*Unedited* I promised myself I would stick to one POV for this story and well... I guess I lied
To say that Jazz was not a worrisome creature would be a blatant lie.
Though, that was not to say that her constant worry was without reason. She had grown up in a place where if you weren't worried, you were dead. Even in her current position, she constantly had to watch her back for any signs of trouble. So, despite knowing that Kayden and Jett were out on what Jinx liked to call their 'date,' she couldn't stop herself from obsessively checking her phone for both the time and for any missed calls. She was excited for her friend, she hadn't seen Jett truly happy in a long time and Kayden seemed to, in the very least, elevate her mood. It just made it hard to be as happy for her when the drug lord they were supposed to kill had a personal vendetta against her.
Jett, it seemed, had decided to bypass the ear piece she had said she'd wear and so that meant if something went wrong, they'd probably be the last to know. Hell, if it was up to Jett, Jazz wouldn't find out unless the other girl ended up in a coffin. Which was not something she liked to think about.
"Hey mum," Naziah interrupted her thoughts teasingly as she put her hand out to stop Jazz from checking her phone for what had to be the thousandth time. "You need to chill, Jett's a big girl, she'll come home before curfew."
"She doesn't have a curfew," Jazz couldn't stop the words from tumbling out of her mouth, knowing she was playing right into Naziah's hand. Jazz was normally the one who put up the flirty and teasing front but if there was anyone who did it better, it was her sister. Perhaps because, with Naziah, it wasn't a front at all. She was legitimately unfazed by whatever was thrown at her making her able to find the humour in anything.
As expected, her twin gave an impish grin "then I'm sure that, at the very least, she'll wear protection."
Jazz loved her sister, she really did. Not just because she was the only family Jazz had left but because Naziah, despite her seemingly aloof nature, had always been her rock. When things got rough she was there to whisper the words of the Lebanese lullaby their nanny used to sing for them before everything went to shit. Though, at times, she lacked the ability to empathise with Jazz's instinctively nervous energy. Meaning that sometimes Jazz just wanted to snap at her when she brushed off her fears as if she were just an overreacting child. She had good reason to worry. Especially when it came to Jett.
"Should I call her?"
"Jazmine," Naziah said semi-sternly, "if you call and interrupt her date I might just disown you."
And cue the irritation. "You were sent here for some added security, you know exactly what kind of a threat Rob poses to Jett. Aren't you even the slightest bit worried?" Jazz questioned, searching the identical face for any sign of emotion other than amusement. She always felt unnerved when she watched her twin closely, they shared the same features yet they expressed emotions differently. Naziah's features seemed better equipped to form soft, relaxed expressions where Jazz felt her own were always tinged with worry lines.
"Of course I'm worried, especially considering the personal nature of the whole Robert situation. I'm not an idiot." Naziah replied calmly before shrugging "but I also know that Jett is more than capable of taking care of herself. I've heard the stories that bounce around back at the academy. That girl is some sort of killing machine."
The statement caused Jazz to frown as she tried to stifle her bubbling anger. "Don't call her that."
Naziah didn't know Jett the same way that she did. No one at the school did. They just saw her as something to be both feared and worshipped. A girl, not even an adult, with an unbeatable kill streak and in high demand of every agency across the globe.
They hadn't seen the ways Jett had been broken in order to become the 'killing machine' other people thought she was.
She could quite vividly remember asking why Jett didn't do anything about the rumours. The smile Jett had given her, all teeth and malice as she replied 'they're all true, aren't they? I'm nothing but a weapon anymore. That's all I'll ever be.'
'And you're okay with being seen as nothing but an object?'
'What else would I be? I can kill a man 13 different ways with a paperclip, that's my skill set. When you're made to be used it's near impossible to be anything more.'
Jazz couldn't help but think about that conversation a lot.
Naziah seemed to see it on her face that she had crossed some sort of line. Though, before she could open her mouth again, Jazz's phone started ringing. Her heart skipped a beat, mind immediately jumping to the worst possible conclusions. Especially when she saw that it was Kayden's name flashing across her screen.
"Hey, Jazz," his calm tone eased her nerves a little knowing that if Jett was injured in any way Kayden would most likely not be able to maintain such a well-kept demeanour. He wasn't trained in the same way that they were. Which, she guessed, made him the luckiest one out of all of them.
"Kayden, did you need something?"
She could hear Naziah laugh at her nonchalant façade.
"No, I just wanted to let you know that we're probably not going to be back for a while."
'Oh my God, Naziah was right.' "Oh? Remember to use protection then."
"What?" Kayden seemed to take a second to process what she was hinting at before he let out a quiet laugh. "Oh no, we're actually on top of an abandoned building right now. Jett kind of fell asleep."
That revelation actually brought her some relief considering that Jett was doing a lot less of that recently. "Why are you on an abandoned building? What happened to your date?"
What he said next sucked all the relief out of her. She had known something would go wrong, just not something so passive aggressive. Granted, in some sense, it was better than being shot at on the street but it would still be enough to rattle Jett. Regardless of how much she tried to deny it. She wasn't as heartless as she wanted people to believe. Though, Jett wasn't the only one who would have been rattled.
"Are you okay?"
"Honestly? I don't know. I feel like, I'm obligated to be mad at Jett on Marlow's behalf but I'm not, I'm mad at everything else. The agency or whatever you guys work for. Rob. The world in general. But not Jett."
Jazz could understand why he was confused. It was obvious to anyone with working eyes that Kayden had become smitten with Jett, whether he wanted to admit it to himself or not, and she was almost certain that there must have been some lingering disbelief within him to what Jett had told him. When we adore people we tend to put them on pedestals and we're not quite sure what to do when that image of them comes crashing down. "I'm sorry Kayden. This can't be easy for you to deal with."
