A/N: Well. Sorry it's been so long since I updated. Been busy. School's almost out and we have new marching band music to learn and we have to play Pomp and Circumstance for like two whole hours without stopping for Graduation. Pain in the ASS, I tell you! Anyway, updating will happen faster when school is out, I hope. I haven't been writing much, which sucks. So sorry people! Bear with me please! Thanks.

CHAPTER TWELVE

My arm was on fire. It woke me up earlier than I would have liked, but I needed some time to get ready anyway. I stood up and stretched, trying not to move my injured right arm too much.

My new wound was going to make today's mission so much harder. I extended my arm to its full length, wincing as I felt the skin stretch around the burned patch of skin.

"Are we still going to be able to do the mission today?" Zrya asked from her spot on the ground. She had woken up a few seconds ago, but I pretended like I hadn't noticed. I turned to face her.

"Yes. But I'm going to need your help a lot more now than I did before. Are you still up to it?" I studied her face carefully, trying to find any sign the she didn't want to do this, but over the past months, she had gotten better at hiding her feelings from me. I didn't find any sign of emotion.

Zyra nodded as she got to her feet. I replaced my robes and weapons, making sure that I had plenty of throwing knives. About twenty minutes later, we were making our way across the rooftops towards our target's house.

The target didn't wake up until later in the day, but there were guards stationed all around his large house. We would enter through a window on the third story, putting us in the room next to the one the target would be sleeping in.

We reached a rooftop adjacent to the targets mansion-like house, and stopped to catch our breath. I cast a glance at Zyra from beneath my hood. I couldn't see anything but her lips under her grey hood, and they were set in a hard line.

After this mission, she would probably get the white hood of a master, and she would complete missions on her own. I didn't want that. Her company was far less annoying to me than it had been that day in Damascus, so long ago.

She had grown on me, and I had become dependent on her company. After the first few weeks of being in her company, my nightmares had gone away, and my mood got lighter. Nashwan wasn't so annoying anymore, but I still felt like ripping his teeth out one by one every once in a while. Especially when he talked about Zyra. That pissed me off.

I took an extra minute to gather my thoughts, pushing all else away except the mission. When I was sure I would be able to concentrate, I scaled the side of the target's mansion and climbed swiftly to the window.

It was open, so I pulled myself in silently. I scoped the room for signs of any Templars, waiting for Zyra. She was at my side in seconds, and I continued out the door, checking for Templar guards, and continued on to the next room.

It was eerily quiet, and the door swung open easily. I stepped into the room, my senses on high alert. Zyra stepped ahead of me, checking the rooms that branched off of this one. There was a bed in the center of the room, and there was a very fat, balding man snoring heavily in the center. The rest of the room was bare.

There were no windows, so we would have to get out the way we came. I regarded the man carefully, finding that the dumb brute had stuffed cotton in his ears. How stupid can this guy be? I thought.

It was an easy enough assassination, and I ended the man's life by sliding a dagger into the soft flesh of his throat. He died quickly.

But something wasn't right about this. There were no guards, no security measures, nothing. I stepped back out into the hall, and found nothing again. I decided to find out what was up. I walked down the hallway, away from our escape.

I turned the corner at the end, and immediately wished I hadn't. There were maybe fifteen Templars stationed there, all waiting for us.

"Run!" I yelled to Zyra. The Templars charged, closing the short distance between us. I unsheathed my sword, and brought it up against the sword of a Templar, simultaneously throwing a dagger into the crowd of soldiers.

One man went down, the dagger protruding from his neck. I busied myself with taking down another guard, when a flash of grey and white flew past me and into the group of men. The one time I really need Zyra to follow directions, she doesn't.

She downed two men before locking blades with another. I killed the man I was fighting, and pushed my way into the center of the group until my back was to hers. We fought long and hard, but Zyra's steps were beginning to falter, and I feared that she wouldn't be able to hold out much longer.

More Templars kept arriving, but I could see a clear path to escape through a gap. I killed the men blocking the way, and threw Zyra through the hole. She gave me a panicked glance.

"Run!" I yelled again. This time, thankfully, she did run. A few guards took off after her, but she could handle it. I had other things to worry about anyway, because the biggest man I had ever seen stepped forward. The other men fell away from me.

"So, little assassin, you have come to kill me, no?" This was the target? He was a full three feet taller than me, with arms as big around as Zyra's entire body. I was glad she left. I didn't want her to die too.

And then I realized, in the middle of this room full of sweaty men than wanted me dead, that I loved her. It knocked the breath out of me, leaving me staggering. I regained my composure, trying to think of a witty comeback, but decided just to attack.

I leaped upwards for the man's face, dagger raised, and aimed it at his neck. He twisted at the last second, but I still managed to get the dagger deep into his shoulder. The man roared in pain, and swung one of his massive arms at me.

I ducked underneath the blow, rolling off to the side. I stood again, slashing at one of the Templars, catching him in the stomach. The floor was getting slick with blood, and the other Templars slipped as they ran to catch me.

