In The Agency, there are two elite forces.
One program is for soloists. Assassins, like myself, trained in all skill sets. Molded from the age of ten through a training program dubbed The Sparrows. A front to look like an elite ballet school when in fact they are training their youth to be cold blooded killers.
The second program is one for partners. Trained to work together with specific skill sets to balance one another out. They are called Lock and Key. They are trained from infancy and partners are selected after extensive assessments on cognitive, emotional, and physical evaluations. These selections are rare. For every fifty sparrows there are only one lock and key partnership...maybe two.
More often than not, the partners fail.
Too much emotion.
Too much care for one another.
Too much risk.
Sparrows are taught to blend in. Usually heavily tattooed or using make up to cover up the sparrow branding. We cannot stand out. Some modify their brand to look different, but a simple scan can reveal the brand to those who know the tricks of the trade.
To say I did not know my assignment could be one of me was not only an understatement...
It was an impossibility.
There are only two hundred or so of us actively working, stationed in different countries. There are no teams, there are no interactions.
We do not know one another but we know the signs.
Harry did not show the signs.
I have always had the key on my wrist. I remember going to the tattoo shop to get it. The meaning behind it? Couldn't say.
My training taught me to blend in...not to put thought into how I did it.
I lied awake that night, after stitching my body back together, and tried to go back in my memory as far as possible.
I remembered the ballet academy, the training, sniper skills, cognitive tests...I remembered it all.
I remembered the isolation most of all.
There were no interactions, ever.
How then...could the man I was hired to terminate, have a matching lock on his wrist in the exact spot that I had a key?
Could it have been a coincidence?
No. He knew the words of our creed.
He knew.
Something was aching in the back of my mind, something telling me that I was missing vital information.
I needed to discover who Harry Styles was.
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I awoke to the sound of knocking at my door.
A hiss escaped my lips as I pulled my stiff shoulder through a beige cardigan. I darted around my room and pulled pants on in the process, assessing my hair and pulling on my fake glasses to get into character of the bashful neighbor.
I knew it was him at the door.
A quick check to my stitches and I was opening the door with a small and timid grin on my face.
Harry looked like he'd been to hell and back. Faint bruising from where I'd strangled him the night before lined his neck and could almost be passed as hickeys.
I gasped and reached a hesitant hand to his throat.
"Oh my God! Are you alright?" I exclaimed in faux concern and his eyes tightened around the edges slightly but gave a dismissive shrug and smiled brightly.
"Perfectly fine. Sorry, girl I was with got a little carried away if you know what I mean." Ah...I know exactly what you mean Harry.
I fluttered my eyelashes and feigned a blush at his words.
"Oh...well...I hope it was worth it?" I coughed out a laugh, brushing my hair over my shoulder in an effort to look nervous at his words but his eyes honed in on the high neck crop top I was wearing.
He was suspicious.
"Very. Need help unpacking?"
A sudden emotion I was not used to flooded my system.
Fear.
"Oh, no. I'm okay, almost done actually." I fibbed, adjusting my glasses while the green eyed killer in front of me glanced behind my small figure at the boxes that I clearly had not moved since yesterday. My target gave me a once over and grinned evilly.
"Looks to me like you need all the help you can get. I wonder, is your apartment layout just like mine?" He pushed himself through the door, slightly knocking me to the side but threw a fake apologetic smile my way.
The blood in the bathroom.
My leather suit thrown about my room.
The tall, curly haired man began to make his way to my bedroom, the door partially closed but I dashed in front of him and shut it. I turned to look at him and a perfectly shaped brown eyebrow was raised in suspicion.
"Sorry, it's a mess in there. My bedroom hasn't been put together and all my underwear is...well...out and about." Again, I fidgeted to take his suspicions off of me but it did not seem to do the trick.
Harry stood there, towering over me and I remembered the feeling of his calloused hands against my throat. The clear fingerprints hiding beneath the collar of my shirt flaring at his close proximity.
"Well, let me at least help you with these boxes Karinne." He mouthed my name like it was a farce.
"Okay! Why don't you start unpacking that box over there and I'll put some things away in the kitchen." I smiled widely at him and as he nodded, I noticed a slight pursed lip of doubt.
If I could feel relief....I'd be feeling it right now.
I padded over to the kitchen and began to unbox silverware first. I watched him carefully, the tension clear in his shoulders as he began to unpack a box full of fake photographs and general decor, and slowly placed a knife off to the side in case he made any sudden movements.
He glanced over his shoulder and gave me a small smile as he glanced at some of the photographs he unwrapped.
"Family?" He asked as he flashed a picture of me hugging a man I'd expertly photoshopped into the picture.
"Boyfriend." I smiled sweetly and continued to place the silverware into the drawer in front of me, the knife gleaming brightly in the kitchen light just out of his line of sight.
"Ah, a boyfriend," he smirked as he walked over to me carrying another box he had just looked through, "that's good to know. I may have just narrowly avoided embarrassment." His smile was friendly, the edges of his eyes now warm and inviting as he beamed down at me and had I not noticed the tightness of his gate as he walked to me, I would have thought I'd had him completely fooled.
