CHAPTER ONE
The only objects that sat between the pair were the gleaming ebony revolver, the opened flask of gin, and the dead body.
Angel Haddox allowed herself a prolonged sigh, if not a deliberate one, as her upper half grew lax, her head falling between her bent knees and her arms draping over them.
Flynn Finesse, glitter-shot bottle in hand, gave her side a gentle nudge with his left hand. "Hey, why the attitude, Haddox?" he implored somewhat tipsily for it had been he who had consumed most of the near-empty bottle.
She shrugged absentmindedly, raising her head slightly and twining her fingers in her flaxen hair. She tried with a passion to study nothing but the tips of her sullied boots, yet her eyes deceived her as they fell to the corpse at her feet. A shudder wrought its way down her backbone as she regarded the carelessly sprawled limbs and the congealed blood that had run from the right temple. The fallen watched her with open eyes with its mouth twisted into a queer grin-a sinister grin.
Angel shook her head in disgust as she raised her right foot and quickly closed the corpse's eyes with the tip of her boot.
Flynn noticed this odd behavior out of his peripheral vision and cocked his head towards her, lowering the gin bottle. "What's all this, Angel?" he asked, motioning towards the cadaver.
Angel raised a brow; her gaze still transfixed upon the corpse. "What's what?" she murmured.
"This!" Flynn replied darkly, touching the base of the bottle to the body's forehead.
She turned her eyes towards him. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Oh, right, Angel, you don't know," he countered through a belch. "Angel, you just killed the sonofabitch that your brother wanted dead. And, boy was he a hard sucker to get! You should be helping me down this here bottle in celebration, not me doing all the damned drinking-"
Her back grew rigid as she turned on him suddenly, her steel eyes flashing. "No, Flynn, I think you've done enough drinking for the both of us. You know, you sound exactly like Nero when you're drunk. One Nero Night is enough to last me a whole lifetime."
His brows knitted together in intoxicated rage. "Hey, is that an insult?"
Angel released a repulsed groan. "Don't flatter yourself, Flynn. You know damned well that being related to Night is ten times worse than someone spitting on your mother's grave."
Flynn pondered this as he fell back on his elbows, the rough cement of the stoop digging into the flesh. A strand of blond hair fell carelessly across his brow. He did not care to flick it away. "I know, Angel. I shouldn't have said that."
She released a grand sigh as she too fell to her elbows, the crown of her inclined head brushing his shoulder. The last time she had looked at the sky it had been a dark shade of velvety black and the cold stars had been quite prominent. Though, now, the sun was beginning to rise, and the east horizon was smattered with the faintest traces of pinks and pale yellows at the arrival of the lordly star.
"All night. It took us all night, Flynn, to track him down."
Flynn snorted, casting his eyes to the lifeless body. "Yeah, but usually it don't take that long. Usually we're back in Midtown by sunrise."
A silence fell between the pair as they sat reclined side-by-side, viewing as the darkness faded and as the first signs of daybreak became apparent.
"Flynn?" Angel said after a few moments that had seemed like hours, rupturing the silence.
"Um?" he dreamily replied.
"You know why we killed him, didn't you?" she asked.
Flynn elicited a great yawn as he raised an arm above his head before bending it and shoving it down his shirt collar where his gnawed fingernails drove themselves into his skin, trying to soothe an itch. "I don't know, Ang. Someone who did something to make Oliver mad as hell…"
"No," she said curtly, pulling herself into a sitting position. The words fell from her tongue in such a manner as though she despised to utter them. "No, Flynn. He was just a Bronx newsie, a stupid goddamn Bronx newsie who just happened to get a little ways off his turf and happen to run into my brother and look at him the wrong way." Her knees curled to her chest, she shifted her despairing gaze to Flynn who regarded her with intensity as he lay on his back. "And we don't even have any riffs with the Bronx. Ace Forrester's never done a single damned thing to Oliver and he has to go and…" She turned her head to regard the corpse. "He just looked at Oliver the wrong way-no, he probably just looked at Oliver. Probably just looked at him and Oliver thought that he would look mighty nice with a bullet in his damn skull.." Her voice began to falter.
