fear she once felt whenever someone attacked gradually transformed into careful observation.
Knife fighting was only the beginning.
Every morning began before sunrise with long runs across rocky hills despite Dante's injured knee somehow never slowing him down.
Afternoons were spent studying maps, memorizing escape routes, and learning how to survive with almost nothing.
Evenings belonged to combat.
By nightfall, every muscle in Iris's body ached. Yet each morning began again.
Dante taught her that every room had exits people ignored. Every converstaion carried hidden intentions. Every stranger revealed pieces of themselves through the smallest habits.
He trained her to watch reflections in windows insted of turning her head.
To count footsteps behind her.
To memorize faces after a single glance.
To disappear inside crowded streets without attracting attention.
Sometimes he tested her without warning. During a visit to a crowded marketplace, he disappeared into the crowd.
Hours later he asked only one question.
"How many people followed you?"
She answered incorrectly
"There were three," he replied.
"You only noticed one."
From that day forward, Iris never walked anywhere without studying everyone around her.
At night, the lessons became darker.
He taught her how to interrogate without raising her voice.
"People don't reveal secrets because they're afraid," Dante said.
"They reveal them because they want the fear to end."
He showed her how silence could become a weapon.
How patience often defeated violence.
How a single carefully chosen question could expose more than hours of torture.
Again and again, he reminded her that information was always more valuable than revenge.
Then came manipulation.
Dante made her study expressions, body language, and speech patterns.
He handed her photographs of strangers and asked her to describe their personalities from posture alone. Sometimes he brought travelers into the village without explaining why, then later questioned Iris about every tiny details she had observed.
"Every person has a weaknes," he told her.
"Pride. Greed. Love. Guilt. Find it, and they'll open the door for you themselves."
Iris hated those lessons.
They felt dishonest.
Cruel.
She wanted to defeat enemies through truth, not deception.
Dante only shook his head.
"The people hunting you won't care what kind of person you wanted to be."
His words stayed with her long after every lesson ended.
Finally, he led her to an isolated mountain range where an old sniper rifle waited inside a weathered case.
Snow covered the distant peaks while cold winds swept across the valley below.
She expected shooting lessons.
Instead, Dante handed her a notebook.
"Write down everything you notice."
The wind.
The distance.
The light
The temperature.
The breathing of birds.
The direction of drifting leaves.
The movement of distant clouds.
Hours passed before she fired a single round.
She missed.
Again.
And again.
Frustration slowly built inside her.
She wanted to shoot.
Dante wanted her to think.
Only after she learned patience did he allow her to pull the trigger.
The bullet struck the target's center.
"For most people," Dante said, "sniping is about accuracy."
"For professionals, it's about knowing when not to shoot."
Despite everything she learned, Iris continued to fail.
She underestimated opponents.
She trusted too quickly.
She hesitated whenever victory required hurting someone.
Each mistake carried consequences.
During one surveillance exercise, another trainee nearly strangled her before Dante intervened.
The man released her only after Dante disarmed him in a single effortless movement.
"You died," Dante told her afterward.
"You just haven't fallen yet."
On another mission, Iris followed the wrong target and walked straight into an ambush.
She escaped with a broken rib and a knife wound across her side.
The scar remained.
"So will your mistake," Dante said as he stitched the wound himself.
The procedure was performed without painkillers.
He wanted her to remember every second.
Months later, he gave her one final test.
A former associate of her father's had betrayed dozens of innocent people for money and was now hiding under a false identity.
Iris tracked him for three days.
She watched his routine.
Studied his habits.
Learned everything about him.
She learned where he bought groceries, what time he left for work, and which window he checked before locking his apartment every evening.
Only when she understood his entire routine did she make her move.
When the moment came, she stepped into his apartment before he even realized someone was there.
He reached for a hidden pistol
Iris disarmed him before his fingers touched the grip.
He tried to lie.
She recognized every sign.
He tried to bargain.
She ignored him.
He tried to threaten her.
She remained silent.
Within minutes, he confessed everything.
Not because Iris tortured him.
Because she understoon exactly which truth he feared the most.
When she returned, Dante was waiting outside. The old man looked at her for several moments before speaking.
"You hesitated?" he asked.
Iris looked at him calmly.
"No."
"And how do you feel?"
She stared at the horizon.
"I don't enjoy hurting people."
Dante nodded.
"Good."
She frowned.
"I thought you'd say mercy makes me weak."
"No."
He smiled faintly.
"Enjoying violence makes people careless."
For the first time since arriving at the fishing village, Iris smiled as well.
Small.
Almost unnoticed.
But genuine.
Iris finally understood.
Strength wasn't the absence of fear.
It wasn't cruelty.
It wasn't revenge.
It was the ability to make impossible choices without allowing emotions to control them.
The frightened young woman who had escaper her burning home was gone.
In her place stood someone who observed before acting.
Someone who listened before speaking.
Someone who no longer froze when danger appeared.
Iris had stopped hesitating.
And somewhere beyond the mountains, the people responsible for her family's destruction had no idea they were no longer hunting a frightened survivor.
They were about to become the hunted.
- Writer
