It would be a simple enough task. He had been assigned to a woman that lived in the coastal city of Los Angeles. Bette Alowna. She was a simple woman; took the bus to and from work almost everyday, lived in an apartment alone, had no pets, and didn’t have any relatives in the city. No one would suspect foul play if she went to sleep one night, and never woke up again. Especially with the drugs that would be planted throughout her apartment. But her entire life on the file was a lie. When she wasn’t at the little shop she worked at, she was distributing drugs for a huge drug ring in the underground market of the city. 

It was his job to take the assignment, and get paid. The Assassins Organization had three rules: Never ask questions about the target or the patron. Never talk to anyone about the Organization. Never leave a job unfinished. If one assassin was taken out, another replaced them. 

It wasn’t hard to get involved with the Organization. You just had to be a young orphan, and have all your limbs intact. That’s how they found him. He had been a scrawny little boy scraping his way through life on the grimy streets of New York City. Now, he lived at the Prestigious School of the Hawaii Arts, which was, of course, a front for what they really taught there. He spent much of his childhood playing with knives and learning all the necessary skills to take down a fully grown man, with his hands tied behind his back. Now, eleven years since he arrived among the trainees, he was the youngest ever certified assassin. Only eighteen years old. The rest of the assassins in training, his age, were assigned to scouting missions and gathering intel on new targets. 

He hadn’t tried to fight them off when the scouts for the academy brought him to one of the many beautiful manors owned by the Organization. He had enough sense at the age of seven to know that going with a man in a finely tailored suit, and an air of professionalism about him, was a better option than starving on the sidewalks with no one to remember him when he was gone. He never made friends, or even acquaintances, with any of the other trainees, and his viciousness at such a young age, unsettled the instructors enough that they requested he be transferred from their academy. The complaints were common enough that he was switched between academies ten times, before he finally settled in at the Hawaii institution.

Now he had his first task. A drug dealer. He supposed it would be easy enough, but another agent was being sent with him nonetheless. A first kill is never easy no matter how bloodthirsty the assassin is, and the Organization doesn’t take chances with their assignments. 

“Tallinn,” he looked up from the assignment sitting on the ebony desk, and quickly scanned the finely furnished room before he met the eyes of the lead assassin. It was a habit to be constantly looking for possible threats, even in one of the most difficult places to infiltrate. “Jason will assist you with this assignment, as it is your first one. Your plane tickets and identities are in the file. Memorize them. Burn the file before you leave. Be smart, be quick, be ruthless.” Anosya said the Assassins Code, as was tradition between all the members of the Organization before an assignment. Tallinn nodded, placing his fist over his heart, before quietly slipping away from the office. 

Tallinn and Jason got off the plane, the plan laid out freshly in both their minds, after all the careful plotting they’d done during the flight. They would make their move the next night after they rested, and after they got all their weapons from the supplies house in Los Angeles. 

~~

Tallinn would have to be the one to make the kill, since it was his assignment. And watching his target discreetly slip synthetic drugs to kids that looked like they were barely out of middle school, he didn’t think he would feel much remorse over her. It was almost sundown when Bette finished making her rounds and got onto a bus back to her apartment. She lived in one of the better parts of town and lived a decent lifestyle, better off than most, all because of her dirty drug money. The two assassins followed her back to her apartment. They already knew the layout of the entire building and easily slipped inside through a back door and careful maneuvering around the building. After that it was just a matter of timing where and when they moved in the cameras’ blind spots. They were to make her death seem like an overdose on the same drugs she sold. It would serve as a warning to her sources that someone was after their drug ring. When they got to her apartment door, Tallinn brought out his lock picks, while Jason stood guarding the hall. He had the door unlocked in a matter of seconds, and they slipped inside like dark wraiths. 

Immediately, the pair knew Bette was in her room based on the noise from the television in there, and Tallinn peeled off towards her. He shook out his arms and rehearsed his steps in his head. He knew exactly how to disarm someone and how to knock them out without leaving a mark or bruise. Still, he couldn’t help being a little nervous. He dared a glance through her doorway, and a wave of shock went through him. 

He became extremely still as he stared at Bette lifting the small baby out of her crib and holding her in her arms. There was nothing motherly about the way she was holding the child , but with Bette’s back to him, he had an unobstructed view of the beautiful baby girl that undoubtedly had Bette’s small nose and hazel eyes. He whispered into his earpiece, “Why did no one deign to tell me that she has a child?” 

“Make the kill Tallinn,” Jason responded in his infuriatingly calm voice. 

“She has a child in her arms!” Tallinn did his best to remain calm, but his voice carried, and Bette seemed to hear him. She called out, “Is someone there?” Tallinn heard the unmistakable sound of a gun cocking. Of course she has a gun, he thought miserably. He leaned against the wall and squeezed his eyes shut. He couldn’t think. The mission. The gun. The child. He opened his eyes and spoke into his ear piece, too low for Bette to possibly hear. 

“I’m going in.” He stepped into the room and raised his gun, silencer on the muzzle, aiming it at Bette. She stepped back, eyes wide with fear.

“Put the baby down,” Tallinn warned in a low voice. 

“No! Why would I listen to someone that has a gun pointed at my face?” Bette asked shakily, fear clearly evident in her tone. Tallinn knew he could easily kill her, even with the baby in her arms, but he didn’t want to risk hurting the child. He didn’t trust Bette. Not with that crazy look entering her eyes. 

They stood staring at each other for a few moments, neither of them moving a muscle. Suddenly, she laughed, a high pitched, panicky laugh that made the hair on the nape of his neck stand up. 

“You’re here for the drugs aren’t you?” Bette continued laughing, this time, in earnest, “You won’t get them, fool. I already sent them out to my buyer. Your boss won’t be the only one in the streets selling pure Glee6. By now, they should’ve already gotten the full formula, and-” 

She didn’t get the chance to finish her sentence. Her head snapped backwards, and she teetered to the side, blood spraying behind her. Tallinn ran forward, and grabbed the wailing baby before Bette’s body hit the ground. He didn’t spare a glance at the gaping hole directly in the center of her head, blood pooling around her lifeless body. She wouldn’t have made a good mother anyway. Not with her unstable condition and unhealthy habits. 

“There’s a problem,” he spoke into his earpiece, “We have a mess to clean up.” 

“What did you do?” Jason responded almost immediately, genuine panic entering his voice.

“What I had to,” Tallinn said in a cold voice, “You knew she had a child didn’t you?”

Jason rounded the corner, and stalked into the room, staring at Bette’s corpse, back to his constant emotionless state. “We had to put you in an impossible situation to test your loyalty to the Organization. Congratulations. You passed.”

“How could you put a baby’s life in danger like that? She could have been hurt!” 

“You did what you had to. We did what we had to.” 

“What’s going to happen to the baby?”

“The Assassin’s Organization will provide care for her and raise her as one of their own. She will be the first ever assassin to be trained from birth.”

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