Chapter two! Yay!

I've never really written action scenes before, so I'm sorry if they're a little bland. I'm trying lol


What a crazy fucking dream was the first thought that came to me and I strained my closed eyes against the sudden brightness of my window. Even through my eyelids, the light of the rising sun was blinding.

I turned over, then groaned loudly at a sudden ache in my left leg. Fluttering my eyes opened, I realized I was not in my room. And the light blaring down on me was not the sun.

I was in a room that looked almost like a hospital. Three walls were plain white, with no decoration. Only cabinets full of bottles with pills, liquids, and every odd thing in between. There were also bandages and small metal tools that looked like surgical equipment. I was laying on a bed that looked, and felt, more like an examination table than anything. A blinding white light hovered over me, obstructing my vision even more against the ceiling lights behind it.

"Mornin'!" A girl cheered next to me. I blinked a few more times, her picture becoming clearer as my eyes adjusted to the light of the room. She sat on a stool, leaning onto the table with a friendly smile. Her hair, like the other girl I had seen, was short, though this one was almost orange in color. She wore a white headband. Her eyes were friendly, also unlike the other girl, and green.

"Uh…" I sat up, cringing once again at the pain in my leg. My gaze fluttered down to it, and I felt a blush rise to my face as I realized my jeans were gone, leaving me in my boxers.

"Sorry," she said, amused. "Couldn't really wrap you up with those jeans on."

My left knee was wrapped in gauze. Comparing the sizes of both legs, I could tell it was swollen as hell.

"Where am I?" I asked, looking around the room once more. I discovered a few more cabinets full of medical supplies, along with a confusing machine next to me that I was (thankfully) not hooked up to. The wall across from my bed was made of paneled glass, with a doorless archway serving as the room's exit. Through the glass, I could see a circular room with its main feature being a long, dark table stretching across it. There were three chairs on either side, with one more on each end. Of the eight, four of them were filled. Another girl with hair similar to my nurse was facing away from me, combing her fingers through her ponytail. The guy with pink hair who had driven the semi was sitting next to her. A third person I had never seen before, and the only one in the room not wearing the same dark outfit, was watching along with the people next to her as the blonde girl who'd ambushed me in my apartment spoke to them intently. I could hear her voice, but could not decipher her words.

The girl on the stool sighed. "Look. It's kind of… a big deal that you're here," she explained. "I'm Anon," she chirped.

Finally, I thought. A name that makes sense.

"You… you were on the radio," I said, a hand traveling to feel a throbbing spot on my head.

"Yup! I'm the computer girl. And sometimes the nurse."

My eyes fell on the people behind her. Anon swerved on her stool, waving at the four of them. The girl giving her speech looked over, along with the rest of them, and frowned.

And then they all rose, walking towards us.

"Um…" I felt suddenly nervous.

"Don't worry," Anon said. "They won't bite. Unless you, like, bite first." She sounded so cheerful. I couldn't imagine how, or why, she felt the need to talk so happily.

A mixture of confusion and fear ran through me as the others entered the room, every one of them surveying me like an animal they were about to purchase. Only Sniper Girl hung back, crossing her arms and leaning against the archway. All of them wore the same uniforms, except for the tall girl I hadn't seen before.

"About time," the pink-haired guy chuckled. "I thought you were never gonna get up."

"How long have I been-"

"Almost two days," Anon answered for me.

"What?"

"I think the pain kept you knocked out." She nodded to my bandaged knee. Oh yeah. All these strangers are looking at me in my boxers right now. Great.

"Where am I?" I repeated.

They all exchanged glances. Anon sighed. "I think I'll introduce you first." She pointed to each one of them. "This," she began, pointing to the girl who had filed in next to her, "Is Kanon, my sister. That's Yuma, with the pink hair. Next to him is Flower. And in the doorway," she pointed over everyone, despite being a few feet shorter when sitting down. "Is Rin."

Rin. The one who had been trying to kill someone in my apartment when I came home.

"And… why were you guys in my apartment?"

Yuma sighed. "We were… borrowing it."

"We were supposed to be, at least," Rin muttered.

"Look, I said I was sorry-"

"Why'd you come home early?" Kanon asked. I recognized all their voices from the radio except for Flower's, who hadn't spoken yet. I realized with a start that her eyes were bright purple. Are those contacts?

