"Lo siento, bebé. Pero mi veneno es la muerte" Copperhead purred in that gorgeous accent of hers. It made my blood pump harder just to hear her voice. Of course, that also meant my death was coming even faster. The beautiful South American kept threatening to let me die one of these times just to punish me for not fighting harder. I was supposed to be forcing her to give me the antidote.

I flipped onto my hands and pushed off the ground, meaning to land behind my mentor and take her by surprise. Instead, the poison in my veins made my arms weak and I landed on my back at her feet. I scrambled up using all the speed she had been teaching me. I pushed my body to it's limits and every day, my body lasted a little longer before giving out.

"You are dying, pendejo." She hissed her tongue flickering out. I closed my mind to my fantasies. I learned my lesson about falling for my mentor when I was young.

"Shut up, bitch. I'm immortal." I teased forcing myself to stand and running at her. She didn't bother to step aside, my vision was too blurry to see exactly where she was. I ran past her and spun around, sword making a very small cut on her cheek.

"I like watching my victims struggle." She purred.

I tossed my sword, caught it in my mouth and used my hands for a push-up roll in her direction. I jumped to my feet swinging at her with my sword. She jumped up crawling into the rafters.

"Too slow, Cabra."

My vision swam and I saw my father decked out in full deathstroke costume pointing his gun at my head. I could see hatred in his eye. "You are a disgrace to me and to Rose. You will never live up to your name. Why don't you just die?"

The gun in my father's hand shot brilliant orange sparks as he pulled the trigger in slow motion. The bullet crawled through the air towards me, but I couldn't move. I could hear my father continuing to taunt me. To tell me how many times I had failed him. He said he hated me. Inches from my face, the bullet flickered and disappeared. My father faded into a cloud of shadows.

"How will you defeat the phantoms of your mind, Chloe?"

"I AM NOT CHLOE! I AM CLEOPATRA AND I WILL KILL YOU!" My mind cleared up and I launched myself into the rafters, using every lesson Copperhead had ever taught me. I forced my body to contort into unnatural positions in thousandths of a second between one rafter and the next as I moved towards my enemy. Before I knew what was happening I was on top of my mentor with my forearm pinning her throat to my chest. She clawed at me and struggled to breath. I flicked my tongue over the shell of her ear. "Who's your Mummy?"

"Mierda." She cursed softly with the little breath she could manage. Her hands trembled as she reached down to get the antidote.

"CHLOE!" A familiar voice screeched. I looked up and I saw my older sister standing over me giving me the same glare as she had when I used her lipstick once. My hold on Copperhead's neck tightened convulsively. "Chloe, have you forgotten everything that I taught you? What ever happened to heroism? What happened to us being on the same team no matter what? Don't you love me? You disappoint me…."

"You left! That's what happened! Rosie, you left me! You left me all alone with dad and he STILL couldn't do anything but talk about you! Every time he talks it's Rose this Rose that. She calls herself Ravager still. That means she'll come back right? I couldn't stand it! I HATE YOU FOR LEAVING ME WITH HIM!" My voice went from a loud accusation to an earsplitting scream. My heart was beating fast and hard. My mind and body were rebelling out of my control. I felt a sharp pain in my neck and Rose disappeared along with the pain coursing through me. My body relaxed and I released my mentor.

"Cleo, sweety, you let it go too long. Your body can't handle too many days like that. Tomorrow I have a meeting about a new bounty. I want you to rest up and join my on this one." Copperhead's hand rested on my cheek. "This will be your big test, okay? If you do a good job on Project Bat, I'll give you the permanent antidote and give you a suit like the beginners in my group wear. You'll be an official apprentice."

I smiled distantly at Copperhead. Things were going fuzzy again, but in a hard-work nap-time kind of way. I was so tired. I was also pleased. I had been training for 4 years to become an official apprentice to an assassin. Granted, I had also learned to be a hacker and come several steps closer to perfecting the serum in those 4 years…