Flynn immediately sat up, his jade eyes alive with vehemence as he placed a heavy hand on Angel's shoulder. "Angel, what in the hell is wrong with you? What in the hell are you talking about? You never went on like this before…"
She angrily wretched free of him as she raised her stormy gaze from her knees to view once more the fallen cadaver that was washed with the first brilliant streaks of daylight. "I'm not going on, Finesse, I'm not going on! I just-for these past few shootings I've been thinking. I mean, Oliver gives me my orders because somebody wronged him in some stupid way and then in the darkest hours of the night, I have to go and track them down. And sometimes I don't get to them in time and they recognize me. And they plead for their lives, oh Christ, they plead. And they sob like babies, that's what they do, and here I am with a revolver pointed at their head and I have to listen to their bullshit. It never affected me like this. I didn't give a damn about shooting them when we weren't on the truce with Brooklyn and they was killing us. Then, it was a free-for-all. No guilt getting in the way. But now, I swear he's lost it. He wants me to kill people that just look at him the wrong way for Christ's sake!" She inhaled deeply, raising her eyes to the expanding sunrise. Her eyes wild, she tossed the unfinished bottle of gin at the star, seeing if she could somehow hit it. "I never even wanted to do this shit anyway! I never wanted to, goddamn him!"
A heavy silence filled the air between them. Flynn released a heavy exhalation as he allowed his gaze to flicker towards the fallen Bronx newsie and back to Angel once more. "Angel, pull yourself together," he said breathlessly, firmly. "You're an assassin. A Midtown assassin. Oliver Haddox's own private assassin. I've never seen you like this. Usually if anyone has a problem, it's me. You're usually like Nero; you keep your emotions out of it. You have to keep to that, Angel, you have to. Because if you don't-"
"If I don't what?" Angel hissed, her eyes glittering with a fire. "I know I'm going to hell already. So If I don't do what, Flynn? What is it we 'don't do' anyway? We are fucking kids shooting people. Shooting kids. Am I supposed to do this for the rest of my life just because he commands me too? Can I help it if I'm developing a-" And she halted, a sudden terrible fear welling in the depths of her soul of the word she had almost uttered. She inhaled deeply and forced her unbridled emotions to be collected well enough so that Flynn would just think it a passing symptom. Her eyes narrowed and any emotion that had been displayed in them before was clouded over. "I am pulled together, Finesse."
And, as though to add more evidence to her statement, she picked up the revolver that lay at her feet with a flourish, and in a passion emptied the remaining bullets into the dead body. Even after the cadaver was through doing its sickening dance as each shot struck it, their echoes still rang in the lightening sky.
Flynn turned towards Angel, his heart racing in his chest. "Jesus Christ, Angel! Do you really think I like sitting on a damn stoop in the Bronx with a cheap bottle of gin and a dead body at my feet? Do you really think I like doing this? Murdering people who I don't even know? It's my job, Angel. I told you, I am an assassin. First it was Lyner and now it's your brother. I wish I could say that I don't get my feelings involved, that I can't get my feelings involved. But sometimes the part of the soul that I have left in me leaps out at the exact wrong fucking moments and makes me sorry I shot them. Of course, I'm not as strong as the others. So some of my emotions come into it as I kill them? So, what if I have a conscience? But it's money, Angel. And protection. Life is a bitch that doesn't care and sometimes you have to do shit that you don't want to do to even stay fucking alive. Do you think-"
Yet, Angel halted his remaining words, as she had risen abruptly to her feet and released a marvelous shriek at the infernal word. "And what, Flynn? I don't have a conscience? Just because you feel mercy before you so kindly blow their heads off, that makes you a fucking saint, Flynn? You're a murderer, Flynn, a good for nothing murder. Jesus Christ won't give a fuck how much you plead with him when you are dead about how you felt a little pity for 'em before you killed 'em. He'll just look at you like all the rest of the world does-a lousy, good for nothing bum. So you have a conscience, Flynn. And I don't?" "
Her voice was filled with passion and ardor, as though her immortal soul depended on the one answer that was elicited from Flynn Finesse.