"...I mean, I left because it was my Grandpa's funeral-"

"Yeah, yeah," Yuma waved a hand, interrupting me. "We know that. Why did you come home the day of the funeral instead of Monday, like you were supposed to?"

"What? How did you-"

"Just answer the question."

I eyed the five of them suspiciously. Even if they were all acting sketchy as hell, one of them had pulled me out of gunfire, and another had nursed me back to health. But they're the reason you're in this situation in the first place. Point is, they seemed nice enough. I guess.

"...I had a fight with my family. They didn't want me to go. So I didn't."

"And why weren't we tracking you?" Rin asked, looking at Yuma accusingly.

"I had the thing in his phone! It should have-"

"Oh," I chuckled. "Yeah. It's broken. Still in Florida. Probably in the dumpster by now."

The entire room let out an exasperated sigh at once.

"Fuck," Kanon said, turning away from us.

Anon frowned. "We were so close-"

"What were you guys… uh, doing in my apartment? Exactly?"

There it was again. That silence. Those exchanged looks.

"Listen here, dude." Rin suddenly stepped forward, pushing Anon's seat out of the way as she leaned onto the table, her hands pressing down against the surface for support. "I'm about to explain all of this to you. And once I do, you're gonna have two options."

"...okay?"

"They aren't really… options," Anon said softly.

"You're two options are as follows. One, you join us. Two, you die."

"Whoa whoa whoa," I said, holding my hands up. "What even-"

"I told you. You just had the unluckiest day of your life. Now, do you want to hear what I'm about to say, or not?"

I didn't really consider dying to be an option. "Yeah. Sure. Go ahead."

Rin stood tall and took a deep breath.

"What you just came home to was an assassination in progress. And, because you walked in when I didn't expect you to, I missed my shot." She shot an annoyed glance at Yuma and continued. "So the target's guards were alerted. Either you came with me, or they would have killed you. Or worse, taken you in for questioning."

An uncomfortable silence hung in the air as she paused. I had a feeling questioning was more like

"Torture, basically. Anyway. You came with us in the truck and knocked yourself out, so we loaded your ass into our getaway car, took you with us to the extraction point in Santa Monica, loaded you onto the plane, and took you here."

Plane? "Where exactly is… here?"

"You're in a bunker in the deep woods of Montana."

I was taken aback by the bluntness of her words.

"This," she motioned to the room behind her. "Is our U.S. base. We have them all over the world. This is probably the one we frequent most often. We," she held out her hands to the people around the room. "-are hired assassins."

"Well," Yuma butted in. "We're a team, containing Rin, the assassin."

She glanced at him, annoyed at his interruption, and continued. "And since you saw me, you had to come with me."

"...Is this some kind of joke?"

Rin put her hands on her hips. "You want me to get my gun back out? Then will you think it's a-"

"Rin," Flower spoke for the first time. Her voice was low. "Save it."

She sighed, closing her mouth.

"But, like, you can't just go on Craigslist and type in 'assassin' and get results! Like, how does that work?"

"We get clients mainly through the dark web," Yuma told me. "And, we have secret hiding spots all around the world for requests that we check every few months. Repeat customers, sometimes people contact friends of our friends - stuff like that. On the Black Market, you'll find anything."

"But-but-" I didn't even know what to ask. "I just… I just don't-"

They stared at me patiently as I worked out my words. All of them except for Rin.

"...Why?"

There was a pause, and then Kanon laughed behind her sister. "Do you know how much money people put down for assassinations?"

Yuma was chuckling, too. "Yeah. How do you think we can afford a place like this? Let alone one in every major country in the world?"

It felt like a dumb question, but still a legitimate once. "...You guys were calling each other different names."

"Well, duh," Anon said with a smile. "Over the radio, we have codenames. In case we're being tapped."

I tried to remember any of the names they had used. "Aren't they-"

"Norse Gods," Flower said with a small smile.

"Why?" I asked again.

"Why not?" She responded.

Fair enough.

"And you guys… you guys are a team?"

"Yup!" Anon chirped. "Like I said before, I'm the part-time nurse. And, along with Kanon," she pointed animatedly to the girl behind her. "I watch over the screens when Rin goes on missions. Keep track of the cameras, make sure the target is in place, advising of possible obstacles… you know." She grinned. "The whole deal."

