Assassin X

Raven

Life was split into sections for Raven. It was the only way she could survive. She needed to break things up, keep them separate, if she was ever going to survive.

There was her time at home, those moments of quiet thought where she felt the hollow of being alone. She was off the streets and she was warm and even though Papa considered her family and it was the closest thing she had, the empty feeling of loneliness always lingered inside of her.

Then there was the section of her life that lived in shadows, her job. The cat like reflexes, the sneaking in the dark, the adrenaline of getting rid of scum of the city, the same scum that had done things to her when she hid for her life in boxes on the street.

And the final part, the best part, was her time in the coffee shop. Where it smelled sweet and the coffee kept her warm. People flowed in and out all day, customers and workers on shifts, there was life around her. When she was at the coffee shop she was just any other girl in the city, any other girl in the world.

Each of these parts of her life were so separated, severed with a knife, so that none of it flowed into the next. That was the only way she could keep it all going, to pretend that she was a different person in each phase of her day.

There was also a game she played with herself at the register while she watched customers, strangers, walk in, place their orders, and go on with their day. Most of them came in on a breeze, either chatting with someone they came with or looking down at their phone. Very few ever interacted with her more than a casual hello, placing their order, and sometimes saying thank you before they left. With such little contact with anyone that came in, it allowed her to think about who they might be, what they might do when they left the coffee shop.

A man who might come in wearing a perfectly tailored suite- she imagined him to be an investment banker or a doctor, something where the money caught up to the clothes. A girl in leggings and an oversized hoodie was probably a college student. It was fun to imagine who they were by the way they acted, they way they dressed, even the things they ordered.

Black coffee? A sugar filled mocha? A pastry to go with it?

Being at the coffee shop was her escape from the life she had been thrust into. Not that she wasn't thankful to Papa for what he had done, but there were time in the loneliness of her apartment that she wondered if she had actually chosen this life?

When Papa pulled her off the street she had wanted to be out of the gutters, rain, and cold, but had he ever actually given her a choice or had she been forced into it?

What would have happened if she had refused those lessons when she was being held down underground? If she had fought for a way out, if she had just said no. At the time Raven was too scared and admittedly too desperate to get herself off the street, that she hadn't fought hard, or really at all, to get out of his grasp.

But living in her Assassin life for as long as she had, every night she spent alone, she dug herself into a deeper hole of thinking that she should have fought to get out. There was nothing she could do anymore though, she was far too deep into everything. The only thing she could do, the only thing she had left, was her little coffee shop.

Mornings were always busy with people flowing in and out at rapid fire speed and Raven was good at keeping orders straight and the line moving. But when she saw the door open and Alex step in, she felt frozen in place.

He hadn't been in in days and Raven had been thinking that he wasn't going to come in again. He'd said he'd been a morning regular but she'd all but given up on him. Not that she even wanted to see him, she convinced herself, and there was no reason to even want to see him. But when he did walk in, her heart beat faster and her mouth went dry.

He was good looking, no doubt about that, and there was something about his charm that made her stomach flip, but that was all she knew and all she wanted to know about him. So when he walked in, Raven knew she should get away from the register and get to the back.

"Hey, Carissa, could you cover the register?” She asked the barista.

Carissa pointed to the line of tickets across her counter. “I'm sorry, I'm swamped with orders. I'd switch if you knew how to work the machine.”

Raven didn't. She'd only been trained to take orders from customers, not fill them.

Quickly she surveyed everyone else who was behind the counter and saw that everyone was backed up with morning work. She was going to have to talk to Alex and put herself through what she was sure was going to be torture.

"Hi Raven,”he greeted her. She was surprised to learn that he remembered her name. Her life was built on anonymity, sneaking in and out of people's lives like she wasn't even there. But she tried not to think too much into it, it was probably just the streaks of color in her hair, the only thing that ever made her stand out.

"Vanilla latte right?” She asked.

He smiled, one that could have knocked the wind right out of a girl.

"You remembered.”

She shrugged and quickly looked down at her register's screen. “I'm good at my job,”she mumbled. Though that was true, it normally took her a few times of seeing the same customer for her to remember their drink order. Raven remembered Alex's after just one time. There was a feeling inside of her that told her Alex was that kind of guy, someone a girl remembered.

