"There you are my little assassin."
My gaze moves up to where Fang is lying casually in a tree, toying with the edge of a razor-tipped arrow.
"I'm here," I say roughly. Just looking at him makes me so angry, I wonder how fast he can catch a flying knife. "What do you want?"
"No hello?" he tears open the edge of his sleeve with the arrow and his arch tone just irritates me more. "I just want a friendly chat. How did you like my snake fang trick? I knew you'd appreciate it."
"You didn't call me here in the middle of the day to make small talk," my hand twitches toward my belt. "So I'll ask again. What do you want?"
"So impatient," Fang clicks his tongue before he leaps out of the tree, landing only a few inches away from me. "You should be more careful with that. We don't want history to repeat itself, do we?"
"Just tell me what you want so I can go," I look away from him.
"Of course," Fang nods beneath his hood. "I wouldn't want to keep you from your job, would I?"
When I don't answer, Fang stalks closer.
"Don't forget why you're there, Ash," he circles behind me. "Your job is to kill the ninja, not become their mascot."
"I told you already, I can't-"
Fang cuts me off as he shoves me against a tree painfully. He pins me there with his body, one arm on either side of my head. The arrow he was holding thuds into the wood just next to my ear.
"You can and you will," he growls angrily. "You follow my orders, and I didn't order you to make friends. Unfortunately, you can't seem to grasp that concept. So here's your ultimatum: if those ninja aren't dead by the end of this week, your father is dead and your cute little reputation with be nothing but dust. And once they know what you've done, I will make you kill them painfully, one by one. I wanted to make this easy for you to do- maybe a vial of poison or a trap- but if you continue to ignore me I'll force you to kill them with your own hands."
"You can't force me," I spit back. "I won't do it."
"Really?" Fang puts a hand against my face and a sudden intense pain pierces my head like a thousand rivets melting into my skin, enough to make me scream.
"I can control you like this," I hear Fang's voice magnified in my head with excruciating echoes. "Stay on the path you're one now and I'll make sure that the last thing your friends see is your knife in their hearts. You have until the end of the week to kill them yourself. After that you have no choice."
Fang disappears into the trees, and I collapse on the ground, face streaming and body aching from what he's done to me. I've never heard of anyone who could control someone just by touching them. My dad, Sensei Wu, Nya, Zane, Jay, Kai, Cole- they're all in danger and I can't do anything to stop it.
How am I supposed to fix this?