The Twins - Chapter 1
Watching the twins at work was like watching an artist painting his masterpiece. They were so artful and dedicated to their craft that it inspired an old man like me to hold off my retirement. Truth be told, they’ve made me feel twenty years younger in spirit. Truly, it’s a thing of beauty.
Kiara’s knife moved like a saw across the prisoner’s pinky finger. She stopped halfway through the bone and left it there. A wicked smile crossed her face as the man’s screams grew louder. She gripped the man’s hair and tightened it in her hand, forcing his head toward her eyes so he could see her madness.
The room was dark, but a faint ray of daylight gave just enough light for the twins to work. The twins were always in control, knowing exactly what circumstances would benefit them in their mission and how to avoid unfavorable situations. Their genius was just perfect. I wish I could say that I was the cause, but they’ve outshone me since we first came together. I learned more from watching them than I had in my entire life.
Kiara and her twin sister Melody were barely eighteen years old, but they exuded the strongest sex appeal and murderous intent that I’d ever seen - even more so when they were working. They walked and talked like they were fully matured adults and it helped that they looked the part, too.
Melody was the more childish of the two, constantly playing pranks on anyone stupid enough to fall for them. She had bright blue hair that often changed colors depending on her mood. She was slightly taller than her sister and not quite as filled out. She was very skinny, but the look in her eyes was always one of two things: Sex or Murder. Sometimes both.
At the age of twelve, she lured a mafia boss away from his bodyguards, seduced him, and then removed his balls before slitting his throat. It was an incredibly horrific act, but if you’ve been in the assassination business as long as I have, you’d respect the art.
Kiara was always serious - almost as if a genuine smile would kill her. Her jet black hair had never been dyed, but was as dark as a moonless night. Like Melody, Kiara excelled in the art of seduction at a young age. The difference between them was clear, though. Kiara didn’t have to say a single word to her victim. A simple glance would win his heart. Her body would easily be mistaken for that of a woman by the time she hit puberty. And now...now it’s not even fair. I find it hard to say no to her or do anything that might cause her disappointment. It’s something I can’t really explain.
As for me, I’m Jake. The girls were matched with me when they were only nine years old. I’d never had partners before, so I wasn’t happy when our boss made the decision, but they won me over quickly.
It was only supposed to be a temporary arrangement until the twins learned the ins and outs of assassination, but we clicked so well that it became permanent. There were some growing pains between us, but I became sort of a surrogate father to them. As they grew, I began to realize that I loved them. Maybe not like daughters and definitely not as lovers, but I did. I loved them. Whatever that meant, I just wanted to protect them.
As each year went by and our kill count increased, the girls started relying on me less and less. Meanwhile, I struggled to keep up, but it wasn’t because of my lack of skills. They’d become so fast and so strong. It was inhuman, actually. So, as it is right now, they do most of the work and I’m just...there, taking up space and trying to dish out some wisdom from time to time.
The sounds of the prisoner’s screams shook me from my nostalgia. Kiara covered his mouth with just one finger and he instantly closed it, still wide eyed and afraid. She took her finger back and said, “All you need to do is tell me where HE is. Do that and I will end your pain and let you be on your way.”
The way she said it sent chills up and down my spine. It must have affected the man, too, because his teeth began to chatter as he said, “Alabama.”
“Where?” she asked with an air of superiority in her voice. “Where in Alabama is he?”
“I-I don’t know. I swear, just please don’t-”
Faster than my eyes could fully understand, Kiara grabbed his half sawed off pinky and broke it completely in one motion. The poor man opened his mouth to scream but she shut it for him, leaving only muffled groans of pain.
“Now, you get one more chance to remember the exact location,” she said without a hint of hesitation.
“Yo, dude,” Melody said, jumping in without invitation. “I’ve seen my sister gut a man and wear his intestines around her neck like a necklace while he was still alive. I don’t think you want to fuck with her. For both our sakes, please.”
The look of horror on the man’s face was priceless. Melody was just trying to scare him with a fake story, but considering what Kiara had done to his finger, I can’t blame him for believing it.
A bunch of gibberish came from his mouth until Kiara slapped him. He focused his words for a moment and finally let out the truth, “It’s a small town called ‘Freeman’. There’s only one gas station in the whole town. That’s where HE is. The last time I heard, he was guarded by twenty heavily armed bodyguards.”
“Very good,” Kiara said with her usual forced smile. She untied him from his chair, dusted him off, and pushed him out of the room. “Oh, and if you tell your people that we captured you, they will realize you talked. I may have let you live, but they won’t. So if I were you, I’d keep that ugly mouth shut. Mmmkay?”
He nodded and nearly tripped over his own feet trying to get away. The hallways of the abandoned house were brightly lit by the sun and I could hear him struggling to adjust to the light as he repeatedly crashed into the walls.
We waited for the man to find the exit until anyone moved. It took a few seconds, but the front door opened and slammed shut, curses flying from his mouth.
Melody let out a laugh and flung the curtains wide open, flooding the room with light. It blinded me for a moment, but I could see her taking it all in, not even shading her eyes. The window was pushed open and Melody shouted at the man, “Hey, asshole! You forgot something!”