The huge man plucked the dagger from his shoulder and tossed it off to the side. I faced him fully, waiting for him to attack. When it did come, it was slow and lumbering, and I ran up the wall to my right and sliced his throat open with a throwing knife from my belt. I threw three more at the other guards, killing all except one.

The guard stood there, terrified, then turned and ran. He didn't get very far. I turned back to the very large, dying man, pulling a white feather from a pouch at my waist.

"You… will die," he said. I ran the feather along his bleeding throat and returned it to its pouch.

"We all die eventually. I expect no less," I muttered into the air. I left the building the way I had come, climbing down the wall quickly, and returned to the bureau.

Fahad was standing behind the counter, and he looked up when I walked into the room. I laid the bloody feather on the desk. After glancing around, I turned back to Fahad.

"Where is Zyra?" I asked him.

"I was just about to ask you that," he returned. I left the bureau again, worried that maybe Zyra had been captured by guards or Templars, my heart jumping at the thought of her being dead.

I scoured the entire city, but found no sign of her. I almost returned to the bureau to check if she was there, but instead I decided to look around some more.

I didn't care if she was hiding and didn't want to be found. I didn't care one bit. Knowing that she was safe was better than letting my imagination take hold of me. My mind would conjure up an array of scenarios. Just thinking about it made me want to kill any man that so much as looked at her.

"God, I'm getting protective now too," I said to the empty air. The sun was setting again, and I almost gave up my search before I remembered yesterday. Sitting up in the abandoned tower, watching a sunset much like this, and I mentally slapped myself for not thinking of checking that tower earlier.

I ran over the rooftops to the tower, and climbed it quickly. As I neared the top, I slowed down, becoming silent. I peered over the low stone wall that circled the top of the tower, and found Zyra sitting with her back against the rail, staring at her hands.

I climbed the rest of the way up and over the barrier, approaching her carefully. A silent sob racked her body as I watched, and my heart wrenched in my chest. I scuffed my foot as I approached her, alerting her to my presence before I sat down next to her.

She looked up at me with tear filled eyes, and my heart wrenched again. I brought my right hand up to cup her cheek and wiped away the tears with my thumb. She turned her head away, and scooted father off from me.

"What's wrong?" I asked her, my voice soft. She sniffed and rubbed at her face with the back of her hand.

"You must think me weak for crying like this," she said after a moment. I scooted a little closer to her.

"Of course not, Zyra. You're not weak," I told her. Her hands lay in her lap, and she twisted them back and forth. It was a nervous habit she had picked up shortly after we had begun her training. I had noticed it the first time she started doing it.

I placed my right hand on top of both of hers, and her hands went still. Her eyes lifted to meet mine. I didn't like this behavior from her. It reminded me of when her father had shown up in Masyaf. I cursed that day.

"I've never killed anyone before," she said quietly. The tears started up again, and I pulled her into my lap. She curled up against me, leaning her head on my chest.

I just held her while she cried, and after a few moments, the tears stopped falling.

"How do you deal with it?" She asked after a few minutes of silence.

"To be truthful, I don't really feel anything anymore. No remorse, nothing. But I never forget the faces. The faces always come to haunt me while I sleep."

We sat in silence while she processed that information. The sun was almost beneath the horizon now, and I wanted to see the entire sky as it happened. I pulled my hood down and leaned my head back.

The sky was a mixture of colors. Pinks and oranges blended into dark, inky blues farther away from the sun. A few clouds added dots of creamy yellow to the mix. All in all, it was a beautiful sunset.

I felt Zyra watching me, and looked back down at her. Her hood was down also, and her green eyes sparkled in the light. She was even more beautiful than the sunset was. Her brown hair reflected the sunlight, making it shine a honey gold color.

I stared into her eyes, losing sense of everything but her. Without even realizing it, my head had dipped further down, and my nose brushed hers. Then my body took control, shoving all else away, and I kissed her.

( FINALLY! Right? XD )

O.O

I knew that Altaïr would surely die if I left, but he threw my away from the fight, and the look in his eyes scared me, so I ran. I ran away from the death and carnage that I had helped create. Men were following me, so I spun and threw some throwing knives like Altaïr had taught me. Three more lives taken by my hands.

I ran to the room we had entered through, and flung myself out of the window, barely catching the ledge with the tips of my fingers. I reached the ground and kept running, wanting more than anything to escape from myself. But I couldn't seem to get away.

The blood from the soldiers I had killed had turned my robes from white to red, but I didn't care. I tried to tell myself that I was justified in killing those men. They were threatening the man I loved, but my mind kept telling me that it was a lie. I was a lie.

I didn't know what I was looking for until I found it. The tower. I climbed quickly. Upon reaching the top, I threw myself down into the hole. My body hit the ground hard, and my teeth clacked together.

I screamed at the sky, and then I curled myself up into a ball and tried to rid myself of the memory of my sword slicing through flesh and bone, the sounds of dying men. I passed out.