He looked up at her, as her eyes burnt into his and her chest heaved, and simply replied, "No."
The answer ripped its way throughout Angel's insides, causing alien tears to brim in her eyes, as she felt emotions. She did not feel emotions, she could not feel emotions, yet she was experiencing them in all their agonizing glory. As she stood with the revolver lax in her grasp and her lips quivering, she felt like an utter idiot in the eyes of Flynn.
Jumbled, confused thoughts seemed to collide within her mind as she felt herself being regarded beneath his seemingly burning glare. She searched desperately for some sort of statement to respond with, yet when she finally opened her mouth she did not recall what she had said.
"Go to hell, Finesse! Go to hell, you lousy, fucking murderer! Stop walking on airs. You have no fucking soul."
She then turned and stumbled off the stoop that was located under the deserted building in the Bronx, stepped over her victim, and blindly made her way home.
Angel finally reached the abandoned warehouse that her brother and his minions called home when sunlight illuminated the world and the new day had begun. She threw herself inside the main doors, distraught and disgusted, her head down and her only wish to flee up the endless flights of stairs and to the third floor and the forsaken mattress in which slumber could overtake her for the day.
She fancied herself disgraceful and dirty, as though the unshed tears that were on the verge of making their journey down her cheeks were a betrayal to her brother, to Midtown-to herself. It was not the bitter sense of sorrow she was experiencing yet the excruciating irritability for allowing her emotions to interfere with her work.
Her gait brisk, she thrust herself through the decrepit first floor of the warehouse and up the flight of stairs to the second floor. All the boys resided on the second floor and Angel desired with a passion that she would not happen to encounter one-especially Oliver-in the state that she was in. Alas, fate was not on her side that particular morning for just as she rounded a corner she found none other than her brother himself.
She released a gasp, placing a hand to her mouth. The fright was not from the meeting of a fellow Midtowner, on the contrary, it was the fear that Angel had built up inside of her mind if one of them were to espy her on the experiencing these unfamiliar emotions.
She stepped back, her steel-gray eyes waxed, as she regarded his brother. From afar, it would have seemed a radical and ludicrous notion that Oliver Haddox could instill utter fear into the hearts of others, yet a glance closer would convince one otherwise. He reeked of something that was not physical-Angel often associated it wish the smell of death after one of her slayings. She often regarded her personality the doppelganger of his, as he was of fair height with lanky, accentuated limbs. A mop of dingy brown hair always covered his sharp, malicious eyes. The searing eyes that bore down upon her now.
"Angel," he said softly, his thin lips pulling themselves into a sinister smile, revealing his jagged, yellow teeth. "Since you are back I take it that you did it?"
She felt her breath bate in her throat as those eyes burned into her face; she knew that he was observing the watering in the creases of her eyes. She prepared to answer, when she saw Nero Night appear at his brother's side. His stature comically diminutive next to Oliver, he was wringing a towel between his hand and his jet-black hair was slick with water.
"Haddox," Nero said in his a voice as oily as his hair, letting his eyes wanders along her body before meeting her eyes. He placed the still damp towel around his bare neck. He was a plump, stocky boy with skinned tanned quickly by the summer's sun. He stared at her with eyes that always looked tired from beneath his deeply-hooded lids. "I see you knocked the bastard off. I was afraid that you had lost your nerve there for a moment."
Angel felt her face heat to a stunning shade of crimson, as she suddenly became aware of the revolver that was being loosely held in her right hand. How exquisite it would have been to aim at Nero Night's head and kill him once and for all. Alas, her bullets had been stupidly wasted on the corpse and Oliver would have her skinned alive for killing his right-hand man.
