Assassin's Girl

The Conversation

I couldn't sleep that night. Nightmares conjured my mind as soon as I closed my eyes. My heart kept beating loudly against my ribcage and my whole body felt drenched from all the sweating. Zara Larsson was s**t scared. I gripped the bottle by my shaky fingers as I chucked down the water and I felt like my heart would explode from the pain that gripped my chest. The fear of living under the same roof, breathing the same air as that of my murderer made my hear to start aching. I wanted to go in depths of Lucian Matthew. I wanted to know every single details about him.

Was he really involved in my murder plan?

But the yellow cross in front of my picture bothered me. Like the work was done but he didn't it. Like he was on his way of killing me but somebody already had ignited the fire in the mansion. I closed my eyes to breath evenly. I mentally guided myself to take deep breaths. My chest rising and falling in process. I opened my laptop, logging in as I played the same tune. My eyes closed as the music hit my ears, making my insides to calm down. It was nothing of what I wanted it to sound— like that of my father's piano but it was still something.

The door of his room opened and walked out Lucian Matthew, shirtless. I opened my red eyes to gaze at him, I expected him to look at me with annoyance or to comment something rude and heartbreaking again but much to my incredulity he was was looking at me with no anger or disappointment. Curiousity. Maybe. His sleepy eyes were slowly losing it's grogginess. And for almost a minute we both gazed at each other. His midnight eyes boring into mine, piercing deep in my soul. And I suddenly felt so exposed. Like he was reading me. Trying to know me and I felt so vulnerable.

The music kept playing slowly and it only made everything so weird. For a moment, I forgot he was an assassin; that he may have killed me. For a moment, I forgot that I was Elina Green. His physique didn't attract me. But his eyes— Holy cow, they were akin to those spell that were deadly enough to kill. How can such a beautiful person be an assassin? The ring on his lower lip shun in the dim light as he let out a sigh. For a moment, his gaze fell on the laptop before they fell on me again. And just like he had come outside his room, he silently went inside, not uttering a single word.

Slowly my tired body felt at ease. I didn't realize when did my eyelashes flutter, meeting my skin and the sound of the music faded away as sleep welcomed me with open arms. I didn't dream of anything again. Not the fire, not my murder, not the screams that usually kept me awake at night. The dreamless sleep that made me feel at bliss.

~~~~~~

I had gathered every broken piece of me only to come out stronger. I started gathering every bit of Lucian Matthew. Be it his birth date or the murders he had been charged for. Lucian Matthew was the most searched criminal on the search engine. He was charged at the age of eight for his first murder. My eyes widened at the facts that kept flashing on the screen. Lucian Matthew was an illiterate but as much as I have started knowing him, he was the most intelligent and knowledgeable person I have met in my whole life. He might have been schooled but he knew things nobody knew.

Lucian Matthew was raised in an orphanage. But at the age of ten he was thrown out after two more murder charges on him. How can a person commit three murders till an age of ten? What was it that made Lucian Mathew a killer? Money? Poverty? Threats? I wanted to know more. I went through every single website, made notes of him. He had went to juvenile thrice and behind the bars six times. And from the past four years, he had been on the list of wanted but none is able to catch him. But why? He practically roams on the street all day. He hasn't even impersonated anyone and still the cops aren't able to catch him.

"What's for the food, Green?" His voice rung from his room and I quickly shut down my laptop and stuffed the papers inside my pillows and zipped it up. I looked at him, through my glasses when he came into the hall and rose his brows at me.

"Can't you cook yourself for one day, Matthew?" I asked, annoyed, adjusting my glasses and he smiled, tilting his head at me.

He had dressed in an undershirt and a pair of joggers. His sandy waves still damp from the bath he must've taken. I could smell the shampoo and body wash from the distance and I couldn't help but feel how tempting he actually smelled all the damn moment. Who could say Lucian Matthew was an assassin the way he looked at the moment. No wonder he was so dangerous. He had hidden his malice under his beauty.

"I can, Green," He said, leaning towards me and I leaned back as his face neared me and I couldn't help the proximity he deliberately created amid us. His smile only widened when my pupils dilated, yet again, like the very first time. "But that would make things easier for you. And I am here to avenge my disrespect. To make your life miserable." I rolled my eyes, my own stomach growling in hunger.

"Good luck then, Matthew. Because it would take a lot more than forcing me to cook to make my life a hell."

"Oh, sweetheart. Cooking is just a warm up for what I have kept in store you for you." He said with an evil light and I smiled slyly, pushing him away as I walked towards the kitchen and start making us some lunch. And Lord, all my hunger vanished in the heat of the kitchen.

