40 Shots - One Direction

Two

"Daggers in your back, the blood's dripping down,

Concentrate, concentrate, concentrate.

A rope round your neck, I'll pull it tight

Concentrate, concentrate, concentrate.

A cross on your back, I'll blow on your neck

Have you got the shivers?"

- A common playground rhyme, accompanied by various actions (clapping, whispering, etc) designed to give the subject goosebumps

**

It's funny how this business works. You'd think you'd notice, wouldn't you? Surely the police, the government, would know about an underground organization run by drug lords, training teenagers to be professional assassins. But they don't. 

We're hidden away in back streets, dark alleyways, cover ups and lost trails leading to dead ends. We're the dead, alone and unknown in a world that's too caught up in their own lives to think, I wonder what happened to Chloe down Farisle Lane? All of us are nobodies, living under a mask of broken radiators and normal lives. Dyed hair and make up to cover up tattoos so there'll never be a hey, it's you! haunting us.

We're here, right in front of your eyes. It's all of you that chooses not to notice us. 

Some people like to play with their assignments. Point a gun at their head and say 'I'm going to kill you right now,' and watch the look on their face. Maybe others are more cruel, maybe they'll pretend that they'll be spared under some condition or another before laughing and killing them all the same. 

Jack says that we should be allowed to have our fun. But to me, it's sick. Even more sick than we are. Just let them die, for christ's sake. Tell them why they're dying. Tell them that we'll let some girl know that they loved her, or whatever. They're the ones that are dying. They're the ones that deserve to die in some form of peace. Not us.

We won't die in peace.

We're all going straight to hell. 

This is what I'm thinking as stand, in the rain, listening to a guy who has a patch below his left ear from where he forgot to shave, droning on in that unceremonious voice. I bet you're going to hell too, I think. 

"We can help you in some parts along the way, but," He says, pausing. 

But.

"Once the second or maybe even the first is killed and it becomes clear that the aim is to kill them all,  their security will triple," The man in front of me finishes. I fiddle with the silver knife in my pocket, tracing it's sharp, serrated edge with my thumb. Nod numbly. Of course. 

"And because of your previous relations with one of the members, after that it'll be up to you to get even remotely close."

Previous relations. You know what the fans used to ship us as? Chlouis. Me and Lou against the world, together forever, you promise? I promise, me too. We promised a lot of things in those days, to stay by each other's side, to make this work, to keep those secrets until we died, to love each other. It shouldn't be like this, with me fucking standing here in the rain listening to someone tell me how to kill him. 

It shouldn't be like this. 

I close my eyes and lean back against the lamp post, sighing deeply. "Okay."

"We're thinking that maybe you should start rebuilding those friendships some time soon."

No, I shouldn't. No one rebuilds friendships with people, no one simply goes back, no one thinks about a life that they can't and don't have anymore. That life is gone, a wisp of smoke in a hazy air, a disappearing trail marked on a burnt map. It's not me anymore.