I ran to the window to see what was going on just as he turned. The look on his face was of a broken man, knowing he’d been humiliated by two little girls. He tried to speak, but Melody threw a knife at him with such speed that he had no chance to react.
She’d timed it so perfect that the knife flew through his open mouth, embedding in the back of his throat. He fell to the ground, choking on the blood that flowed out like a waterfall. It wasn’t more than a few seconds before he stopped fighting and gave into his death.
“What’d you do that for?” I asked, afraid of the ruthlessness I’d just seen, but intrigued just the same.
She turned on me, kissing me on the cheek before saying, “You know me, Jake. I don’t like letting people live when they don’t deserve it.”
“I understand that, but what did he do? He told you everything you wanted to know. You even let him leave. I mean - you were toying with him. Why?”
Her cold eyes dug into mine as she said, “When Kiara and I first met him, he mistook us for a pair of slaves that he was going to buy and then sell to a client overseas. He was in the sex trade, Jake. I couldn’t just let him go back and continue his work.”
Kiara physically cut in between us, saying, “We know where Luc hid our target now. That’s all that matters. If Luc is in the sex trade with scum like that guy, I think we were lucky to have left his employment. He’s getting darker and darker as time goes by. He’s already neck deep into illegal drugs in this country and has been buying and selling weapons for years. I don’t know what Luc’s next move is, but we have to find our guy. It’s our only hope to stop all this.”
Melody looked doubtful, “I keep hearing you talk about HIM like he’s some sort of savior, but we could do a lot of damage against Luc all by ourselves. We should just attack him on our own!”
“No,” she said calmly. “Luc has thousands of trained killers in his employ. We could only get so far before being killed. He’d be standing on our bones within minutes if we attacked him head on. Besides...you didn’t see what I saw in my vision, Melody. You can’t possibly understand.”
“What exactly did you see?” I asked. It was a few months ago when Kiara had her vision. It was common for her to see into the future, but usually what she saw was insignificant and meaningless. Nevertheless, her visions were always accurate, so we never questioned her.
One night she awoke in our hotel room, screaming as if in pain. Melody got to her before I did, but the poor girl was shaking in fear. Terrified of whatever it was she saw. She told us very little about the vision she’d had, only saying, “We need to get away from Luc. He’s evil.”
We left the next morning and never looked back. Luc sent his assassins after us, but none of them managed to so much as scratch any of us. The girls had truly become monsters in strength.
We started hearing rumors about Luc from the people he sent after us. Apparently, he was growing his power in the underworld, taking over mafia families, drug cartels, and shady government organizations. That’s when I first realized that Kiara was right about Luc.
Two weeks ago, Kiara had another vision. She said, “There’s a boy out there, somewhere, waiting for us. Luc has hid him away because he has the power to bring him down. I saw a glimpse of the future and this boy is our only hope of saving this world before Luc burns it up in his lust for control.”
We debated whether we should even get involved. Melody just wanted to find a quiet place to live, away from the rest of civilization. I was down with that. Kiara didn’t back down, though. “We’re a part of this vision. If we do nothing, we’ll be among the first to die when Luc rises to power. He fears us for some reason.”
The argument was all but over at that point. Nobody said a word against this new mission that Kiara’s vision sent us on. Soon we were going on the offensive, taking some of Luc’s partners hostage and interrogating them. Most of them were useless, only telling us the dark deeds of their business arrangement. But a few mentioned a mysterious teenage boy that Luc would speak of.
The boy should not be killed, Luc said, but he also could never be allowed to be free. We had no name or physical description of him, only that Luc referred to the boy as, “HIM” and “HE”. As soon as one of the twins would invoke these names, the prisoners would know exactly who they meant.
So, here we are now. Stuck in the middle of nowhere and headed to Alabama to search for HIM. Kiara was pouring gas all over the wall and floors of the room and then down the stairs and as much of the bottom floor as possible.
“Get the car ready,” she said. “I’ll be done in a moment. Just want to cover our tracks as well as possible.”
I walked quickly out of the house and into the sweltering heat of the desert. The car was parked far from the house, so sweat was already beading on my forehead. I unlocked the door and sat down in the driver’s seat. I looked back at Kiara and Melody and noticed they were yelling at me.
I couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, but the words I did hear must have been either “a trap” or “attack”. Neither was a good option. I looked around and saw nothing, so my first priority was to pick up the girls and drive away before we could actually be attacked. I turned the key and the engine roared, louder than usual. A pain stronger than anything I’d ever experienced shot through my entire body.
The explosion rocked the car, burning me to a crisp in just seconds. Had I been hit by an RPG? No, the car was rigged to explode. Luc - it was his idea. It had to have been a trap for the three of us.
It was then that I realized I was floating above the fiery car. As I ascended, I watched in horror as dozens of armed men in desert camouflage encircled the house and closed in on the girls. They retreated inside with a swarm of bullets headed right at them. One of the rounds must have ignited the gasoline, because the entire house was engulfed in flames in a matter of seconds.
I was so helpless. There was nothing I could do. The world below me disappeared and I knew that I would soon see my girls in Heaven. My poor girls. I should have protected them.