So I've hit a bit of a wall on Kinetic/Potential, but I promise I am still working on them. Most of the end parts are written, it's just the transitions that are giving me trouble and I thought that if I took a break and worked on something else for a bit it might help.
She's from Madrid. City girl, confident, undeterred gait, apparently unaware of the glances people throw her way for that bubblegum pink hair of hers. Gutsy. I like it, I think. Nothing wrong with a little splash of color, and it makes her easy to spot and tail. I've been to Madrid often enough to know the layout. I wonder briefly if she's ever been to Barcelona. What are the chances that he sends me back to Spain first? Is it intentional? Coincidence? I can't really say because he doesn't really let anyone in on the inner workings of his mind. I don't think we'd understand if he did, to be honest. I'm an intelligent person, but even I must admit that I can't grasp him.
She is the first target on a still growing list. I've been given the details on the five people currently on it. They are all teenage girls. Only sixteen and their worlds are going to come crumbling down. I was sixteen when-
I've been assigned to change their lives. For better or worse, I suppose. That's not an admission of guilt. Maybe they are-so far-quite pretty, judging by the photos attached to their files. It seems counter-intuitive for me to bring them into a place like Shadaloo. There is a lot of ugliness there, and how will it effect them? How does it effect me? But it's my job. You don't question the jobs he gives you. He has plans for these girls, though he hasn't told me what that means yet. Maybe he never will. I just hope he doesn't intend to do them harm because I can't abide someone damaging such lovely things. I swore it on the day-
Her home is in a fairly recently built complex. I have watched her for three days. Traced her route from school, timed when her family comes home from work, when they sit down for dinner, when the lights go off in the windows of their apartment, when they come back on in the morning, when parents leave for work and when children go to school. I still look young enough to pass for a student myself, even though I'm nineteen. But the sorts of things I've been learning, they aren't what the average kid should know. I'm not average though, am I? I don't mind. Average is disgusting.
That's why her pink hair is so nice. It declares her unwillingness to bow to the standards of the mundane, boring people around her. A defiant cry against conformity, candy colored curls flying like a rebel flag in the middle of a revolution. Perhaps it could just mean, though, that she likes the color pink a lot. Either way.
At 1:02 AM, I find my way up the fire escape ladder bolted to the bricks of her familiy's apartment complex. I pull out the screen of her bedroom window which faces east towards home. I slide up her unlocked window-because in the pleasant late summer air, she likes to leave it open sometimes-and I slip into her room. There are two bookshelves on the wall but only one holds any books. Romance novels. The obligatory Cervantes. A book on how to use audio programs on her computer. The other shelf has a stuffed bear on it. Some pictures in frames. Her and another girl. Her and perhaps that's her family. A mother and a father and a brother. Surreal in how normal it is to everyone but me.
At 1:06 AM, I put the cloth over her mouth. Her eyes flutter open briefly before closing again. I wonder what she thought of what she saw.