Chapter 5: Torture, Thy Name is Italy
We spent the next few days wandering around. Schuldich dragged us throughout every single museum Rome had, including all the monuments. Do you know how many historical sites are in Rome? THOUSANDS. The entire time Farfarello chugging some kind of beer or another in a wife beater showing all his scars, and he kept falling down the stairs. It was almost annoying, but in this group you have to get used to it. Besides, it was kind of entertaining to see Crawford answer his cell phone in the Vatican museum. If looks could kill, he would've been dead and buried by the time we got out of there. And then Schuldich started yelling at him about it, until Crawford bought him some new clothes.
At the Capitaline Museum, there's this huge room full of statues and stuff made out of marble. There was this one really nice statue of this girl with some helmet on her head. I stared at her, wondering whether she had existed or not. That's a funny thing. What if the Romans or Greeks had been right about their religion, and there were a bunch of Gods and Goddesses sitting around watching us and playing tricks on us… That would explain a lot. I could just picture a Goddess bragging about the mess she wrapped my heart up in.
Anyways, Rome was ok, except some pigeon pooped on my shoulder at the Pantheon. Schuldich and Farfarello laughed so hard but Crawford gave me this glare like I was as bad as the crap on my shirt. On the bright side, I made the bird fly really hard into the side and fall down.
Those few days I was popping more drugs than I remember ever doing before. Schuldich almost saw one time, and I had to plea not guilty by way of having a headache and taking meds for it. It scares me sometimes what he would do if he found out. I couldn't live without these drugs… the only friends I really have… Though, I haven't slit my wrists for a while… or smoked a cig…
Our next stop was Venice.
The train station was packed like a sardine can. We each had two small bags, and Crawford had bought out the entire cabin. Schuldich put his mind to it and people just parted as we went over to our train. Some guy gave me this weird look and muttered, "Freak" as I walked by, and he unfortunately fell into a window display from stumbling and breaking his ankle. Crawford was a bit proud of me, but Schuldich pulled me aside before I got onto the train.
"Why'd you do that, chibi?" he asked sternly, looking into my eyes. I pushed him back a bit and mumbled, "He deserved it."
The German fixed me with his liquid gold eyes, staring right through me. I was depressed and angry with myself, and my self-esteem couldn't get lower, so my mercy giving was way down… I wanted something, anything to distract me from all these problems… I hated being in Schwarz, but it was the only home I had ever had… where I wasn't a freak. But even they didn't feel my pain.
Schuldich sighed and ruffled my hair and stepped on. I looked around the last bit of room for a while and sighed. What I was looking for was nowhere to be found… it could be back in Japan, but I'd never find out now. What was there for a killer? Nothing, I was sure… Not what I was searching for.
I got on the train and sat down just as we pulled out. I was in a corner window seat by myself and Schuldich sat with Crawford, the two of them speaking to each other without words. Farfarello was hanging from the bag holders with his feet. I just leaned back and watched the scenery pass by… and I dozed off.
The next time I woke up, we had passed Padua, and suddenly, outside my window of lush green open fields were acres and acres of sunflowers passing by my window. It was beautiful, just these bright yellow and gold petals coming off of these humungous flowers, contrasting with the bright blue of the sky in the middle of an ancient world. They were as bright as the real sun, and it almost made me smile. I picked one and held onto it as hard as I could to my window to take a closer look as the wind whipped its petals. I smiled and put my hand to the window to try and touch the radiance, which didn't work, so I let it go and watched it drift back the rest of the train.
My head turned to look around the rest of the compartment, more specifically at my teammates. Schuldich was asleep and rather spread out in his chair and Farfarello was sliding around on the ground, either asleep or passed out from hitting his head after falling from his hanging place. Señor Fearless-Leader was typing away at his computer, a pen stuck between his lips in concentration.
Once again, I felt alone and sorely wished that I hadn't kissed Siberian. Weiss would probably attack us for that, which would be worse than just living with the guilt of KNOWING that I kissed a person I was supposed to be bound to hate. Why did I love him? So, I began to count…
I loved him because he was courageous, even though he could never beat us; he always tried and gave it his all, even if he were to die during the mission. I loved him because he was kind and could live a normal life and even have a job and help little kids that would've otherwise become drug addicts and assassins like me… and he gave them hope… Maybe I thought that by him living a normal life aside from being an assassin, he was giving me hope… that maybe I could know that it's alright for other people… thought I don't know why I cared about other people, they never cared about me.
The landscape quickly turned to water and we came to our stop. As I stepped from the train, suspending my bag with my mind lightly over my shoulder so that it looked like I was carrying it, the smell of hot humid sea-air, basil leaves, and ancient decay met my nose. It was like the smell in an Egyptian-tomb exhibit in a museum – old, mysterious, and with an underlying nature you can almost understand with one whiff.
Crawford led us onto a bus-boat-type thing and, naturally, I used my "gift" to get us a clear space on board, gaining a bundle of odd looks from the others. Then, as we were making it to our stop, I saw them.
Why here? How could they possibly be here of all places? Was it some type of sign or a curse or a test? Whatever it was, it didn't obscure the fact that where Schwarz was supposed to get off, Weiss was waiting to get on.
All four were there; the cruel and judgmental Abyssinian, the sly womanizing Balinese, the happy and perky Bombay with his camera, …and him. I stared at him for a while before I backed up onto Schuldich's foot. Instead of yelling at me, he looked at me, and then looked where I was looking. Suddenly, Crawford and Farfarello's heads also snapped over to see our rivals standing on the docks. We all looked to Crawford for instructions, for as dumb as it seems, he was our leader, and we couldn't really face this without orders.
My heart was racing. What if he had told his teammates and they knew how to get to my team? I finally realized how horrible the act of my kissing him really was, and why Crawford had hit me when I had just kissed Toto. I had shown my weakness, Schwarz's weakness, and that could be bent to their advantage. They had a hold on me. I decided in my mind I had to hate him at all costs… or at least act like I did. Siberian couldn't read minds anyways, but he just looked so perfect.
Finally Bradley just looked straight ahead. We would let them see us, but do nothing else. Schuldich put on his best malicious grin and sauntered out onto the solid ground of a Venice street near the Rialto Bridge, in clear view of Weiss. Abyssinian glared at each of us as we walked by, as did the other two (Bombay's face rather in pure shock than in hatred), but Siberian only looked at me. He was staring at me with large brown eyes that were deliciously surprised, and filled with another emotion I couldn't describe, because I just rushed by him, not wanting to blush or do anything else stupid.
As soon as I reached my room in the small hotel, I popped five pills in my mouth and went through two cigarettes. What was I going to do? Venice was big, but not nearly big enough for the two assassin groups to stay without running into each other again. All I wanted now was to slip through a crack in a building and disappear from view, mainly Siberian's and Schuldich's, because they can almost look right through me.
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