Foreign language Friday.
Dreaded by all.
That was how Charlie put it.
"I don't like all these languages..." I commented, staring at the list, "half of them are barely spoken." The document of communications lay on my desk. A long list of mandatory languages to pass Class A.
Charlie and Yansala nodded in agreement, there desks to either side of me. But of course Vaughn butted in, "if you had to use them on a mission you'd fail. But you'll fail anyways."
"I didn't say I didn't know them," I reprimanded, "I simply stated that learning some of these seems to be a waste of time."
Vaughn rolled her eyes and laughed, "always so smart. So Kodi. Bud'te normal'no li?" (Be normal would you?)
"Normal'nyy ne imeyet okonchatel'nogo opredeleniya ili polozheniya dlya cheloveka. Poetomu ya prosto kak obychno, kak i vse ostal'nyye," I replied. (Normal has no definitive definition or stipulations for human beings. therefore I am just as normal as everyone else.)
Yansala quickly butted in, "if you all would like to cut out the Russian that would be wonderful."
I grinned just slightly as Vaughn heaved a grunt and turned around to bother some of the girls who sat behind her. "Thank you for that," I commented, "you'd think she'd know Russian is one of my first languages."
Yansala nodded, "she is a pest."
Now that was something everyone could agree on. But not everyone was here in class. I peered around the room, noticing six girls missing. Strange.
"I thought German was your first language?" Charlotte commented.
I nodded, "and Russian..."
"Where are you from?" Yansala questioned.
Charlotte rolled her eyes, "she won't answer. I've tried. I think she was raised by wolves in Siberia."
"You're so funny..." I growled before replying to Yansala, "I just feel uncomfortable relaying that information..."
She laughed in understanding, "then there is Charlotte..."
"Hey," Charlotte threw her hands up, "I'll be nice and open about how my parents screwed me and Ilene over."
"I didn't even know my parents," yansala's voice disappeared into a hushed whisper.
I felt a pang in my chest which I quickly worked to ignore, "what's so great about parents anyways," I muttered, "I am just fine without them." I pushed the painful memories away.
"Did your parents betray you? Poor baby Kodi," Vaughn mocked.
I sneered, "when did you get here?"
Vaughn smirked, "I'm a pure bred. Here since birth."
Charlotte jumped in, "that's cute. Your parents didn't even want you for a second. They got rid of you the first chance they had."
Yansala frowned, "that's enough."
I made eye contact with Charlie and slowly shook my head, signaling for her to back off.
"Sorry I brought up the conversation anyways," Yansala apologized, "we aren't all so open about our pasts." She spoke to me specifically.
I shrugged, "I'd just rather forget about those first four years as it is."
"How can you even remember back that far?" Charlotte joked, "I can barely remember yesterday."
"It's easy to remember nightmares..."
Suddenly Master Grey arrived, grabbing our attention to the front. Everyone stood immediately until she told us to be seated.
"We are going to have a pop quiz today," Master Grey announced. I wasn't terribly worried by this for they were nothing new. "But it will not be just any quiz. It will be a final passage before our eldest go off to pick majors this afternoon."
That slightly worried me.
The classroom door opened again, and in entered the six missing girls, each carrying a box.
"The quiz is simple. Six sit up front and are asked questions in other languages one by one. If you answer incorrectly, you are shot. Understood?" Everyone nodded quickly. "But there is a twist," Master Grey added, "each of the six will wear a bag over her head. You must answer five questions to be safe and return to your seat. Each time someone returns or is shot, another student takes her place," she grinned to the six incoming girls, "except for our fine helpers. They will be the ones holding the guns."
The six shooters were all brand new to A. All were either vicious or lucky enough to be here.
"Would my little helpers choose our first six volunteers?" Master Grey moved to sit at her desk.
The first girl chose Yansala. Vaughn was picked next. Two girls named Darby and Mansa were called on shortly after. And then of course the incredibly heinous and masterminded new red head called me up. I glowered at her as the last girl picked another newbie whose name was, I think, Tansalie.
We stood in a line as our own shooter covered our heads with a dark cloth bag. My head knocked against the newbie's and then Mansa's as I tried to give myself room to breathe.
Master Grey seemed to notice, "Stand still, Miss Marksun."
"Yes ma'am," I immediately stopped moving and waited.
Then the quiz began. "Yansala, çfarë është emri i kësaj shkolle?" Master Grey asked in Albanian. (What is the name of this school)
"Emri i shkollës është Valhalla," Yansala answered flawlessly. (The name of the school is Valhalla)
"Vaughn, quin és el meu nom?" (What is my name) That was Catalan. I almost didn't recognize it for a moment.