"What embarrassment?" He placed the box down and I noticed it was full of dinnerware. The warmth radiating off of his body was close...too close to mine as he looked down at me, brushing my crimson hair off of my shoulder to fall down my back.
"I was going to ask you out," his voice glided the words sumptuously from his mouth, his cotton candy lips delicately molding each syllable and if I didn't know any better, I'd say a part of me liked the sound of the sweet tangy honey pouring from his throat, "good thing I didn't though. That would have been awkward." He stated and pulled away slowly like he hadn't said anything at all and began to pull the plates out of the box.
A blink.
Two blinks.
"Oh." Oh?
A pleasant chuckle escaped his lips, his pink tongue darted out and licked his lips seductively although unintentionally, like it was something he did all of the time.
I was mesmerized.
"Why don't you show me where you'd like these to go and I'll help you start putting things into the cupboards?" He handed me a stack of plates and I nodded simply, momentarily distracted by his charm. The energy pouring off of him was nervous but a hint of something else that I could not put my finger on.
I stopped at the cupboard and lifted my free hand to open it up and that was when I realized what was happening.
The shot through my shoulder had gone through and through.
A clean shot.
A gun hole with two wounds.
I felt my heart kick into overdrive but I maintained my cool and calm posture, picking each plate up with my good arm and placing it up onto the shelving in a stack.
"You know, it'd be quicker if you used both hands..."
Fear.
It was pulsating through my entire being and I could not stop the onslaught of that single emotion.
He knew.
He knew.
He knew.
I had no reply. There was nothing that could be said. He was right and he was testing me.
I threw a quick smile over my shoulder and noticed he was now resting his hip against the side of the counter, arms crossed over his chest, that evil smile slowly taking residence on his perfect face.
The metal of the knife scraped against the skin of my back where I'd tucked it safely away when he had initially approached me, a gentle reminder that if this backfired, I at least had a weapon.
I took a deep and quiet inhale as I picked the plates up. The stitches in my shoulder pulled tightly as I reached up, the pain absolutely excruciating but I pushed myself to ignore it.
My training taught me that pain was a mentality. To push through was to survive.
I had to survive.
I hoisted the plates up into their shelf and winced only slightly at the strain it caused on my injured shoulder but a quick glance at my shoulder and it seemed that my stitches held.
I was about to turn around when Harry's voice stopped me in my tracks.
"Well, well, well...," a sudden warmth and sharp pain began to flood the back of my shoulder and I knew the wound I had tried so hard to stitch together the night before had broken open, "it seems I have caught a little sparrow."
I rested both hands on either side of myself, my breathing heavy, but I knew I had only one tactic.
Placating.
"I'll show you mine if you show me yours." I stated simply, no hint of emotion on my voice as I spun around slowly. He was in the exact same position as before, except now he was holding onto a gun, lazily hung in his dominant hand, the barrel pointing towards the floor.
"You've already seen it." He pulled the collar of his shirt down, exposing his two swallow tattoos. The right one had a slight deviation to it that held the outline of the true sparrow brand underneath the coverup of the swallow tattoo laid over it.
"Clever." I muttered and lifted the side of my shirt to show the matching brand on the side of my ribcage. His eyes flickered to it quickly before locking onto my eyes again.
He was calculating his next move.
"Why not kill me Harry? Interested in why The Agency sent me to kill you?" The tension in his eyes from before returned, the green becoming muddied with anger.
"You're stalling." Raising the gun, he pulled his lanky frame from the counter and stood with his feet hip's width apart, both hands wrapped around the Glock, pointing it directly at me.
"Tell me Harry. What'd you do to piss the bosses off?" His lips formed into a straight line as I took a side step, his gun following my movement.
"Nice turtleneck. Covering anything up love?" He mocked as I took another careful step, my bare feet cool against the tile.
"Had a wild night myself. Guy really loves a good choking apparently." I teased and I didn't miss the roll of his eyes at my remark.
We both stood there, watching one another, waiting for the other to make a fatal mistake.
One wrong move and it'd be all over.
Both of us were hesitating.
Our training taught us to never hesitate.
"Why aren't you shooting me Harry?" I asked and I watched the tension in his shoulders come back, his body language stiff and unsure.
Confidently, I took a step forward.
Harry's eyes widened slightly but he focused his gun on me.
My training taught me that in any situation, there was always an escape. There was always a Plan B.
Harry had used it on me earlier.
Seduction.
I took another step forward, pulling my glasses off, and ran a hand through my fiery hair.
"Come on Harry. What's the matter?" I stood directly in front of the gun and placed a hand on the barrel to point it directly at my chest. Harry looked quickly between the gun pressed against my heaving chest and my eyes.
He was mesmerized.
"Cat got your tongue?"
It was then that I pulled the knife from the waistband of my jeans, slapping the gun out of shooting range, and slashed the blade against his stomach.