The Scarlet Assassin

Chapter One

"I'm a friend," I said quietly. "An angel if you please." The girl clenched the sheets that covered up her legs and most of her torso. She whimpered.

"You don't look like an angel..." I cocked a brow.

"Have you ever seen an angel?" The girl avoided my eyes and swallowed hard. Her eyes closed and opened a few times as if trying to wake herself up. I took another cautious step forward. "What's your name sweetheart?" She hesitated.

"Adelaide," she whispered.

"Adelaide," I repeated back softly, "do you love your parents very much?" A small head nod. "Good. Good." There was another long silence. I took two steps this time.

"Are you going to hurt my mommy?" The ends of my lips quirked up into a half smile. The small draft blew my hair from my shoulders. Another step.

"No, Adelaide. Not tonight. I'm your friend, remember? And friends protect each other." I paused, inching again for the door. "But if you want your parents to live, you have to be very still and quiet, or the monster that's been lurking in the darkness will get them. Any noise, any small little whimper or mumble or movement, and the darkness will harden- grow fangs and talons- and creep into your parent's room." Adelaide's eyes widened immensely. She looked around as if this thing would grab her at any second. Her body expressed a shiver and her face emitted fear and worry.

"It will crawl into their bed and slowly, it will eat your mommy and daddy... then it will find you. If you move, it will see you, if you cry, it will hear you, and if you run, it will grab you and tear away your body to shreds. And there's not a thing I can do to stop it..." She was near to tears now, her big eyes wheeling up and wetting. Just as a sob was about to escape her throat, I put a finger to my lips and shushed her. "Sleep well, Adelaide." With a last wink, I slipped through her door and left the shaking, terrified child in her room.

I was faced with a main living area now, dark and quiet. Without missing a beat, I walked out of the small flat, having to undo the many locks meant to keep people like me out. The door creaked open and the dim light from the hallway flooded in.

I didn't bother hiding the noise as I closed the door behind me.

It didn't take long for me to find a staircase down the corridor, past all the doors with the numbers of different rooms, concealing people and families with different lives and stories. I descended the steps to the second floor and calmly spun down to the next staircase.

The walls of the building were dusty and covered in this ash like filth that easily wiped off. I ran my hand along the wall, rubbing the grime on my face to cover my features. Then, I untied my tight-fitted cloak and shoved it in my small pack, wiping the wall's dirt on my remaining clothes and through my hair. There was a dripping noise coming from the ceiling as the remaining rain water seeped through the roof and hit the stone floor, but other than that, there was no sound. The building was eerily silent.

I reached the bottom of the steps, seeing a man behind a counter with metal bars that reached from the ceiling to the top of the desk. He looked up at me but took one look at the knives strapped to my hip and thigh and didn't say anything as I strutted through the room and pushed open the two doors into the night. I turned my walking into a fake limp as I went down the streets.

As I turned the corner, I reached up to a line of clothing and snatched down a jacket, different from the one I had on earlier. It was made of gray wool with a hood that dramatically drooped over my head as if it was a few sizes too big. It was tattered, worn, and though it smelt clean, irreversible alcohol stains lined the collar. I shrugged it on and kept walking, taking to the back streets and hiding in dark patches.