Elemental Assassin 02 - Web of Lies

anymore. My childhood and my innocence were gone, re— again. Killed again. Just like I had the night the Fire elemen— placed by the knowledge people were mean, cold, crazy, dan— tal had murdered my family, and I’d collapsed my own house gerous. So I just nodded my head, as if his revelation made down on top of them all—including Bria, my baby sister. My perfect sense to me. In a twisted way, it did. stomach twisted. Somehow, I forced down the hot bile that
    “Do you know what being an assassin means?” Fletcher rose in my throat.
    asked.
    The back door of the Pork Pit eased open, and Fletcher I shrugged. “You kill people for money.”
    Lane stepped into the alley. The middle-aged man didn’t say He smiled. “Most of the time. Sometimes though, I get Estep_Web of Lies_1P EP.indd 344-345
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    offered jobs I don’t take. Sometimes the people I turn down
    “Do you want me to leave?”
    get angry with me. Sometimes they find me, come after me.”
    Fletcher frowned. “Of course not. Why would you think
    “Like Douglas?”
    that?”
    “Just like Douglas.”
    I stared at the blood on my hands and didn’t say anything. Despite the weirdness of the conversation, I found myself
    “Oh, Gin,” he said in a soft voice. “You don’t really re— curious to learn more about this other life Fletcher led. “Who alize what you did tonight, do you? You saved me. Finn did Douglas want you to kill?”
    too. Douglas would have killed all three of us if you hadn’t A shadow passed over Fletcher’s face. “Some little girls.”
    stabbed him. Don’t you dare feel bad about stabbing that sick
    “So why didn’t you do it?”
    bastard. You did what you had to do. Nothing else.”
    Fletcher stared at me. “Because there are rules, Gin. The knot in my stomach loosened. Maybe I wasn’t such a Things even assassins shouldn’t do. Killing innocent kids is monster after all. Or maybe I just didn’t care anymore. one of them.”
    “I want you to stay, Gin,” Fletcher said. “For as long as I thought of the Fire elemental and all the questions she’d you want. And, if you’ll let me, if you want to, I’d like to asked me about Bria, my baby sister. I hadn’t answered the train you.”
    elemental, not even when she’d burned me with my own spi— I stared at him, confused. “Train me to do what? You’re der rune. Because I’d known what would happen. I would already teaching me how to cook.”
    die, and then so would Bria.
    He hesitated. “To be like me. To do what I do. To be an
    “What happens when someone breaks the rules?” I asked assassin.”
    in a hoarse whisper.
    Maybe I should have been surprised. Shocked. Horrified. Fletcher stared at me. “I try to make it so they can’t hurt But I wasn’t. Instead, I thought of Douglas, the giant. How anyone else.”
    he’d come at me and how I’d defended myself. I knew my I knew he meant kill them. I thought of Douglas and the stabbing him had been more dumb luck than anything else. way the giant had looked at me. What he would have done But my family was gone, and I was alone. I was tired of to me if I hadn’t done it to him first. I shivered. “That must living on the streets and being weak and small and helpless. be nice. To be able to take care of other people like that. To Tired of hiding from everyone and everything. I looked at be that strong.” The last word came out as a raspy whisper. Fletcher. It wasn’t just that he was an adult, older than me, Fletcher stared at me, a strange look on his lined face, as taller, more muscled. Fletcher Lane had an inner strength though he was considering something important. Like tell— that set him apart from other people. I suddenly realized it ing me to get lost. I decided to make it easy for him. I owed was a strength I wanted. A strength I needed to survive. him that much, if only for the last few weeks of security he’d
    “What about Finn?” I asked. “He’s your son. Shouldn’t given me.
    you train him instead?”
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    Fletcher smiled. “He is my son, and I love him, but he and once again, I forced it down. I hadn’t been afraid of doesn’t have the right temperament. He’s too reckless, too the dark since I was a child. Besides, Tobias Dawson and flashy. You’re different. Calmer. You take the time to think his giants were dead. They couldn’t