Author: Isabel Juno... with many thanks to my friends Mj0621 and Kathleen for the help

Chapter Two of The assassin's Decicsion

See chapter one for disclaimers and summary

R&R please

Damned If You Do Damned If You Don't

Two Days Later

The beautiful erinye stormed down the pristine and sterile halls of Summerlin Hospital with all the rage that only a woman could exude. One of nurses had to quite literally dodge out of her way. She seemed to have tunnel vision and her enraged blue eyes, normally gentle and deep, were icy and spoke of all the fires of hell. The nurse muttered to a passing oncologist who she had nearly bowled over that he would have to be the one to have angered this dark angel. The oncologist nodded his nervous agreement. A rather downtrodden and harassed looking doctor had overheard them and said that if that woman ever came within fifty feet of him again he would file for a restraining order. The oncologist looked bewildered and the nurse stifled a laugh and explained that the doctor had just had his ass handed to him on a silver platter by the enraged woman whose black hair could be seen retreating down the hall. The nurse, whose id tag stated that her name was Andrea, told him that the doctor had made the mistake of flirting with the woman and that she had in less than a second slammed the good doctors face into the wall and twisted his arm cruelly behind his back and had quite calmly informed him that if he ever tried to flirt with her again that she would castrate him on the spot. The oncologist stared in amazement.

"A real firecracker eh?" The nurse smiled and shook her head.

"Try more like a hydrogen bomb."

"Wow." The oncologist ran his hand over his balding head and looked down the hall where the ball of fury had disappeared.

"Who do you think all that rage is gonna get taken out on?"

"I dunno but I do know this. I really don't want to be that person."

"Why was she here anyway?"

"Somebody tore up her husband apparently."

"Well I think she knows who that somebody is and I don't think she's gonna let the police handle this." The nurse just stared at him.

"I don't think they could handle whoever did this." She half whispered staring down the hall to the patient's room.

"What do you mean?" The confused M.D. inquired.

"You'd have to see this guy's injuries. A couple stab wounds. Broken ribs, each and every one. Bruised spleen and pancreas. Hell, they've had to do two surgeries to stop the bleeding in his lungs. The bruising on his face is bad enough. 87 stitches."

"Damn!" The oncologist, whose id tag said his name was Josh Mazinte, had never heard of somebody not in an industrial accident needing so many stitches in their face. Again he ran his hand over his balding head and stole a glance down the hall toward the elevators. The nurse followed his gaze.

"All I know is that I don't want to be the guy who did that. Especially if she gets at him before the cops find him." Josh nodded in agreement. There was nothing he feared more right now than that woman coming back to kick his ass for the hell of it. It reminded him of something his father had told him the night his mother had stormed out of their house calling his father a bastard and swearing at him in Spanish. His father had told him something about a woman's vengeance and he couldn't quite recall it. But down in the lobby and storming her way out to her Yamaha R1 SP motorcycle and revving it up and zigzagging her way through the five o'clock rush. She really didn't see any of it. Her body moved on autopilot. She was heading to her dusty apartment for the first time in a week and she was going to pick up a few choice items and report in to her boss. She screeched the sleek motorcycle to a halt and vaulted off it using her hands and vaulting into a perfect front flip landing easily like a cat and slinking into her apartment building before the bike even came to a complete stop. She noticed that her hands were shaking with rage as she struggled to fit her key into the worn lock. Swearing to herself she roughly jammed the key in and turned it. There was a soft click and the door opened silently. She entered stealthily and took in her surroundings swiftly. If anyone else was here she didn't want to lose the advantage of surprise. It turned out she didn't need to worry about that. She'd already lost it. Her vengeful eyes took in the scene calmly, her terrified landlord on the floor blood gushing out his nose; the two weasels crouching beside him with knives in their hands. Her eyes narrowed as she saw the knives. She didn't let herself wonder if these were the knives that had stabbed deep into the flesh of the man she'd fallen head over heels for. The two guys looked at each other. Kelner the darker one looked down at the quivering 40 year old asian man on the floor.

