The brunette all decked out in black hid in the woman's bushes on the side of the house. Just enough to evade detection, but still enough to be able to keep the target in view. She'd been monitoring the woman's activities for a few weeks, learning not only her schedule, but the rest of her family's as well. If Beth wanted to deliver a clean kill, it was the only way to do it. In reality, Beth could've killed her after the first week or two—the woman's schedule never changed and she was highly predictable, an easy kill for a well-trained assassin—but she hadn't killed her. The woman—Alison Hendrix, aged twenty-eight, two kids and a husband—was surprisingly interesting despite her monotonous life and Beth enjoyed watching her and learning her mannerisms. Her footsteps were always light and particular as if she were walking over a booby-trapped path, and her strides were always modest. She didn't know this, but Beth not only watched her, but followed her to wherever she went. Beth was always in the background, unnoticed by the soccer mom.
Beth shifted her weight and shrunk back as the woman made her way up her front porch steps. She heard Alison Hendrix's feet shuffle toward the door and she heard the soft clinking of keys as the woman inserted them into the lock. Beth wondered how the petite woman could do that; torture her husband with a glue gun or even watch a woman—a close friend at that—choke to death and not do anything about it, only carry on as if nothing had happened at all. If only Beth had killed her after those first couple weeks. It was a choice Beth chastised herself for, for if she had killed Alison Hendrix like the threads had told her to, perhaps the husband, Donnie, wouldn't have had to endure that hell and the blonde—Aynsley Norris—wouldn't have had to die. The threads were never wrong. Ever.
Beth shifted her weight again, stiff from squatting for so long, and watched Alison Hendrix disappear into the house. Beth waited until she was sure the woman was gone—probably kicking off her shoes and running to put them away as she always did—before emerging from the bushes and brushing the leaves off herself and plucking the random twigs stuck to her. She sighed as she made her way around the house to climb a large tree she'd familiarised herself with. She sat perched on a thick branch, out of view for anyone who might happen to look out the Hendrix's master bedroom, but still a clear view for Beth. Sure enough, Alison Hendrix's body bent over a few rows of shoes as she placed the recently-worn pair in the only gap of the second line. Beth smiled to herself as she opened a pill container and took a few—it'd be another relaxing night, she could tell.
She found Alison Hendrix's particularity slightly adorable. The assassin blinked a few times and shook her head, wiping the smile off her own face as she refocused on the task at hand. This monitoring was strictly for business. Beth's mission was to kill Alison Hendrix, not start growing fond of her little quirks or the way she kept her things all clean and organised—not that she'd noticed.
Beth cleared her throat softly as she watched Alison Hendrix disappear out of sight—probably to go brush her teeth. Beth checked her watch, which told her that it was eight o'clock at night—exactly when Alison Hendrix brushed her teeth—and she smiled to herself again. No one had cleaner teeth than Alison Hendrix, in Beth's opinion. No one. The woman had to brush her teeth at least three times a day, pretty much any time after she'd eaten something even if it was only a bite.
Alison Hendrix shoved her bedroom window open, causing a loud creaking noise and Beth, startled and caught off-guard, lost her balance and almost slipped off the branch and tumbled to the ground below. Beth caught herself with her hands and she dangled there, waiting for Alison Hendrix to disappear, but she didn't. Beth stayed as still as a dangling person could, but Alison Hendrix still insisted on standing by the open window and staring outside.
"Shit," Beth cursed, trying not to kick her feet and make an obvious movement in the tree.
"Donnie?" the target called. Beth couldn't tell if she was directing her voice outside or inside, but the assassin knew she couldn't move until Alison Hendrix moved from that damn window. Her arms began to burn. "Donnie!"
Alison Hendrix's voice adopted an ordering, yet endearing tone when it came to her husband. No one else's name was pronounced the way Donnie Hendrix's was. Beth didn't hear a reply.
"Donnie, are you outside?" Alison Hendrix called out again. Beth held her breath and closed her eyes, praying for the situation to improve.
"No," came the muffled reply that the struggling assassin heard. She silently cursed again and looked back up at her hands, silently willing them to stop slipping and start gripping again.
"Well I think someone's outside," Alison Hendrix notified her husband. Beth didn't worry too much about Donnie Hendrix's response to that. The man was a couch potato. If anything, he'd send Alison Hendrix outside to check it out. Alison took one last look outside before turning away from the window. Beth breathed a sigh of relief and just as she'd repositioned herself, the back door to the house opened and Alison Hendrix emerged wielding a pistol.
"Shit," Beth whispered to herself, backing up slowly against the trunk of the tree. She hadn't accounted for the little suburban woman to own a gun. She'd never seen her use it. "She's got a gun."
"Hello?" Beth heard Alison Hendrix call into the darkness. She pressed herself up against the trunk even harder than before. She scanned the ground for Alison, but didn't see her. She relaxed a little, but nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard a noise directly behind her. She turned her head and saw two glowing eyes.
"Meow," the cat said to her. Beth glared at the cat, angry at it for scaring her. It swiped at her, but she dodged it. The cat stared at her, its expression unreadable, yet Beth took it as a challenging look. The cat seemed to say, "There isn't room for the two of us in this tree."
"I agree," Beth whispered to it before scooping it up and throwing it over her head to the ground. The second the cat left her hands, she'd regretted tossing it to the ground like that and waited for the crunching sound of its bones as it hit the ground, but no such sound came. She peeked down and saw Alison Hendrix stroking the cat, which had landed on its feet seemingly unharmed despite the high fall.
"Hello there," Alison Hendrix cooed. "Was that you up in that tree? Are you lost? Do you have a home?"
Beth rolled her eyes and shook her head.
"Well you have a home now," Alison Hendrix told it as she picked it up. "You took a nasty fall... That must've hurt.
"Alison?" Donnie Hendrix called from the doorway of the back door. "What are you doing out here?"
"I told you I heard a noise," the woman replied matter-of-factly.
"And I told you I'd check it out when the commercials came on," the husband replied.
"Yeah, and by then we all could've been dead," the petite woman responded, pushing past him and disappearing into the house once again.
"I don't want that thing in here."
"Too bad, we're keeping it. The poor little guy had a nasty fall," Alison Hendrix answered. Beth saw the man roll his eyes before closing the door and heard him lock it. Moments later, the assassin witnessed the couple enter the master bedroom and the brunette set the cat on the bed. The cat bolted and jumped onto the windowsill before curling up on it, caged in by the screen, with its face pointed outward as if it were watching for something.
Beth pointed two fingers at her own eyes and then the cat before whispering, "I'm watching you, you little shit."
"Meow," the cat responded, unblinking. Beth shook her head before dropping down and making her way carefully down the tree. This day's surveillance was over, another day for killing wasted away on watching the Hendrix's routine, a routine Beth already knew like the back of her hand, for the umpteenth time—all for what? Being found out by a neighbourhood stray cat? Beth shook her head once more and muttered to herself as she made her way down the sidewalk to the car she had parked blocks away.
"Stupid," she muttered. "Stupid, stupid, stupid..."