After a few moments of stuttering, Vaughn quickly answered, "el seu nom és Mestre Gris." (Your name is master grey)
"Darby, eotteon keullaeseu lebel-iibnida." (What class level is this?) Korean. I knew that language anywhere. One of my best in primary.
The girl, Darby seemed to be confused. "Uliui eon-eo keullaeseu?" (Our language class?) A gun immediately went off, the thud of a fallen body following soon after.
"Nazani, take her place!" Someone called, probably one of the shooters.
Then Master Grey asked Mansa the same question, "Mansa, eotteon keullaeseu lebel-iibnida?"
Without hesitation she responded, "i keullaeseu lebel-eun gajang nop-eun lebel-ui keullaeseu in keullaeseu A." (this class level is class A. the highest class level)
"Kodi, Koliko ste stari?" Master Grey spoke to me in Slovenian. (How old are you?)
I spoke up pretty quickly, "Jaz sem osemnajst let." (I am eighteen)
"Tansalie, i cén tír a tháinig tú ó?" the Irish accent was the biggest give away. (What country did you come from?)
I never heard her answer but one word, "aoncheann..." (None) The gun cracked, and I felt a bullet whiz past my ear followed by a sharp pain and a scream. Tansalie fell to the floor screaming, the bullet had knocked both our ears, but I wasn't sure why she was on the floor. She was going to be dead anyway.
Master Grey began yelling at the shooter, "you'll be going no further than her for that bad aim!" Then there were muffled sobs. Someone was crying! Completely unheard of.
Suddenly two shots went off, ending the crying and Tansalie's screaming.
"Charlotte, get up there!" Master Grey ordered, "Rayon, you're the new shooter."
There was some shuffling around before Master Grey went through the line again and again. No one else of the original six failed. When we went and sat down a new six took our place, but they were not so lucky. The first four were shot the first round. Then three rounds later, two other girls completely forgot the language. Master Grey was furious, shooting each in the foot, and then allowing their shooter to kill them.
Charlotte leaned over to me in one of the rounds, "hau pointless hilketa da." (this is pointless murder)
I absolutely agreed, but shared my frustration in Basque, a less known tongue. Charlie and I had found a book on the language a while back and began to learn what we could from the novel. It wasn't one of the required languages at Valhalla for reasons unknown to us. Latin was required but not Basque? We simply found joy in knowing something that the others did not.
Once everyone had been quizzed, we carried the dead to the body pile. Some of them were eighteen year olds planning to major after today. They never would have made it.
"If you are eighteen or older you may now report to the administrative office," an announcement sounded over the intercom.
There were about thirty of us who left, but the line in the office was about a hundred strong.
"So we are going to do this?" Charlie asked as we got closer to the front of the line.
I nodded without answering, my own mind whirling at the possibility. I'd been trained my whole life for this.
I remembered they day I volunteered for Valhalla. And I remembered when I had first come. How kind they had been at first.
"Apple juice?" Daw had asked, handing me a juice box. I hadn't known he was head master at the time.
I had shaken my head, "I prefer water." My stomach had growled loudly soon after. Since I had run away there was little I could do but steal food. What was worse? How many people didn't question a small four year old walking around on her own, bloody, bruised, and tinier than a toothpick?
Daw had appeared a friend at a cafe, "I'm a teacher in another country. We would love to have you." Who was this foreign man doing so poorly to speak Rusian? His accent had been rubbish, covered in hints of Austrian. I'd known from my travels at a young age. How had he known I was looking for a cause to fight?
Yet I hadn't trusted him one bit, "you're not a teacher. There are so many scars on your face. Are you a murderer?" It had been a simple question. I blurted it without a mind in the world. What four year old thinks through the consequences of their own curiosity?
He had darkened, "is there someone on your mind you would like to dispose of?"
That had caught my interest. "If I give you his name, will you kill him?" I had been ready to bargain. I would pay him however I could to kill my uncle. I had had many ways, some more disturbing than others. I remembered how willing I was to do things at the moment that I would never do now. But I was innocent then, at least in thought, and I am far from an angel at this point.
"How about something even better?" He had grabbed a Russian cigar and placed it between his dry, cracked lips, "what if I take you to my school and teach you how to dispose of him yourself? Then you can work for my company." His teeth but down on the butt as he lit the end. I giggled as he turned the cigarette wrong and didn't seem to care.
The proposition had sent chills up my spine, "what's your side? What do I have to give you?" I had smacked my hand in front of him. There would be no dooping me.
I remember he had seemed very amused and yet impressed. Proud almost. "You work for me. Get rid of your uncle after completing my academy's training. Then you go to work with the rest of the students in whatever countries you want. The possibilities are endless. You'll be infamous." The idea had tickled my mind but also traces trenches of doubt. And yet here I am.