"Well we know where she is now. I guess we don't need you." With those indifferent words he twisted the man's head and snapped his neck before his hapless victim could even speak. She smiled, this would be fun. The smile turned into a grimace as she grabbed the door pulled it to her and slammed it hard into the wall. She was rewarded by a sickening crunch followed by a dull thud and the third man, the watchman, fell to the ground his knife driven into his own stomach by the force of the door. She smirked to herself, a whole new meaning to doing yourself in. She slammed the door closed as she strode confidently into her living room as the two mob members rose to meet her. The first one, a short slimly little Italian man with a talent for inflicting pain, dashed at her, his knife close to his side ready to stab her low in the side to puncture her kidneys. She grabbed his knife arm with an unimaginably steely strong grip. It was so strong that he dropped the knife. It hit the floor with a clatter. She kneed him in the groin. He fell like a rock. She grabbed his greasy black hair and slammed his face into the dividing wall between her kitchen and the living room. He fell; she didn't know whether he was dead or not. She had a far bigger problem right then and there. His friend, Kelner, had a gun. Knives were one thing, but guns were another. Her eyes narrowed and she spoke almost casually.

"Ya know… I've never liked guns. Doesn't seem like fair play does it?" He let out a gruff laugh and raised the gun pointing it at her head. He pulled the trigger. The next thing he knew she was behind him, the Italian man's knife at his throat.

"How…?"

"Didn't anyone ever tell you to aim for the bodies center not the head? You miss more often when you aim for the head." With these sage words she pulled the knife hard. His eyes asked how. His mouth moved like a fish's asking the same thing. How.

"I said I didn't like guns. I didn't say I didn't know how to use one or avoid being hit by one." His eyes stared in shock but there was nothing behind them anymore. His malice had left him and was now pooling around his body from the clean gash in his throat. She went to check the Italian. He was alive, but not lucid. She sighed and went into the kitchen. She made herself a white russian and sipped calmly staring out at the evening skyline. She went into her living room and tied up the Italian. His name was Walter Connelli, but for simplicities sake he was the Italian. He awoke groggy but lucid later only to find himself tightly bound in a chair face to face with a woman sipping a white russian and smoking a cigarette seemingly oblivious to the blood on her red tank top and blue jeans.

"So," She let out a smoky breathe, " your awake. Good. This means that I get my answers sooner. What the fuck was Davy boy thinking? Does he really think I'm going to let him get away with this?" She leaned forward and whispered. "Cause, darling, I won't." The Italian stared numbly. His collision with the wall had convinced him he was going to die. This was just the precursor to the hell that awaited him. He began to pray in latin to god to forgive him. She laughed airily and stood up she walked over to him non-chalantly and sat down on his lap facing him.

"Hunny, praying is no use to you now." She set her drink down on the blood-spattered coffee table and took a long drag off her cigarette and blew it into his face.

"And do you know why?" He shook his head and she leaned closer and spoke into his ear.

"Because hun. I am god." She smiled pulling back and seeing the stoic look on his face.

"Do you know why Davy always picked me for the toughest assignments? It's cause he's always known how much I like this part of the job. The part where I worm information out of you by doing terrible things to you. You think that your so tough don't you darling? You'll talk just like all the others. They always do. I know it sounds cliché but I'm very good at making people talk." As she spoke she drew a knife from his ankle sheathe and examined the light reflecting off the blade. She smiled through the cigarette.

"Now then. Let's get this show on the road shall we? How bout we start with where Davy is?" No answer. "Fine. We'll do this the fun way." She set to work with the knife. His screams would be heard by nobody, she'd soundproofed these walls long ago.

