Into the Heart of a Killer: Memoirs of an Assassin

Chapter Sixteen

I hadn't screamed.

In fact, I'd barely fought at all.

He'd offered me alcohol, and I'd gladly accepted. It was strong—too strong—but I downed more than one glass, anyway. I drank until I couldn't walk straight. Until my thoughts were a jumbled mess of Tane and Ceseth and Ebenezer. Their faces blurred together and I saw more of a monster than a man. But still, I didn't fight. I simply allowed Ebenezer to lead me to his bedroom. I had simply allowed him to do whatever he had wanted until, finally, he had run out of steam. I had laid in his bed while he slept, only to be taken multiple more times as he awoke throughout the night.

Something inside me felt impressed by the man's stamina, but the other parts of me... well, I couldn't feel the other parts of me at all. There was a numbness that scared me more than any of Ceseth's less-than-idle threats. My body didn't respond to Ebenezer's pushing and pulling and touching. He used me for however long he wanted, however he wanted, and then discarded me for another hour's sleep, where the cycle would start all over again.

Something inside me broke that night—something that I hadn't known I was still clinging onto. Still now, I can't figure out what it was that broke. Was it my sanity? Was it the last feeling part of my heart that I had? I was not inclined to think it had anything to do with my heart. I had lost my heart a long, long time ago.

Eventually, when the sun began to rise, Ebenezer had grown tired of me, it seemed, and had deemed it acceptable for me to get out of bed and get dressed. I'd fallen the first time I tried to get out of bed. I had hardly moved all night, except for when Ebenezer had wanted to change positions. But I'd never stood up, not once. My knees had given out the moment my feet had touched the ground. Ebenezer hadn't tried to help me, either. Instead, he'd stood there, a glass of brandy in his hand. I tried one more time to get to my feet and only managed to feel like a newborn foal, unaccustomed to my legs. And between my legs—it just hurt. I hadn't noticed before, but it was sore like any other soreness I had known up until that point. Ebenezer hadn't exactly been gentle with me.

But lifelessly, I had gathered my belongings and bathed in cold water. Ebenezer had insisted I leave the door open, and had watched me occasionally from the bedroom. I couldn't dry off and dress myself fast enough. Ebenezer hadn't given me express permission to leave the house, but as soon as I was dressed, I pulled my hair into a ponytail and exited the house.

It took me hours of wandering before I found my way back to Ceseth's house. I didn't say a word to him as I entered the building and made my way down the hallway to where the mirror stood. It was still dirty and grimy. It still portrayed the monster Ceseth had told me he'd seen. But the monster that looked back at me had no fire in her eyes. She was as lifeless as Tane had been when that dagger had hit home. Whatever monster I was now... well, that was the scariest monster I could have become.

Ceseth tried to speak to me, but nothing registered. I heard his gravelly voice. I heard him getting angry. But the pain seemed nothing when he hit me on the back of the head and sent my forehead flying into the mirror. The glass cracked but didn't shatter, and I came away with blood trickling down my forehead. And yet all I did was turn around and stare at Ceseth with the same lifeless eyes that were now shown in a million tiny fragments on the mirror behind me.

This time, I heard what he said: By the gods. He's broken you.

Ceseth had done everything within his power to get me to "come to" again. Eventually, multiple buckets of ice-cold water on top of my head had done the trick. I was coherent enough to listen and speak, but still, I felt as if I was detached from my body, watching the life I was forced into fly by me in a flurry of motion.

"Jae'sa. Jae'sa."

I turned my head to look at Ceseth, giving him an apologetic smile. It didn't feel real—none of it did. I was little more than a phantom ghosting through this house. All my mind wanted to do was replay every terrible thing that had happened to me over the last eight years. Leaving my mother, being beaten on a daily basis, watching Ma die, killing Tane, continuing this life with Ceseth, losing myself to Ebenezer... losing myself completely.

"If I'd known you'd be so shell-shocked, I would have waited until after the job to give you to him."

"Why must you have given me to him at all?" I asked, softly. My voice didn't even sound like my own anymore. "I know you wanted to break me. That's all you've ever wanted. And in the end, it wasn't even you who did it."

Ceseth blinked. "You aren't the girl I left in that house," he said, his tone matching mine. "I don't know who you are, Jae'sa, but I know what you are. And you're my apprentice. You're going to get your shit together, and you're going to infiltrate those men's homes, rewrite their wills, and kill them. Drawing blood is going to become as easy as breathing to you."

I nodded. I didn't see the need to fight anymore.