"Hello, sleepyhead," came a voice from somewhere. I groaned and pressed my palms to my pounding head.
"Jeez, what happened?" I asked as I sat up on something, opening my eyes against the bright lights in the room.
"Kam, he's up!" someone yelled into the distance. Standing in front of me was a brunette girl, probably my same age, dressed in casual jeans and an oversized band tee. She smiled at me, but it felt like the kind of smile you'd give someone before slicing their neck wide open.
"Um, who are you?" I asked warily. She smirked in response, which made me feel even more uneasy.
"Maisie, stop it. You're scaring him," another girl walked in and knocked the breath right out of me.
"Kamari?"
"Hi, Nox," she said with a soft smile.
"Wait, you're the girl from before."
"Yup, that's me," she said while rustling and moving things away in search of something.
"What? How... I thought you were dead."
"Yeah, I know."
"What?" I asked in disbelief before I jumped to my feet and gave her the tightest hug I could master.
"Oh, okay. I didn't expect this," she said with a light chuckle before hugging me back. Despite everything, even I can't hide the fact that I missed her. She pulls back and examines me at arm's length.
"Look at you, you're all grown up and everything. I mean, you've even got real boobs."
"Okay, that's enough," Maisie, I think her name is, says before yanking us apart and shielding Kamari from me.
"What the fuck? What's your problem?"
"I told you you should have just left him there to rot."
"Maisie, that's enough," Kamari makes a gesture to indicate she will be back soon before pulling Maisie with her down the corridor, where they proceed to have an argument.
Meanwhile, I admire the room we're in. It must be an apartment because I can see multiple other doors running down the corridor. French windows adorn one side of the room where light, white curtains flutter in the breeze, telling me that we are no longer in Russia. How long have I been out of consciousness, then? I spin around when two people emerge from the door again. Maizie looks even angrier than before, and Kamari smiles softly at me.
"We wanted to give you the opportunity to rest before we departed again."
"Oh. Um, how long have I been out?"
"Well, you woke up six hours ago, but Maisie knocked you out before you could open your eyes," she says, wincing. I narrow my eyes at said person, and she rolls her eyes before examining her nails.
"You've been out for like fourteen hours. She has a mean right hook,"
"Kamari said I couldn't kill you, so that had to do," she says with a deep sigh, as if I have greatly inconvenienced her and not like she quite literally tried to murder me.
"Um, you have to get ready. I got you a couple clothes and stuff. There's a bathroom down the hall to your left. You can freshen up in there if you like."
"Please do because you smell like shit," Maisie says before she leaves the room.
"I'm sorry about her. She's not really a people person."
"Nah, it's okay," I say. "I've missed you," I add before I can even register the words that have left my mouth.
"I know. Me too. I couldn't come see you after..."
"Oh."
"I wanted to, don't get me wrong, but I just... couldn't," she says with a sadness in her eyes that makes me feel like I'm missing a big part of her story.
"Anyway, unfortunately, you have half an hour before we really have to get going."
"You're taking me back home, right?"
"I'm sorry, Nox. I can't do that for now."
"What? Why?"
"I'll explain soon," she says before leaving the room, and I with more questions than answers.
An hour later, I find myself in a car with a box of donuts in my lap and two women whom I hardly know sitting in the front seats, with Kamari driving. God, I can't believe I'm even saying her name; it's been years since I've seen her, since I've heard her voice, but that is definitely her.
For years, my family and I had believed she was dead, along with the rest of her family, but clearly, we were gravely mistaken. Though she hasn't really said a word about her father and mother, I still wonder where they are and if they know what their daughter is doing.
"So where are we headed?" I ask after almost an hour of awkward silence in the car, with nothing but really soft music to keep us company.
"The airport, duh," answers Maisie. "I thought he's supposed to be smart, Kam, considering he made the deadliest weapon alive."
"Maisie, be nice. He probably just forgot our conversation. Don't mind Maisie; she's just a bit sour today. She'll warm up to you," Kam says in that sultry voice of hers and gives me a gentle smile in the rearview mirror.
"No, I won't," Maisie replies with folded arms and her seemingly permanent frown.
"We have to lie low for a while," Kam begins.
"Thanks to you, idiot," Maisie adds.
"Maisie, stop," she scolds before continuing, "We're going to Brazil for a week or two. I have some business to take care of that I was going to do after I got Pandora, but I'm gonna have to do it now."
"Brazil?" I ask.
"Yeah, don't worry. It's super nice and sunny. Just think of it like a bit of a vacation," I sigh, defeated, knowing that one, I'm not going home anytime soon, it seems; two, I've already made an enemy of someone I've literally never met before - sorry, another enemy; and three, I'm being held captive by an assassin and her sidekick, who is said new enemy.
Great. Really well done, Nox; you've done it now.
One literally was my childhood best friend who I believed has been dead for seven years now but not really because she just raised from the dead, and her best friend seems adamant that death is the best and only solution for me. I mean, I'm really starting to regret Pandora now.
I only created it because I was bored and wanted to prove to my family that I'm not entirely useless and I actually have a hobby or two outside of partying, drinking to forget that my best friend of seven years had vanished, and her family had literally all been found massively slaughtered with her nowhere in sight.
I've been grieving Kam for seven fucking years, and all of a sudden she shows up out of the blue, an assassin with a drive to retrieve something that even I didn't know the extent of its power when I created it until there was a bounty for it and me.
Fucking fantastic.
