Chapter 5 — Ethan Hayes
980 Words
Nobody moved inside the parking garage.
Rain echoed faintly outside while the older man stood calmly between the black SUVs watching me carefully.
Elena looked between both of us.
Confused. Tense. Trying to understand why hearing my full name suddenly changed the atmosphere.
“Your father asked us to bring you home.”
The sentence stayed in the cold air quietly.
I kept my gun lowered but ready.
“Ethan doesn’t send people after me.”
The older man nodded once.
“Usually no.”
That answer alone told me something was wrong.
Beside me, Elena spoke carefully.
“…Your father?”
I ignored the question for now.
“Why now?” I asked.
The man’s expression hardened slightly.
“Because people are already moving.”
Not good.
I glanced toward the SUVs again.
No visible weapons. No aggressive posture.
But these men weren’t bodyguards.
They moved too carefully. Too evenly.
Former military maybe. Private contractors.
Expensive ones.
The older man looked toward Elena briefly.
“She comes too.”
Elena immediately frowned.
“Okay, I’d really like to stop being discussed like luggage.”
Honestly?
Fair point.
The man almost smiled slightly.
“My apologies.”
That somehow felt more unsettling.
I studied the garage exits quietly.
Could I fight through them?
Probably.
Could I protect Elena during it?
Less certain.
And uncertainty gets people killed.
I finally lowered the gun fully.
“Fine.”
Elena turned toward me immediately.
“Fine?”
“We don’t have better options.”
“That is not reassuring.”
Usually true.
The older man gestured toward the nearest SUV.
“This way.”
—
Twenty minutes later, Prague disappeared behind us.
Rain continued falling while black forest roads stretched endlessly outside the vehicle windows.
Elena sat beside me in complete silence for almost five straight minutes.
Honestly? That worried me more than questions.
Then finally—
“You kill people.”
Straight to the point.
I looked out the window.
“Yes.”
Her breathing shifted slightly after hearing me confirm it so calmly.
“You weren’t joking earlier.”
“No.”
Silence again.
Then:
“How long?”
Long question.
Complicated answer.
I leaned back slightly against the seat.
“…Since I was eleven.”
That made her look at me immediately.
Actually look at me.
Not the man who fought in her apartment.
Not the stranger with guns and knives.
Me.
And for the first time since tonight started—
she looked genuinely sad.
Not frightened.
Sad.
I wasn’t prepared for that reaction.
“You were a child,” she said quietly.
“I know.”
The SUV stayed silent except for rain against glass and tires against wet roads.
Then Elena asked carefully:
“Who are you?”
The answer should’ve been simple.
Instead—
My mind drifted backward.
Back before Prague. Before contracts. Before blood.
Back to my mother.
—
“Again.”
Cold water crashed over my head while I tried forcing air back into my lungs.
I was eleven.
And already learning how pain worked.
The training yard remained silent except for rain and wooden swords striking against each other somewhere deeper in the compound.
Japan. Winter. Mountains.
I hated all of it.
A man stood over me holding a stopwatch.
“Again.”
My hands shook slightly from cold as I forced myself back onto my feet.
Across the yard, older trainees watched quietly.
Some amused. Some annoyed.
Most expected me to quit eventually.
The son protected by Ayaka Hayashi.
The child never meant for this life.
They hated me before training even started.
I swung again.
Missed.
Pain exploded across my ribs as the instructor’s wooden staff struck hard enough to knock me back into the freezing water.
“Again.”
Everything there worked the same way.
No comfort. No sympathy. No softness.
You learned. Or you broke.
Sometimes both.
That first winter nearly killed me three times.
Once from fever. Once from exhaustion.
Once because another trainee decided I was weak enough to drown quietly beneath the ice water during endurance training.
He almost succeeded.
Almost.
—
“Damian.”
My mother’s voice cut softly through the memory.
Warm. Gentle.
Different from everything else in that place.
I looked up from the training room floor while blood dripped slowly from my split lip.
My mother knelt beside me quietly.
Beautiful. Calm. Dangerous.
Ayaka Hayashi scared almost everyone inside the family.
But never me.
She touched my face gently.
“You’re hurt again.”
“I’m fine.”
Lie.
She smiled faintly anyway.
“You sound like your father.”
That always made her happy.
My father only visited twice during the first year.
The family barely tolerated his existence.
American. Outsider.
But my mother loved him anyway.
Which was probably why everything became complicated.
“You should rest,” she said softly.
“I can still train.”
Her expression changed slightly after that.
Sadness hidden beneath pride.
That look stayed with me years afterward.
Because now I understand what she was thinking back then.
She was watching her son slowly disappear into something she tried protecting him from his entire life.
—
“Elena.”
Her voice pulled me back to the present.
The SUV interior returned slowly around me.
Dark windows. Rain. Forest roads.
She was watching me carefully now.
Like she could still see pieces of the child inside the story.
“What happened to your mother?”
Silence filled the car instantly.
The men in front stayed focused on the road.
I looked back out the window.
Then answered quietly:
“She died.”
Simple sentence.
Heavy truth.
Elena stayed silent for a while afterward.
Then softly asked:
“And after that?”
I closed my eyes briefly.
Honestly?
That answer was easier.
“After that,” I said calmly, “they turned me into a weapon.”
- Writer