"I'm Intel," Yuma said, a hint of sadness in his voice. "I keep track of possible leads on targets, and all the arrangements surrounding the heist. Also, I can drive just about anything under the sun. I was the one in charge of tracking you so we could use your living room as a vantage point." He glanced at Rin. "And I fucked it up."

Flower scoffed. "Will you quit it, already? Both of you? If anyone fucked it up, it's him." She pointed a finger at me. "And how could he have known? Shit happens. Get over it."

"We'll never get a chance like that again," Kanon frowned. "Never."

"You guys… were on a contract?" I asked.

Those glances.

"Not exactly," Anon finally answered.

"A story for another time," Rin snapped. "Anyway. I'm the killer. Simple."

"And while we make all the money, Flower," he pointed a thumb at the white-haired girl. "She spends it all."

"I'm the only one seen in the public," she informed me. "I buy things we need, I meet with potential clients. All the dangerous work."

"Hah," Rin let out an unamused laugh.

"But I never set foot near the actual mission." She concluded.

"So you guys run an assassination company with only five people?"

Yuma chuckled. "We each have our sources. People who help us. But yes. Just the five of us."

I was amazed. All of these people had to be around my age, and yet here they were. Millionaires, no probably billionaires, and yet they remained hidden underground, in the shadows of the entire world. I couldn't believe it.

I really couldn't believe it.

"Look," I said, cringing as I swung my leg over the side of the bed. "This is funny and all, ha-ha, good joke, I bed Kiyo put you up to this. But I really need to get home. I have work-" I tried to stand, and then instantly locked my knee painfully, falling back on the table. No one even moved.

"If you leave," Rin finally said. "You die."

"This isn't fucking funny anymore." I was growing annoyed.

"No, listen. What isn't fucking funny is the fact that either way, according to the rest of the world, you no longer exist," she began harshly. "If you join us, we'll fake your death. Everything about it. Yuma's a professional. Your job, your friends, your family, everyone will realize that you are dead. And if you leave, then we won't have to fucking fake it."

For the first time since I awoke, the thought that they might be telling the truth popped into my head. And I realized, with a pang of terror, that wherever I was, I was at the mercy of these five people, who all seemed more than okay with killing. This was a lawless room, in a lawless bunker, in a lawless forest. And I was alone with… with trained assassins.

"So make a choice, Len." She stood tall. "Either you're in, or you're dead."

I shook my head. "Even… even if you are telling the truth, why would you want another member? You guys seem to have a pretty solid team-"

"We didn't want one," Rin corrected me. "But we got one. For better or worse."

"But… but what would I do?"

No one spoke. These silences were really beginning to annoy me. Finally, Flower shook her head, seeming disgusted by the hesitance of her teammates. "We're down a killer," she informed me.

I was very conscious of Rin flinching at her words.

"So you'd be working with her. And training for it."

"Training? To kill people?"

"Your choice," the girl continued. She was in civilian clothing. She looked so casual, and yet so threatening.

"You in, or you out?" Rin asked.

This is real. This is real shit. Everything about it screamed prank, except for the gunmen who had chased after us. Whoever they were, they wanted us dead. And they almost had me.

Holy shit. I almost fucking died.

"Hurry up," Rin said again. "We've already wasted a bunch of resources getting you here and keeping your leg up. If we're gonna kill you, we're gonna do it now."

I scratched at the back of my neck. Did I really have what it takes to kill another human being? I couldn't imagine myself doing it. It's one thing to talk about killing someone, and it's a whole other thing to look them in the eyes through the barrel of a gun, release the trigger, and watch as their body goes limp. Watch as their life flashes and then fades out of their eyes. See the commotion ensue in their death.

Could I do it?

It didn't seem like I had much of a choice.

"...If it's join or die," I said slowly. "I guess I'm in."

There was no reaction from the people around me, except for Yuma. He chuckled. "Sweet. I'm not the only dude anymore."


Yay for character redemption. I actually love this team. Not sure why. But I do.

I'm not worrying too much about chapter length for this story, so expect varying lengths. This one was 2500 words. Others are way more.

Thanks for reading :)