He didn't bother to add to the statement, the two of them falling into a contemplative silence. Jazz wasn't sure whether he wanted to end the call now that he had achieved his purpose or whether he had more he wanted to say.
"Hey Jazz..." Kayden's next words were hesitant, barely a whisper, most likely cautious of waking Jett.
That gave Jazz the cue that whatever was to come next, he didn't want her to hear.
"What happened to her parents?"
If he had asked about anything else in relation to Jett's personal life she would have told him to ask her himself. Though, Jazz hadn't ever heard Jett talk about her parents without a significant amount of ... influence— read 'alcohol'—and she didn't think she was about to start because of a cute boy. Jazz licked her lips before flicking her eyes over to where Naziah was sitting, her twin had perked up once she noticed the concern on her features.
Is everything alright? She mouthed, eyebrows finally drawing together in her own version of concern.
Can I get some privacy? Jazz mouthed back and was pleased to find that her twin just shrugged and got up without asking any questions. If there was one thing that all assassins understood it was that there were some things you didn't need to know.
"Jazz are you still there?"
"Yeah, sorry, I just got distracted," Jazz replied, "have you tried asking her yourself?" She suggested, out of obligation more than anything.
"Yeah she just completely shut me out, look I really don't me to pry but I'm kind of worried about her. Like I know a bit of what happened from Shank's but there must be more to the story."
"Her mother did it as a job," Jazz filled in, her tone just as hushed as Kayden's even though there wasn't anyone to overhear her. "Her parents were both assassins. The agency that her mother was working for put her father as her next target, something to do with his previous job angering some very powerful people." She only knew as much as Jett had told her so she hoped that she was getting the details right. She knew more about the effects of the death than she did about the actual occurrence itself.
"Sounds very Mr and Mrs Smith."
Jazz snorted despite herself "except her mother outright refused at first. That is, until the agency got their hands on some leverage..." She trailed off, waiting to see if Kayden could put it together himself.
"Jett?"
Jazz nodded, forgetting he couldn't actually see her. "They kidnapped her and told her mother if she didn't kill him, they'd kill Jett. They thought they had everything covered."
"But?"
"They didn't cover two things. The first being that Jett's mother would shoot herself." She hesitated before the next part. "The second being that Jett would get out of whatever ties they had her in in their agency and see the whole thing on their monitors."
"Shit."
Jazz grimaced in response, letting another silence fall to see where else Kayden wanted to take the conversation. She didn't exactly enjoy talking about Jett's personal business without her knowledge and she'd definitely tell her about it later but something told Jazz that Jett wouldn't mind too much that Kayden knew.
He seemed to consider his next words carefully. "What was she like before that? Do you guys know?"
It was an odd question. Something people had never asked her before. It seemed everyone just assumed that she had always been the detached person she was. Jazz felt herself reflexively frown as her memory travelled to a little girl with big eyes and an even bigger smile. A girl she didn't think anyone else could remember— not even Jett herself—long before the duo had met Jinx and become an inseparable trio.
Even at a young age, Jett had been an odd creature. From the glimpses Jazz had of her when she was walking home from school, Jazz had always thought of the other girl as something different. She was like the sun and to a girl who had nothing, her carefree nature was enticing.
She couldn't exactly remember what had catalysed their friendship but she had appreciated it at the time. She had always looked forwards to catching a short moment with the small girl who told horrible jokes and taught her Spanish. Jett, even as a child, had this way of simply materialising and commanding acknowledgement and Jazz lived for all her stories about her 'super spy' parents.
Then one day the girl stopped coming.
She had heard the stories not too long after, a man and a woman found dead in their homes, both coming to bloody ends. Their daughter, missing. A girl with black hair and dark eyes who seemed to disappear off of the face of the earth in the blink of an eye.
Years later their paths crossed again at their boarding school and all Jazz could think on their first encounter was how much less the girl in front of them had become. She barely spoke or smiled and she didn't ever bring up her parents. She went from this little girl who Jazz had been almost certain could change the world to a teenager that was lucky to make it through the day without jumping off of a large building.
A girl who Jazz had watched constantly force herself onto the brink of a full blown panic attack as she fired shot after shot at a cardboard target. Her arms quivering so bad her aim was rubbish as she tried to stand straight on her jelly legs. Tears streamed down her face and whimpers managing to escape between her grimacing lips because all she could think about when the sound of the bullets echoed through the practice ground were images of her dead parents.
A girl who Jazz let sleep in her bed because at least that way the worst of the nightmares were kept at bay.
A girl that Jazz had held during thunderstorms because as much as Jett had to condition herself to get used to gunshots as a result of her job she just couldn't get used to the way thunderstorms triggered her memory.
When she thought about the Jett before everything went to hell, the best way to describe her was more. She was more than the shadow of a being Jett had become. So much more. And that really killed Jazz because Jett had had the potential to really be something but the world had taken that away from her. Leaving behind a haunted teenage girl who couldn't find a suitable coping mechanism for the things she had seen and there was nothing beautiful about it. Nothing poetic about her sadness and watching Jett slowly destroy herself over the years.
'I'm nothing but a weapon anymore. That's all I'll ever be'
"Jazz?"
Jazz shook the thoughts away, wondering how to condense all that into the right words. "She was alive, Kayd, I really don't know how else to put it."
"Do you think... she could ever be like that again?"
She really wished she could lie to him, though she knew better than to give him that kind of hope. It wasn't fair to either him or Jett. "No, I don't think so."
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A little but super important glimpse into Jett and Jazz's relationship and also what happened to her parents revealed. Does this revelation change how you see Jazz? How about Jett?
Until next time,
stay safe and treat yourselves kindly,
Artemis.