Chapter 4: The Voice Through The Shadowbud
1304 Words
In a dark, small, confined space, Kira remained chained to the wall. Her head lazily hanging downward and her eyes open; however, it had lost its positive gleam.
It looked lifeless as she wasn't even struggling to break free. How she got here still remained a mystery to her even though she was awake the whole time.
She might not have known how she got here, but she knew how many people died just a moment ago because of her.
The door at the corner of the dark, small room finally opened after what felt like an eternity of silence for Kira, even though she didn't really care right now if she got a guest or not.
I mean, come to think of it, who among the potential guests could she show appreciation to? Those murderers.
They were the ones that sprayed the blood of police officers in the first place. Here she was, finally recovering from her first trauma and now receiving another.
*Click. Click. Click.*
The footsteps of someone's boot approached her in the room, remaining anonymous in the shadows. Kira couldn't see him, not because of the shadow, but because she never even raised her head in the first place to spare whoever it was a glance.
After closing in until the space between him and Kira was barely a yard, light suddenly filled the room.
Bright white light that Kira never realized that room had caught her completely by surprise, and so she had to raise her head, squinting her eyes to see the source.
On the ceiling, there were several fluorescent lights lining the ceiling in multiple rows. They were far more than what was necessary for any room. Just one, or at most two, would brighten the room decently, but Kira could count at least twenty.
This was like t*****e in its own way, to someone who had been in the dark and suddenly got caught in such brimming light.
Kira's head fell back down as she finally adapted to the new change.
"You still haven't even glanced at me," Leo spoke, his voice low, carrying no emotion. "You raised your head and one glance at the room, then back down as if I don't worth your gaze."
Leo waited, listening if Kira would respond for several seconds, but she didn't, which was no surprise to him.
"If this is why Vexis chose you, then I cannot help but remark him for having good taste in choice this time," Leo added, pulling close a chair that had already been in the room and sitting on it.
As if triggered by something, Kira's head rose upward with intensity, shooting down a death glare at Leo.
"Is he the orchestrator of all of this! Did he send you!"
"No, silly," Leo responded with a grin, resting his back against his chair as he adjusted his blindfold. "But he is the reason you are here.
We want to get to him through you," Leo explained. "Vexis is not a good guy, you know. With the way you reacted to his name, I can guess you never really had a good memory with him.
He broke the EAO rules and betrayed our trust. So many people looked up to him, but now they feel disappointed." The emotion coming from Leo as he spoke was almost comically exaggerated, not even moving Kira by a nudge.
"We have no other choice but to have him face punishment."
"And you dragged me into this mess? Might I ask, what rule did he break that had earned him such pursuit?" Kira voiced out, nearly in monotone. "I even heard there's a bounty on his head now."
"Oh, you know quite some information; I'm surprised," Hilton exclaimed with his smile still plastered on his face. "Did he tell you about that? You look too ordinary to know about such intel."
"He never told me anything," Kira responded. "I figured it out by myself when he made me his pawn to divert the attention of the killers after his life.
I guess assassins could be noisy sometimes, spilling out information unnecessarily during battle." Kira's head fell back, staring at the ground once again.
Hilton, for once, delayed in proceeding. He stared at Kira with surprise that was around the line of bewilderment. The girl he had captured wasn't someone that got some remarkable composure and badass courage, but somehow... Her personality had changed completely.
Every fiber and every characteristic he could see from this girl was completely ordinary like every other human.
Of course, she had quite the build of a gymnast's feminine physique, which wasn't much of a surprise since he discovered she is a member of a circus. That still didn't give her even the slightest bit of resemblance of the kind of person her current composure screamed she was.
"It is said that at the moment of incredible threat to life, people tend to show their true color," Hilton began, his fake enthusiasm dissipating to reveal his true emotion—raw, unfiltered apathy. "I can tell without a doubt that is exactly what is going on; you are showing your true color."
"But it's still quite unbelievable," Hilton continued, standing up from his chair and closing in towards Kira. "How some ordinary folk like you could have such an unsettling personality even with your life on the line."
"Tell me, Kira, how would you like to become an assassin?" Hilton spoke, raising her head upward to lock gaze with her expressionless eyes. "You are the exact type of protégé I have longed for, fighting side by side with two other interesting assassins I have also found.
You know, if you agree, your survival would be guaranteed by me, even if we cannot get a lead to Vexis through you eventually."
Silence stretched after Hilton delivered his last message. Not actually because he wanted the silence exactly; rather, it was more because he was waiting for a response from Kira.
As much as he wouldn't like to admit it even to himself, he really wanted Kira to agree with his proposal.
The more time went by, the more it kept him on edge, hoping for a yes. If Kira was spending this time thinking over the proposal, then there is a high chance she would agree.
I mean, it's her life on the line, and a vast majority of people would choose to live over anything else, right? Except, Hilton couldn't tell what was going on in her head through her eyes.
She was bearing dead eyes, like the eyes of a corpse. Whether she was thinking or not is a question that only her response would show.
And there it came.
"If you want to kill me, do it fast and don't give me false hope. If you want me to be a killer like you, then you should be hopeless."
"What a pain," Hilton's smile returned to his face, exaggerated with fake enthusiasm as he continued. "I was really hoping we would be able to be on the same terms, but it turns out you are as hopeless as you are."
*Click.*
He snapped his finger, and a camera attached to a tripod began to slowly rise from the ground from beneath the surface.
Such advanced technology for a room that looked abnormally ordinary.
"Let's begin with the show. We've already hacked into Vexis's communication, so all that is left is you playing your role.
Turns out you are a pawn again, as always."
***
Far away, in somewhere even top assassins couldn't track, Vexis noticed his Shadowbud suddenly vibrating, flashing with red light.
Yes, that was clearly not ordinary and a clear reason why he should hesitate to put it on; however, he did eventually.
And the voice he heard through the Shadowbud...
- Writer