~~~~~~~~

"Searching about me, sweetheart?" Matthew's familiar voice rang from behind me and I almost jumped as I felt his breath tingling my neck. I turned around abruptly to see a dangerous smile gracing his face. I rose my brows, pretending to look shocked but the look in his eyes told me he knew everything I was trying to hide.

"What?" I asked, feigning innocence and he chuckled darkly, shaking his head as he took another step forward while I took one back. Lord forbids, his eyes can compel anyone to confess their truth and God, I was getting lost in his eyes.

"I thought you were targeting someone else, Green. But guess what did I get my hands on?" He said, smiling maliciously at me as he revealed a few sheets, waving it in front of my eyes and my heart stopped beating for a second. "Me, Green. You're spying on me? I didn't knew I fascinated you so much, sweetheart."

His voice turned darker with every word. His smile deceived the threat and danger that laced his voice. My eyes moved with the ring on his lower lip that rolled as he spoke smoothly but dangerously. I was never a big fan of piercings or rings on lips or ears but ring pierced in his lower lip befitted him like it did on no body else. I stumbled on my steps when he took one slow step towards me. His fingers gripped my wrist preventing me from falling.

"Oh, sweetheart," I started smiling sweetly at him and his smile dropped when I took one step forward. "You fascinate me till no extent. And I am planning to get to know you even better." His jaw clenched in anger and he gripped my shoulders but I jerked out of his hold, glaring at him.

"Really? What is that you want to know, hm?" He gritted out and I smiled sweetly at him. That you killed me or not?

"Why did you kill at the age of eight, Matthew? Why did an eight year old child had to take life of a forty year old man?" I asked, my tone suddenly went softer than I had intended to let out. His eyes widened for a second. His fist loosened along his sides before his eyes narrowed into a deadly glare and his jaw clenched in visible rage, so did his fists.

"I have answered to that question seventeen years ago, Green. I don't need to answer it now. Especially to you." He glowered at me and I knew whatever happened seventeen years ago had too much of an impact on him. The way his eyes suddenly lost all the evil light, his sarcastic and cruel smile, I knew something was not right.

"No one is born as a murderer, Lucian. What made you one? Killing at such a tender age is—" Before I could have said anything else, he removed his pistol from his waistband and pointed it directly at my forehead and I trailed off.

"One more word, Green. One more word and I'll pull the trigger. Forget the freaking hell, I'll take your life right here and right f*****g now." He barked and I flinched back. The Zara Larsson inside me had surfaced and Elina Green had curled down. I gulped but then felt a sudden rush of bravery inside my veins as I took one daring step forward and held his gun, pressing the cold metal against my forehead.

"It seems like my pain soothes a thousand throats, Matthew. And if my pain calms your raging heart too, go ahead. Kill me like you killed Zara Larsson." He took the gun off my forehead and threw it against the sofa before snorting at me, angrily.

"Of course! Of course everything you say has to do with Zara Larsson! Since you've seen her picture in my folder you've been behaving weirdly. You almost attacked me yesterday forgetting what I'm capable of doing and then started hyperventilating in the night. Who was she to you? A Friend? A Lover? What?"

He barked angrily and tears brimmed my eyes. What was Zara Larsson to me? How do I tell him, it's me. I am Zara Larsson. And how can I not hyperventilate when four people have almost killed me? How can I act normally when I am not who I used to be? A tear rolled my cheeks and I swear, I saw his steely and cold composure breaking as his eyes softened, just for a second though before they turned cold again. But I an emotion palpating inside him.

"It doesn't matter, Matthew. It doesn't matter if Zara Larsson was my friend or my lover. But she was and she still is an inseparable part of me. If she was the body, I was her shadow. If Zara was the heart, Elina Green is her heartbeat. And how you expect one to be alive when you've killed the other one!"

"You talk as if I have tried to kill you, Green. And this is my job! Like yours is to hack into people's account and leak their data. Mine is to kill people by using the data you provide people like me and that freaking Benjamin." When I didn't say anything he took many more steps towards me, making me press against the wall while he was looking at me like he would burn me from the fire in his eyes.

"I agree, Elina Green, I agree that I am an assassin. That I kill people ruthlessly. I don't feel anything when I pull the trigger in people's heart because we are trained to be like one. But tell me, Elina Green, if I am a criminal, how are you not? If I kill people, so do you." I suddenly couldn't breathe as he pressed his palms on either side of me, against the walls, caging me.

"I am no criminal—"

"Oh, sweetheart, you are." He said, leaning even more closer to me. "You are the reason why we're able to kill other people. People like you provide us all the informations available which makes it easier for us to kill. If I am a murderer, Green, you are the pistol I use. Because No Lucian Matthew can kill without an Elina Green."

"You don't know a thing about me." I muttered and he scoffed, laughing darkly at my words.

"And you know me? Sweetheart, you know of me. But do you know me?"