"Nero," she replied in a tone just as light. "Go fuck yourself."
Nero's eyes lost their smugness as they glittered dangerously. Though, she was in no eminent danger for this produced a sick grin on Oliver's behalf.
"Well, I must say good work, Angel, good work. I am only sad to say that it wasn't one of Brooklyn and one of the Bronx," Oliver hissed. His gaze suddenly halted then upon her eyes. "Why, dear sister, are you crying?"
Angel drew in a deep breath as Night's eyes shone brighter than the sun outside. She stepped backwards, flustered. "Of course not! Why in the hell would I be crying…"
"I don't know, Ang," Nero sighed. "All these killings, it might be too much for your feminine ways.."
Though, his words were soon murdered as with great fluidity, Angel had reached under her trouser leg and retrieved her back-up dagger for only dire emergencies. She then took the liberty of wearing a countenance of sheer hatred as she drew back her arm and sent the blade hurling over his head. The blade struck the wall behind Night just as he fell to his haunches and cocked his head wildly around.
Curses bluer than a summer sky benediction were then produced from Nero as he slowly, and shakily, raised himself to his feet. Angel had her way past him, her narrow eyes lingering on him, as she removed the blade from the wall with one sharp tug. She then kissed the blade in Night's direction, who elicited only more oaths.
Though, it wasn't Night's approval she was seeking, and her gaze flickered quickly to Oliver. She was quite relieved to find that his eyes glittered with grotesque amusement-Oliver Haddox was one of claret and was quickly excited by at the prospect of bloodshed.
Her eyes returned once more to Nero Night who hadn't presumably taken the warning she had uttered to him a fortnight ago to heed by the incredibly pale shade of white his flesh had taken on. He regarded her, his black eyes wide. "Angel, you are fu-"
Though, Angel did not allow him time to finish as she brushed past him, whispering in his ear the parting words of, "Just be glad that my gun wasn't loaded or I wouldn't have missed, Night. That's a goddamned promise."
She then quickly made her way to the second flight of stairs, flashing her unloaded weapon at any of the dressing newsies who happen to position themselves in the hallway and greet her with lewd statements. She climbed the creaky stairs in a whisper and was finally to the third floor of the warehouse, her quarters.
The warehouse was a great hulking building situated on the southern side of Midtown. At one time, it had housed a factory of some sort when that area of New York had attested to a boom, though that boom had quickly faltered and the factory had closed its doors forever. It had then become a meat- storage warehouse run between two brothers, yet the one brother had cheated with the other's wife or something of that sort and in a jealous rage the forsaken brother had torched the building-while his kin and wife were having sex on the third floor.
After the double homicide, the warehouse had sat desolate and decrepit, observing like a silent sentinel as a spectacularly dark wave of crime and violence swept over the area. The whitecap of that wave of violence had been none other than Oliver Haddox, who had adopted the old building as his own and converted it into one of the most fearsome areas this side of New York.
Though, Angel did not find the residence the least bit fear inducing as she wearily pulled herself up the last remaining steps and finally to the third floor. The third floor of the warehouse had always tacitly belonged to her- the others knew to stay away for they knew that they would be met with her glimmering revolver if they were to step foot upon it. It was nothing special indeed, it was incredibly dusty and cobwebs laced the charred rafters. A repulsive mattress lay in a corner to the left wing, a few yards away from a smeared window that allowed shafts of light to create bars on the antediluvian floorboards.
She released a great exhalation and her shoulders rounded as she wearily made her way to the mattress, before falling upon it in a grand heap. Pushing loose strands of her honeyed-hued hair off her brow, she shimmied up the right cuff of her trousers as she once more placed the glittering blade inside its rightful sheath that was wrapped about her upper calf. Exhaustion beginning to make its appearance known, she was about to fall back on the flat mattress and allow slumber to overtake her, when her hand suddenly fell to the revolver that lay beside her. With yet another sigh, she begrudgingly reloaded it with fresh bullets before sliding it under her moth eaten pillow.
