Scent
It's so easy to forget when she's laughing and smiling. So easy to just see the little ordinary girl when she's beaming over that new gift you have bought her, all fresh sunlight and bright innocence.
But when you get close, the smell of gunpowder and beneath that the faint tang of engine oil kills that façade pretty quickly though, doesn't it? So you buy her perfume and pretend for a little longer. Summers in Sicily are the best after all, and her cooking is improving. You can't think of work at a time like this.
Can't think of how quickly the scent will fade. Blink, and she's not schoolgirl but cyborg assassin with the knowledge of a hundred and one different ways to kill you and fingers, that just held an ice cream cone with such delicacy, that could crush a man's neck.
She tells you she writes in the diary everyday (do you understand why I really bought it for you?) what does she put in there? The usual inane chatter of a schoolgirl? Or instead of homework assignments completed, does she list missions? Proudly marks down the number of people she's killed like achieved school targets? Sometimes when you see the stunned looks on the faces of the grunts as they're taken down by a little girl you want to laugh. Other days you want to throw up.
So this is what you've created. A monster. Aren't you just the best big brother ever? Hmm...well at least you don't need to worry about sexual predators…or boyfriends. Ha-ha-ha.
It's frightening the amount of power you have over her. You just have to say the word and she'll kill without hesitating. She'd die for you.
And that, Jean says, is how it should be. Each cyborg must be completely loyal to her handler.
If you ever faltered in your affection, would she come to you, like the ghost of that girl with her face pooling blood and kill you first? Or would she just kill herself without touching you? Which scenario would you prefer?
She may look like a little girl, but you know as well as anyone else here that she's not! She's a weapon! A tool!
You shouldn't do – but you've become…attached…to this little girl and you'd do anything to give her what she truly desires, and deserves, an ordinary life. But since that can't be, you'll just have to fulfil your role as a big brother and protect your little sister the best that you can.
The perfume is sweet, but nothing can fully mask the scent of blood.