Three hours later

The water ran down her body as the blood from the Italian and Kelner ran down the drain. She plotted her next move carefully. The Davy fish was one to be carefully caught. But when she did catch him she'd gut and clean him just like any other. Well… there might be some anger behind this one. She stepped out of the shower combing her hair and slipping into a black leather jacket and black jeans. These were her special jacket and jeans. They had many tools in them that she felt certain she'd need later. Most of these tools were sharp and were not used for woodcarving or the carving of a dinner roast. She grabbed her plain old addidas and some black socks slipping them on swiftly and stalked through her apartment throwing a match over her shoulder as she left. The alcohol in the kitchen would ignite and blow the place to hell and as she left she said a small prayer for her landlord's soul and for her own. She pushed all her doubts and worries away and darted down the steps jumping about half of them with ease and landing in a shoulder roll up on her feet and out the door all within five seconds of the match hitting the floor. She swung herself onto the bike and sped away leaving no skid marks, no trace of her bike being there. That was her job. To leave no trail and to leave none alive. She had always been very good at it, but she didn't want to do this job. She'd always hated it. She recalled how she'd been dragged into this. She had murdered a man who had taken her parent's lives in front of her when she was a little girl. She still remembered her mother shaking her father's still form screaming his name. She closed her eyes in pained memory and almost hit a minivan because of it. She forced her eyes to stay open as she also allowed the first tears their freedom. She remembered that bastards slicked back black hair and cruel smirk. She also remembered his look of pleasure when he'd slit her helpless mothers throat. She remembered her parent's blood staining the beige carpet dark red and she remembered her hurling her 10 year old self at that bastard and ramming him in the gut and at the same time sweeping her right foot to knock his legs out from under him and turning as she fell to land her elbow in his stomach and to land her head in a sharp collision with his knuckles. He recovered before she had and he'd pinned her easily. She still remembered the anger in his eyes as he'd snarled in her ear that he would kill her slow for what she'd done. She remembered forcing herself not to scream as the knife had pierced her innocent ten year old skin and had cruelly torn through her like scissors through tissue paper. She never screamed though. She refused to give him that pleasure. She had waited anger fueling her and holding back the worst of the pain. He'd gotten distracted and she'd pushed him off and ran like the Flash grabbing the doorframe to the bathroom to swing her legs up and kick out the small window. She'd immediately followed the broken glass out the window and a two-story fall and a broken leg later she was out. She'd run to the nearest store and bolted in screaming for help. The manager an aging woman with steely gray hair had called for an ambulance and the police. She remembered the hospital. The blinding white walls and the nurses walking about to change her IV drip. She remembered the constant questioning of the police. She remembered the trial where the paid off jury had declared itself incapable of a decision. She remembered the look of triumph on the bastards face as he'd walked out a free man. She remembered having the nightmares for a year. Waking up every night screaming drenched in sweat. This had gotten her switched from foster home to foster home. When she was eleven she got her chance for vigilante justice. She found him drinking a glass of Jack Daniels and she knew he was still a jackass, murdering, bastard. She wasn't going to let him get away with it. Her eleven year old body moved silently, following him after he left the outdoor restaurant. She had moved stealthily up onto a fire escape knowing that he was going to go down the alley. He vomited behind a dumpster, he had two issues that made him puke, he'd drank too much and he couldn't hold his liquor. She'd dropped down like a cat pouncing on its prey. She'd landed squarely on his back slamming him into his own vomit. She had seen the knife that had taken her parent's lives and her innocence, resting in a sheathe at his side. The bastard carried it. He carried the murder weapon with him. She ripped it out of its cheap leather holder and examined it. The blade was scarred and worn, but it was sharp. The handle was made of cactus and was beautifully carved. All around it was a very delicate and deadly instrument. She had to give the bastard that. He had good choice in knives. He groaned started to come to. She rolled him over and asked him if he remembered her. He stared blankly at her and said no. She had jogged his memory. In a very violent manner. She had slammed the knife handle down into his face again and again. She screamed at him asking him repeatedly if he remembered her. She finally turned the knife around and had driven its point in between his ribs and into his heart severing the pulmonary artery. He had died far to quickly in her opinion. She had taken the knife from him that night. She'd kept it too. After the bastard had let his final breathe escape she'd left that alley determined to live her life as if she'd never seen him. Her past caught up with her a day or two later in the form of a young mobster who had been wondering who killed his best assassin. David Velcher had employed her at age eleven and she'd been working for him ever since. Until now that is. She'd met her last assignment, Nick Stokes, at a Las Vegas hotel called the Orleans. It wasn't an assignment she'd expected to have a problem with. She had been told to use a gun and had been given his name and picture. She had found him without a problem and immediately taken a very strong liking towards the soft-spoken texan. A liking that took very little time to develop into far deeper emotions. That was the only assignment she'd never finished. It was also her last one. Or so she'd thought. Now she had to take an assignment of her own making. She had to kill Velcher. The mob he'd worked so hard to put together would be lost and ripe for arrest. None of the mob members knew her name or her face, she'd always made sure of that. She had only ever dealt with Velcher. Now he would be eliminated. You didn't go after somebody she gave a damn about and live to tell the tale… she'd killed people for less. She sped through a red light and shook herself attentive just in time to avoid ramming into a speeding Porsche Carrera GT. She swore at the driver and at herself. She wasn't really mad at the driver. She knew that if she had that car she would probably speed at every opportunity, plus she had run the red light. She decided not to make an issue of it. She had her Davy fish to fry. It didn't take her very long to find the one star hotel the slimy jackass was staying in. He had chosen to stay at the Golden Palm, it was about a mile off the Vegas strip and had slot machines and had food. That was all David needed. She slowed down and slinked the bike into a parking spot a block away from the hotel. She strode confidently and inconspicuously down the sidewalk ignoring everybody around her as she tunneled in on the hotel. She entered the lobby calmly and immediately walked toward the elevators like she belonged there a bellhop came over to ask if she needed directions and she gave him her look of death and he backed away wordlessly. The hotel door closed on the kids face and he privately hoped that he hadn't soiled himself. He'd seen the murder in her eyes and hoped to god never to see that woman again. She spent the ride up the deserted elevator psyching herself up for what she was about to do. The doors slid open and she stepped out nothing but death and rage in her bluer than blue eyes. The door she wanted was to the left of the elevator and down the dimly lit hall. Her eyes narrowed looking for any signs of a booby trap. He had to know she wasn't going to take this laying down. He had to know she'd go after him. She sighed thinking all the traps lay inside the room at the end of the hall. She had already made her way down the hall without even realizing it. She made the decision that silence would do her little good. She would need to be straightforward about this. She did the simplest thing in the world to get into the room where her soon to be victim waited. She knocked on the door. It took him a moment to answer and he didn't look at all surprised to see her.