And then, just as morning touched the land, Angel fell back to her pillow and was immediately touched by sleep, a sleep that was quite troubling, indeed.
***
A gentle nudge on her torso awoke Angel Haddox. She released a groan as her features twisted involuntarily into an expression of irritability.
"Angel, hey, c'mon, Angel wake up," a soft voice whispered into her ear.
Alas, slumber still impaired her better judgment and without even thinking for a twain time, she had reached under the pillow and grasped her revolver, cocking the trigger and pointing it blindly at the intruder. It was only when she cracked her eyes partially cracked, that they opened to their entirety and she lowered the gun, realizing whom she had pointed the weapon at.
Flynn was crouched to the right of the mattress and his features relatively calm. The beams of sun that shot through the window caused his golden features to come alive and rival him to Hyperion.
Sleep was soon banished from Angel's psyche as she immediately jolted to a sitting position, her eyes wide and full lips gaping. "Oh, God, Flynn! Christ, what are you doing? I could have blown your head off!"
A grin crossed over his mouth as he made himself at home on her mattress, falling next to her. "And I forgive you too, Angel Haddox."
She cocked a brow as she lowered the revolver, placing in its rightful place under the pillow. "Well, I think I would have killed Nero this morning if I hadn't emptied my last shots into the stiff-" Her words immediately died as realization of the previous night and that early morning flooded her mind once more. Her eyes were full of repentance as they fell to Flynn. "Oh, Flynn, you had to get rid of the stiff all by yourself-I never meant for that to happen…"
He was silent for a moment as he reached into his pocket, pulling out in a flourish a cigarette and a match. Placing the cigarette loosely between his lips, he raised a foot and struck the match on the sole of his shoe so it ignited into a blaze. He then lit his cigarette and inhaled deeply, closing his deep green eyes for a moment. As he exhaled a great ring of smoke, they opened in all their cat-like wisdom. His bright hair, which was usually pulled into a queue was loose and touched his shoulders. He brushed a strand carelessly out of his eyes. "It's not like I haven't got rid of a dead body before, Angel," he responded while shaking out the match. "I mean, I did odd-jobs here and there knocking off people before I got sucked into
"Yeah, but you're not like them," Angel replied as she held out her hand for Flynn to give her a drag.
A smile crossed his lips as he watched her inhale on his cigarette. "And, Angel Haddox, no matter what you say, you're not, nor will you ever be like them."
Her storm-gray eyes opened wide in protest as she glowered at Flynn, yet his smile only grew broader. "No, Angel, I've known you for only the past two years but I think-I know- you better than your own self. No matter how hard you try to act like your brother, even if you do almost succeed the majority of the times, you'll never have as much hate inside you as him."
Angel observed him as he pulled his legs onto the mattress and as he fell against it, his hands behind his head and his ankles crossed. The sun highlighted his fair features and the smooth lines of his face as he closed his eyes and basked in the warmth.
She released a sigh as she turned forward again, listlessly tapping the cigarette and watching as the deadened ashes fell to the decrepit floorboards below. "Well, you could have fooled them," she finally replied. "Everyone else thinks of me as an Oliver only with tits. They think me bloodthirsty." She twisted her torso suddenly and fell to the mattress on her stomach beside Flynn, her hair falling down her shoulder.
Flynn lazily opened one eye and watched her as she continued. "I mean, you're the only one in the world that I can tell this kind of shit too. Anyone would else would think that I was cracking, losing my nerve. They only know my take-no-shit attitude and my revolver and that I don't give a damn who I shoot, that you don't cross me." She halted as she lowered her gaze to the sullied pillow. "You were saying those things today, about getting your emotions involved?"
"Yeah?" he inquired, his other eye cracking open.
Her gaze flickered to his again. "I was thinking what you said, that I was supposed to be like Nero-like Oliver-and not get my emotions involved. You then said that I was getting them involved, though, but then, then you said I had no…" Her voice lost her as she felt the alien pit form in her stomach.
