Corruption’s Kiss

By Margaret Graber

There are three rules for being an assassin. Don’t hesitate. Don’t question. Don’t feel.

Emotions get you in trouble, and the pain of the past is a distraction.

I glide through the crowd, sipping my champagne and smiling at everyone who meets my eye. I know how to act like just another beautiful woman. I used to be one, after all. No one expects beautiful women to have guns strapped to their thighs and knives between their shoulder blades underneath cocktail dresses.

I check my watch for the time. 23:30.

Thirty minutes.

I glance around. The room is enormous in size, but it doesn’t feel big with everyone packed in like bullets in a magazine. It’s so hot it makes me regret deciding to wear a floor-length dress, though that’s just part of the job.

I make my way toward the restrooms, but then I catch a glimpse of sparkling-green eyes in the crowd. My composure wavers. I don’t want to remember.

A sweet voice giggling and a soft, smiling face.

Lily.

I block the memories with a mental wall and step into the restroom. After scanning to confirm I’m the only inhabitant, I jam the doorstop underneath the door frame. It won’t hold against much, but it will be a crude alarm if anyone disturbs me.

I move into a stall and shut the door, then climb onto the toilet. I take a decorative hairpin from my hair and flip it around, revealing the screwdriver on the other end. There’s an air-vent grate on the ceiling above the stall, which I quietly unscrew. Once it’s off, I hoist myself into the vent, then secure the grate behind me. Following the directions in my head, I crawl through the steel ductwork.

It takes five minutes to reach the right grate. According to their plans, the grate should lead to an empty bedroom. I peer through the slats and see slivers of a bed.

Good.

I unscrew the grate, then drop out of the vent and land softly on the bed. It takes a split second for me to survey the room.

Clear.

I stride over to lock the door, then cross the room to the closet and reach inside to grab the suitcase they said would be waiting for me. Inside it are black boots and a black suit with gloves. I remove my dress and heels and slip into the outfit, then switch my white silk gloves for the black leather ones. A compartment in the bottom of one of my pumps holds a small key, which I use to unlock the case hidden at the bottom of the suitcase.

Inside are the pieces of my sniper rifle. I assemble it in twenty-three seconds, and then it lies before me, a sleek black monster with its name engraved on the side: Corruption’s Kiss.

I don’t know why the name nauseates me. Maybe it’s because I know how much everyone else should be afraid of it. Of me.

Don’t hesitate. Don’t question. Don’t feel.

I sling the rifle across my back.

The air is so cold it bites into my skin as I step through the room’s french doors onto the balcony. My adrenaline begins to climb in anticipation, the same rush as always. But this is just another shot, and I know the drill.

Get in. Get out. Target eliminated.

A small shiver creeps up my spine.

They told me it was natural to think about the targets, that I just have to remember the rules. I can’t spare a thought. Why would I, anyway? I, of all people, have learned how fleeting life is. Here one heartbeat, gone the next.

I push aside those thoughts, then reach for my thigh holster and sweep out my grapple gun. I shoot a hook up above me onto the roof. It holds, and I pull myself up the side of the building, to the top. I can see almost all of the city from up here.

I knew someone who would have loved this view.

No, I tell myself. That doesn’t matter.

Sinking down onto the rooftop onto my stomach, I aim my rifle’s scope towards a tall skyscraper, then check my watch. 23:58. The remaining countdown begins as I zoom in on the sixth level, three windows from the left. They told me the target would be wearing violet and have red hair. That’s all I know. That’s all I need to know to make the shot.

One minute, thirty seconds.

I wait for my target to appear. There’s movement, and a black-haired woman enters the room, laughing about something. I ignore her. The abrasive gravel of the rooftop digs into my hip. I ignore that, too.

One minute, ten seconds.

There’s a flash of red hair as someone walks in after the woman. It’s a girl. My heartbeat halts, though my finger remains on the trigger.

She’s a child. She’s just about the same age as Lily was.

Fifty seconds.

Instead of the rush assuring me this mission will be a success, a strange ache squeezes my heart.

Thirty seconds.

I see the two embracing like Lily and I used to embrace.

Ten seconds.

They told me my daughter’s death was a terrorist attack. Will they tell the black-haired woman the same thing?

Zero seconds.

I pull the trigger.

The window shatters, and the bullet finds my target.

It hits the security camera on the wall.

The girl and her mother duck to the ground just as another shot fires over them, coming from another rooftop.

Don’t hesitate. Don’t question. Don’t feel.

I lift my chin and let out a breath, releasing an aching weight I didn’t know I’d been carrying.

I’ll break every rule they give me.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Margaret Graber is an aesthete living in a big house in a small corner of the world. She’s often found buried deep in a book, daydreaming about weird things, typing fanatically at a keyboard, or listening to loud music. She asks that if you find her in such a state that you leave her alone. When she is not obsessing over those things she is usually laughing with her family and friends.

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