"Come in." She had entered calmly understanding that they were going to have to play a verbal game of cat and mouse before anybody died. He closed the door and slid the deadbolt into place and the chain as well. She raised an eyebrow.

"Getting paranoid in your old age." He gave an easy laugh and moved faster than she'd realized he could and lifted her off of the ground pinning her against the wall by her throat. She remained calm and hid the fact that she was now concerned about how easy it would be to kill him.

"You don't ever call me old you foolish bitch! Especially not after that little stunt you pulled!" His anger did not fade but he released her. She landed on the floor breathing deeply. She would not gasp for air like her burning lungs begged her to. She stood up and faced him with an air of indifference about what he had just done.

"So why are you here?" He asked although he knew the answer. He had dropped into a stiff looking office chair like it was the softest bed in the world. The man was not normal and she could not allow herself to underestimate him. He reclined seemingly relaxed. He had overdone the relaxed. He had gone so far as to wear gray sweatpants and a loose cream turtleneck with the sleeves pushed up. He wanted her to think he was relaxed. She analyzed this deciding that this meant he knew she wasn't here to apologize.
"Why didn't you do your job?" He inquired eyeing her suspiciously. She leaned back against the wall and crossed her arms. She decided to tell him the truth. He had helped her out in the past. He should at least know why.

"I couldn't do it." He raised his eyebrows. His expression demanded more information.

"This one was different. All the others I've killed… all of them. They all had done something to deserve it. Nick was clean, innocent. I have never considered my job murder. I have always believed murder required the dead party to be innocent. I will never be a murderer." She paused watching his expression. He inhaled deeply and crossed his arms the other way.

"That's not all is it?" She shook her head. She bit her lip. This wasn't something she wanted to tell him.

"Well?" He asked expectantly. She glared at him, he didn't look phased.

"I think I love him." He sat up and uncrossed his arms. He hadn't expected that. His eyes flashed angrily.