Flynn rolled onto his side, his features somber, as he placed his right palm on the side of Angel's face, inclining it towards him. "Angel, I don't know what I was saying. You've always had a conscience. No matter how much Oliver's influenced you, you've always had a conscience."
Angel's hazy steel eyes met his. "Then I don't want one. I want it to be like before. When I could just kill and get this insane-almost lusty-high off of it. Now, now it hurts. How do you do it, Flynn? How in the hell do you do it?"
Flynn lowered his hand to his side and elicited a sigh, as he deeply pondered the question. He finally replied. "Because, Angel, I know of nothing else. I'm not that smart, I can't read or write so well and, as much as I hate to say it, killing is the only occupation that a bummer like me would be good at. I'd rather be where I am now-under Oliver's wing-than be out of his favor. I of course have emotions when I kill, and try as hard as I can they sometimes come through, but I do what I do and that is a good trade in Oliver's eyes. He uses my relentlessness just as he uses yours- others may mistake that for cold-bloodedness."
Angel viewed as the sunlight played upon his sullen features, her lips quivering slightly for the second time that day. "Flynn, how in the hell can you say that about yourself? You are one of the most intelligent people I know."
He lifted his blazing eyes to hers. "Intelligent? I can't even read or write for Christ's sake…"
"To hell with reading and writing!" she contradicted passionately. "Flynn, you have a mind, one of those minds that is just deep…"
He snorted. "A deep mind? Where in the hell will that get me, Angel? What, I could set up a booth in the middle of a street with a fucking banner that reads FIVE CENTS: GET DEEP THOUGHTS FROM NEWSIE."
Angel winced at his caustic words, her temper getting the best of her. "Flynn, you can be so goddamn stupid sometimes. I'm just worried that I will never get out of here. That I will always live in this shithole and kill people just because they looked at my brother the wrong way."
There was a heated silence before Flynn shattered it with his cooling voice. "Ah, Jesus Christ, Angel, of course things won't always be like this for you. You have so much and you don't even know it."
She regarded him, her eyes waxing as he continued, an amused smile dancing upon the corners of his mouth. "You know I'd ravage you in the blink of an eye right here and now if I didn't consider you like a sister, Haddox. Things will happen for you, mark my words."
Angel was unable to hide her brilliant smile. She fell back against the pillow with him, their golden-shot hair overlapping on the cloth, as her glittering eyes regarded the ceiling before shifting to him. "Speaking of ravaging," she said after a few moments. "This is where those two were going at it like rabbits when the one loony torched the warehouse."
Flynn shook his head. "You and your asinine antidotes."
Angel then inclined her head so that she could observe the bright sun that filtered in through the cobweb-laced window. "Hey, Flynn, what time is it anyway?'
Flynn shared in her angle of vision. "It was around three when I came up here. Was too damned tired to do anything today. Not to mention I had a wonderful hang-over from that shit gin you hawked, Haddox."
"Christ," she yawned, stretching her arms over her head, "I haven't eaten a lick all day."
This prompted Flynn to slowly rise to his feet, offering his hand to Angel. "Well then c'mon, Haddox, what the hell you just sitting there for?"
Angel's lips were pulled back in a grin as she took his warm hand within hers and rose to hers, also. Flynn then turned, his gnawed fingers finding their way through his shock of white-blonde hair and the areas of his neck as he scratched the itch that always seemed to haunt him eternally. She followed in his footsteps, an idiotic smirk upon her lips, when she abruptly halted, a shadow falling over her countenance, causing her smile to shatter. She then turned her head, her whole body then following, as she strode over to the mattress, falling to her haunches and reaching under the pillow and revealing the revolver.
She turned her hand, as the revolver glimmered prismatically in the sunlight. She was bound to this cold, ebony assassin whether she like it or not. It was though she had signed her life away in blood to always care for it. With a dejected sigh, she placed the revolver within the waist of her trousers and slowly rose, turning once more and proceeding to catch up with Flynn.