"Blech."
Hannah stood there looking down at the corpse on the floorboards. Blood seeped out from the many holes that had been put into it. She and Arman, her acquaintance, or more like accomplice, stared at the pile of skin and bones as if it were going to leap up at them.
Arman hadn't moved an inch. He just kept watching and holding his breath in as if this were the first dead body he had ever seen.
"Come on. Hurry up and help me move this thing."
Hannah watched as Arman slowly moved, some form of life brought back into him.
"I understand it's your first time so just take it slow and remember this is what you signed up for."
She quickly added, in an attempt to distract Arman from any existential dread, "But also hurry up because I don't want to be here all night."
"I don't think I want to do this anymore." Arman muttered, talking more to himself while still begrudgingly moving to pick up the body.
Hannah helped, lifting the other side before he even fully reached down. She just looked at Arman expectantly as she waited for him to pull his own weight. Literally.
They shifted the body around, but Arman kept bumping into nearly everything he could, which only made it inevitable for Hannah to bump into something herself. Unluckily for her, it happened to be a collector's knife set with the blades laying out.
"Ow! Shit, my arm." Hannah checked and saw one of the blades had grazed her forearm.
"Can't you learn to have an ounce of stability?" She snapped, now getting ticked off at Arman for his incompetence, even if he was new.
"I-I'm so-sorry! I j-just am so so nervous," he managed to squeak out, like one of those dog chew toys Hannah had heard about.
"Whatever. Just hurry up and make sure to be more stable-because if I hurt myself again… you will pay for it." She said it with a slight grin meant to intimidate Arman. It worked well enough; he straightened up and pulled himself together.
As they finally managed to weave the body through all the personal belongings, Hannah gave a nod, and Arman gently set the body down on a rug that might have once looked good, but was now soaked in a foul-smelling maroon.
"Well…this is as good a room as any, right?" Arman questioned, as if Hannah's impatience had started rubbing off on him. That would be no good, Hannah thought.
With that, she dropped the body with a hard thud, followed by a couple lighter sounds as blood splattered onto the pair.
"Nah, I want you to take it on from here. I am gonna grab something from the fridge."
Arman's eyes widened, his jaw went slack at Hannah's words.
"M-Me!? All b-by myself??"
Hannah held a defiance in her eyes, an act of Arman's superior that he must obey, no matter how absurd he thought it was.
"B-But I thought I was too new for t-this stuff…?" His stammering trailed off into a high-pitched yapping that was a plea for Hannah.
"Huh? Did you say something?" Hannah called back, already walking away.
—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now Arman was alone. Somewhere behind him, faint fridge clatter echoed as Hannah rummaged around.
Damnit. He stared down at the body.
It looked almost like him. Short, curly, dirty blonde hair that you would find on models. Green eyes that, when he first saw them, reminded him of a gem he couldn't quite name. He'd learned about it as a kid.
But now, the man's eyes were dull and lifeless, like the stab wounds hadn't just let the blood out, but also his soul. Arman gave a nervous laugh at the thought. Imagine if all it took for your soul to leave was a puncture wound.
He was so lost in thought that he forgot his entire surroundings, so much he didn't even hear the shuffling behind him, as a grizzled man in clothes before Arman's time cocked his pistol.
"Hey there boy. Whatcha think yer doin' here?" The man said, voice as weathered as his face.
Arman turned to look at him.
"Oh w-well I uhm."
—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From the darkness of the kitchen, Hannah watched the pair.
Sipping from her stolen Diet Coke, she leaned against a counter casually watching the scene unfold through the doorway. An old man in some sort of tactical gear stood with his gun trained on Arman's head.
"Dumbass," she muttered between sips of her stolen soda.
The old man was clearly going to kill Arman, no matter what he did. This will go to show him: he should've signed up for another job. Someone as frail as him didn't belong here. A lot of people try; most died on their first time out because of ignorance.
Arman would be no different.
"Please, just let me go and I will get out of your hair. I don't want to die here tonight…" Arman pleaded with the man, looking ready to burst into tears.
The look on the man's face never faltered. He had come in here planning to kill someone, and Arman, being the first person he saw, was going to have to bear that cross.
"Well boy…you is the only one here. Which means yer the one who killed my brother right down there." He stared Arman down coldly; there was a flicker of something else. She couldn't tell what. Grief, maybe?
"That means you have to die here tonight, too."
The man paused, then continued, "A pity, really. You seem young, but ya chose to do this to yerself. Now hold still, I'll make it painless. Fight back, and it might get ugly."
Hannah watched as Arman hung his head in defeat, muttering something she couldn't quite hear.
The old man didn't hesitate. The bang of the bullet filled the massive house, leaving a sharp ringing in Hannah's ears, but she didn't flinch. She watched Arman slump over, a bullet hole clean through the center of his forehead.
Nobody survives a shot like that.
She shifted her focus back to the old man. He holsters the gun, moving like he truly believed Arman had been the only one there. But Hannah wasn't fooled. His hand never left the grip, nor had he flipped the safety back on.
She slinked back into the kitchen, cursing under her breath as she searched for a weapon. They didn't typically take guns, they were too loud and drew too much attention. She cursed to herself wishing she had brought one, since the old man had made enough noise for everyone nearby to hear.
Then she remembered the collection of knives this rich asshole had. She already knew they were sharp enough to cut. All she needed was to get close enough.
It would be a short confrontation.
It didn't matter how skilled that man was–she was better. They were specifically trained to kill people like this. People who knew their shit.
To her there was no real disadvantage. She could kill him before he ever touched that gun again.
But when she peeked back in the main room, she saw something other than a prepared bodyguard.
He wasn't checking for anyone. He wasn't on alert at all.
He was mourning.
Kneeling beside his dead brother. One of the grotesque elites who profited off the suffering of people like her, and even Arman.
Definitely him less than her, no matter how you slice it, she thought.
"I'm sorry I wasn't there fer ya when ya needed me most…" The man sobbed to himself, a gross display of weakness to Hannah.
She knew this was her chance.
She crept up behind him, knife in hand, ready to slice into his throat-
When the man began to speak:
"I know yer kind. Those who come after the elites of this world, aye? I know that ya 'ave terrible plans for this world. A business that has to conduct itself in the shadows ain't one that can be trusted."
A long pause. The man still sobbed slightly through his raspy voice.
The knife hovered inches away from his neck.
"Do what ya plan to do lass, I have no care left."
Hannah took the offer.
She sliced his throat clean, without any mercy.
Warm blood sprayed across the knife, her hand, and the floor.
She exhaled sharply through her nose, disgusted.
"Blech."