"What?"

"I think I love him." She felt more sure as she said it that it was true. She had fallen in love with her assignment and it was turning her dark little world upside down.

"Well that's too damn bad." Said David anger quite apparent in his voice. She looked up at him sharply, the anger that had began to dissipate from her eyes, was back in full force and she wielded it like the sharpest sword.

"What do you mean?" David could her the rage in her voice and knew despite his best efforts he would not be able to stand up to this woman in a fight. He needed to tread carefully. These were dangerous waters. She stayed against the wall but she was itching to pace the small room. She wanted to bash David's face in. He wanted to keep her from the first thing that truly made her happy in 23 years. What was the worst about it was that David had dragged his world and had stuck Nick and his friends into it. That had gotten one of their number killed. She knew how the woman had been killed. David had not had the intention of killing Nick. He hadn't used a steel pipe on Nick. He had wanted Nick to live. Nick would live and he would be fine. None of his injuries couldn't he completely healed by modern medicine. She would heal the mental ones herself, as soon as she dealt with David. She pushed herself off the wall and walked over to where David sat looking rather uncomfortable.

"Look here. This is how it breaks down. You had an assignment. The guy wasn't innocent. Nobody is innocent. You've told me that yourself." David was trying to reason for his life and they both knew it. He had forgotten how dangerous she was. He pushed his chair back as far as it would go as she continued to approach him. The Erinye took over her senses and she saw only her target. He scrambled up the chair and back onto the desk as she closed in drawing out the knife he knew had killed her parents, scarred her, and killed its original owner. Anger outweighed fear for a moment.

"I PUT THIS MOB TOGETHER! I KEPT YOU OUT OF PRISON AND OFF THE STREETS! THIS IS HOW YOU REPAY ME?" She stalked up to him unaffected. She had him backed into a corner so scared he couldn't even run. She had the knife pointed at a rather fearful place for a man and she leaned in speaking in his ear.

"I put this mob together. I'm the one who took care of you. You would get nightmares in the night and I'd go kill them for you. I'm the one who made you safe. And how did you repay me? You dragged the man I love down into this deep dark pit that is your world. You had the indecency to not confront me but to go after him. You stupid son of bitch!" With this she stabbed and slammed her hand over his mouth to stifle his screams. Even if she had decided to let him live he would not have let her, not after what she had just done to him. She would now have to kill him or be killed by him. Either way she had no way out now, not that she wanted one. She had a self-imposed mission and she would carry it out with as little fuss as possible… and as much sadistic vengeance as possible. He lunged at her blood now staining his light gray sweatpants she stepped to the side and grabbed him around as he fell she then slammed her knee into his stomach both knocking the wind out of him and effectively pinning him. She stabbed him a few more times and let him fall to the ground clutching at his wounds trying to stop the bleeding. She wiped the knife disinterestedly on the peach bedspread and slipped it back into the inside of her waistband where its sheathe was concealed. She watched David Velcher bleed to death and as the last light began to flicker out of his coal black eyes she whispered to him a phrase that she had heard,

"God hath no wrath like a woman scorned. You hurt Nick and that was scornful to me. You tried to hurt me through him. You didn't even bother to give me the honor of personally hunting me down; instead you had your lackeys do that. They're dead by the way." At this point David didn't look like he much cared about anything. He was too far gone. She crouched down by him and studied him in a manner that suggested she thought he was an interesting bug that was meant to be squished all over the pavement.

"That, my dear Davy, is scorn if I've ever felt it. By the way…" She leaned down to his ear and whispered into it. His eyes widened and looked shocked. Then the light disappeared and his breathing stopped. She studied him a moment more before patting his shoulder in a casual and friendly manner before walking out of the hotel room and her old life. The bellhop saw her stride out of the elevator a few minutes later and he looked for a place to hide before realizing she'd flashed him the most dazzling and shy smile he'd ever seen. He stood gawking at her like an idiot convinced that this angel of beauty couldn't be the woman with the damning stare that screamed of death that he had seen enter. She wasn't the same woman in some ways. That woman had been left in the hotel room with David Velcher.