"I haven't been in in a few days, work has been crazy. I thought you might have forgotten about me.”

That was far from the truth, Raven had no where near forgotten him. Afraid that her eyes would betray her thoughts, she found other things to keep her eyes away from his.

"You're a pretty quiet girl,”he mused.

It was clear that he wasn't going to walk away until she said something to him.

"Yea, I guess I keep to myself a lot.”

It made her sound pathetic but it as the truth. Her life was all about keeping to herself, being alone.

"Is that by choice?” He asked.

Carissa must really have been behind on her orders because it felt like Alex and his beautiful eyes had been standing there forever. How had no one walked in behind him that she had to take their order?

"Sort of. It's kind of a work thing I guess.”

How vague could she get without making herself sound completely unappealing? Then again, she shouldn't want to sound appealing. She should want to make herself sound unavailable and uninteresting. Raven noticed Alex's eyes were glinting just a little.

Why did everything feel so complicated and confusing the moment she saw him?

"Working here at the coffee shop makes you keep to yourself or something else?”

She opened her mouth to answer but her brain was still searching for one.

"Um, just, other stuff I guess.”

She knew Alex was going to ask further but before he could, Carissa finally called out his order. Alex moved a couple steps down to take his paper cup latte. A breath finally escaped Raven when she thought he was finally going to leave and she could get her mind back together.

But instead of walking out the door, he walked back to the register.

"So, I was wondering if I could break you away from all the work that keeps your life so busy, for a date on Saturday night?”

Was he really asking her out? Raven hadn't been asked out in, well, she couldn't remember the last time she had been asked out on a date. Purposefully she kept herself locked away, dating was absolutely never going to be an option in her life, and she knew that. But if she wasn't supposed to be dating was, why was the first word that came to mind, yes?

She looked at his expectant smile and his broad shoulders, she wanted to go out with this guy. She hadn't wanted to go to out with any specific guy before, but Alex was someone she wished she could get dinner with. Or a movie. Or even take a walk.

"I can't, I'm sorry.” Raven hated the taste of the words in her mouth, metallic, awful.

A look of confusion crossed Alex's face for just a second before that charming smile slid back into place. She was sure he wasn't used to hearing no, and there was no part of her that wanted to be the girl that said no. But there she was, looking down at her register again, trying to will him back out the door.

"Well, I'd really like to get to know you more, Raven. So if you change your mind, call me.”

He slid a card across the counter and into her field of view. It had his name and number scrawled on it in a defiantly man's handwriting. It was impossible to look up at him so she didn't say a word, didn't watch him walk out the door, just let him leave. But she found her fingers tracing the letters, the numbers, and wishing she could have said yes.

For the rest of her shift she just wished she could get out of the coffee shop and get back to that lonely apartment. Papa hadn't called her yet to tell her there was a mission, and though that scared her a little, it also meant she could possibly have her whole night free.

But to do what? Sulk in her lonely apartment? Think about Alex, a guy she couldn't have? Any other thoughts, the darker thoughts about her life, were ones that she pushed aside with all of her might.

Raven should have thrown out the card but instead she kept tempting herself by slipping it into her pocket. It was all she could do to ignore it all day and not feel the burn of it in her pocket, the reminder that Alex was there, that he wanted to hear from her. But she kept working, kept taking orders, kept trying to forget Alex's presence in that small coffee shop.

By the time she made it home, still no orders from Papa, she was ready for a hot shower and a good dinner. Stripping off her clothes, she pulled out her morning tips, her chapstick, and Alex's card from her pocket, before tossing her clothes into the laundry hamper. She set it all on the end table of her bedroom and stepped into the hot steamy water, trying to let everything wash off of her. The failure from the night before, being seen, the life she was living, all of it.

With a towel wrapped around her head and a soft, fluffy robe warming her body, she stopped thinking, stopped obsessing and did what she absolutely shouldn't be doing. Raven picked up her cell and Alex's card, and dialed it.

One date, one date couldn't hurt could it? Just dinner, just conversation. It would feel so good to not be alone, just for a night, just for a dinner.

Her heart panned in her chest while the phone rang and she almost changed her mind and hung up but Alex's smooth voice finally picked up.

"Hi Alex, it's Raven...”

"Raven! Hi, how are you?”

"I was wondering, are you free for dinner tonight?”