I remembered the arrival day perfectly as well. Getting on the private plane with Daw and plenty of other girls of all ages. Arriving at the large fenced in property. Grey and desolate. My young mind had already decided this was what I had to do to get revenge. That was the day I'd been introduced. Fourteen years ago. And now I was here signing up to be an assassin. One day I would get my revenge.
When I reached the front of the line, I was ushered to the first table where a lady I'd never seen before asked me for my name and information.
"Kodi Baylor Marksun... Eighteen... Class A... Four when I joined..." I replied to the list of questions. When answering my name she seemed to stop, looking through a notebook on her desk and then jotting something down. A name I hadn't seen in a long time, and then my current alias next to it.
"Parents?" The blonde lady asked, readying her pen again.
"Irrelevant," I said flatly, "they're dead."
"Names?" She pressed.
After a momentary stare off I reluctantly answered, "Kostas Orlov and Vanity Orlov."
"How old were you when they passed?" She seemed less than interested.
"Six months," I quipped.
The lady copied my answers before asking me the next question, "most previous guardian?"
This time I straight up didn't answer. I could tell the lady was getting frustrated, "I need an answer."
"What if I didn't have one?" I growled.
"You were living by yourself from age 6 months to four years old. I find that incredibly unbelievable," she snapped.
"Uncle."
"Name?"
I held my hand out for the pen. The lady eyed me suspiciously before handing over the ball point piece. I scribbled my answer onto the available line before handing the pen and paper back. The lady read my answer and then asked me the next question, "how are you at Valhalla?"
"I volunteered."
She rolled her eyes, "who approached you?"
"Head Master Daw." She penned the answer slowly and with more prestige than she had with any other answers.
"What's your preferred skill set?" She flipped to the not page where a log list of things were pre typed to be checked.
"Guns and hand to hand."
She checked the two, "here it places you high in computer skills and foreign languages."
I nodded, "and gymnastics was my top class throughout primary."
"I see that here," she wrote a few notes down, flipped a page in the little packet about my life, "and musical instruments?"
"I never understood why music matters to murderers," I shrugged, "but piano, violin, and clarinet."
"Because when the sneaky questioning people come around to see what this school is all about we have well rounded individuals to present. You're all already smart. The remedial classes and fine arts lessons help in brain function, realism, and any future career you wish to take. No matter what fighting or special techniques we teach you, nothing works better in the field than real life knowledge. Hence the movie nights and culture classes. Music is a big part of culture," she wrote quickly and talked like a robot. Must have gotten the question a lot.
"I guess it makes some sense," I murmured, "I do enjoy classical music."
"That's not relevant," she snapped, "how many kills?"
"Through all classes?" I already knew. Everyone kept track of their list. I replied quickly, "Fifty seven."
"Common training partner? This is for possible pairings in field work."
"Charlotte Braxton," I pointed to Charlie who stood a few tables over.
The lady smiled genuinely, "lovely girl. Lots of potential."
I nodded with lots of questions, but I thought better than to say anything.
"This has your birth place as Germany."
"Yes ma'am."
"And where did you live primarily?"
"We moved a lot. Russia, Latvia, Estonia. Last home was in Lithuania near the western border. I don't know the address." That was a lie. I knew the address. Had it memorized. Revenge. Revenge. Revenge.
"Any allergies or disabilities?"
"Do you really think I would have survived this place? None."
"There is a report here that one of our psychologists classified you as possibly having Alexithymia," the lady noted.
I quickly objected, "I don't have a disorder. That's a side effect of being here not a medical disorder."
"It's not a disorder. It's a psychological condition that can sometimes be treated. Alexithymia can worsen over time. You may not have originally had it but you could..."
Again I stopped her, "you seem to not have heard me. I don't have a disorder."
"Whether you admit it or not your violent spells could get worse," the lady snapped, "and yes I know about your outbursts." I drew back. She knew? I was always alone. At least I thought I was. "You don't understand emotions. It's not heathy in the field. You can't present anything but overwhelming anger and depression. This needs treatment."
"I can handle it myself," I whispered through gritted teeth.
The lady grunted in understanding before going to the next question, "what major will you be proceeding with?"
"Assassin," I answered simply. She looked at me, unsure of my answer and slightly unbelieving. I kept a blank face.
Her mouth opened like she wanted to object but then she quickly pressed her lips tightly together.
She wrote my answer down, signed the understanding and then handed me the pen to sign with and then took my fingerprints. I thought I was done when suddenly she pulled a small knife out and stabbed my finger, drawing blood. I tapped it down on the paper and then she handed me the paper to take into room four... The prep room for assassins... The one room no one had entered yet.
The one place people were actually very very afraid to go.