Shade almost died. Running through the early morning streets, still wet from rain, his lungs burned and his leg hurt as he fled from his pursuers.
Every impact of his prosthetic against wet asphalt sent a dull shock up through his hip. He kept running anyway.
The decision had been made by his bosses without his knowing. He had completed the hit perfectly and kidnapped the president of Venezuela, leaving the country to wake up leaderless.
He knew too much and had done too much over the years. An assassin with a perfect record was not an asset. He was evidence that needed to be buried.
Twenty minutes ago, he had been standing under the rain, meeting his handler at the rendezvous point. He stood tall, six feet of lean muscle forged from necessity.
Wearing his black assassin's outfit and a plain mask, he carried the infamous duffel bag he never went anywhere without.
His body ached from old wounds that hadn't healed, plus the ones acquired on the mission.
This was supposed to be the final job to buy himself out of the Underworld that had chained him all his life.
Today was also his eighteenth birthday.
He hadn't told anyone. Birthdays weren't something the Underworld celebrated, and he had counted down the days for months.
Eighteen meant something, even if only to him. Eighteen meant he was finally, legally, undeniably his own man.
But to make that happen, he needed to buy himself out, and this was his final payment. Today was supposed to be the day his freedom began.
He had taken on the most dangerous missions, ones with a zero percent chance of survival, because they had the highest pay. This resulted in grievous wounds piling up over time.
He wondered how he was still standing, given his exhausted state. Waiting patiently, he nursed the shoulder he had fallen onto while escaping.
Five minutes later, the handler Harold arrived in the most common-looking sedan. Coming to a stop beside him, Harold wound down the window and stared at him.
Harold burst out laughing. "Well, it's true what they said about you being a roach. Can't fucking die."
"You outdid yourself this time. Extraction wasn't something I thought you could pull off."
Shade kept quiet as he stared blankly at Harold.
Harold cleared his throat. "Either way, your wish has been granted. This is your last ever mission." He handed him a fat brown envelope and continued.
"This contains your new identity, passport, and the location of the fishing boat taking you to Asia, leaving tonight at the east side of the docks.
If you miss it, it's not my problem, and it's definitely not theirs. There's cash, and it came out of your pay. We aren't running a charity here.
The second half will be dropped automatically into your account by midnight. After tonight, we don't know you, you don't know us. Comprendé?"
He paused. "Oh, happy birthday, kid. Eighteen years, huh? You can finally drink and vote. Your own man."
Shade said nothing. But something behind his eye shifted, just slightly, at those words. Happy birthday.
The first time anyone had ever said it to him, and it was coming from the biggest asshole he ever knew.
Harold kept talking.
"You can also get some surgery done. Fix whatever you have going on under there," he pointed at Shade's masked face. "Hell, maybe get a new leg. This one looks like it wants to fall apart."
Shade looked down at his left prosthetic leg. He had lost it in an explosion after stepping on a mine.
But that wasn't a problem anymore. Now he could replace it.
He reached into the envelope—and that was when he knew he'd been played.
Shade had expected this, planned against it, hoped it wouldn't happen—but here he was. A man who sleeps with a machete is a fool on all nights but one. Turns out paranoia was healthy. Fuck that therapist on TV.
The envelope was filled with blank paper.
Hearing an all-too-familiar click, he looked up to see Harold pointing a gun at him.
"Sorry, kid. It's just business. You know too much."
Before he could process what was happening, instinct took over. He dodged and shifted Harold's hand, the shot catching him in the side instead. Pain tore through him like a hot blade. He felt himself bleeding.
Acting quickly, he broke Harold's hand, reached into his belt, dropped a grenade into the car, then threw a smoke bomb and started running. He heard Harold panicking, scrambling to unbuckle himself.
Harold began screaming. "SHOOT THAT BASTARD! KILL HIM!"
Gunfire roared. People he had worked with—all of them aiming at him, even some new faces.
The car erupted into a ball of flames behind him. Another bullet tore through his arm.
Shade ran anyway, blood-soaked clothes sticking to him, keeping his breathing steady. His expression was bored.
"Well, that was disappointing," he muttered, voice calm, almost amused. "Even after the bush jumping, they couldn't kill me. Skill issue."
He cut through the first alley, putting a wall between himself and the rifles. His side was bleeding steadily, but it was manageable.
The arm was bad, but still usable. He had been in worse shape before.
He vaulted a chain-link fence, landed hard, and kept moving.
A car was parked halfway onto the curb ahead, and he ran straight at it, planting one foot on the hood and launching himself over rather than slowing down to go around.
Behind him, he could hear the pursuit reorganizing, footsteps splitting to cut him off from multiple directions.
He ducked into a market alley, scattering an early morning vendor's crates. Chickens went everywhere. Through a gap between buildings so narrow he had to turn sideways.
Over a low wall into a courtyard, across it, through a rusted gate that shrieked as he shoved it open.
Three blocks, then four. His prosthetic was holding, barely. The wet streets were working against him—and against them too.
He arrived at his destination: Olympus Academy.
The most prestigious school in the country, taking up over a hectare of land.
A school for the crème de la crème, accessible through massive donations and the right connections.
Shade had always wanted to attend it, back when he still allowed himself to daydream about the life he wished he had.
The best part was that it was currently empty. Exams were over. Summer holidays.
Perfect.
He could see the outer walls ahead, white and immaculate even in the grey morning. Buildings for each subject, large and clean, surrounded by prim lawns and flowers in bloom.
It looked like a city from a utopia—the kind of place built specifically for people who had never had to run for their lives.
Shade stopped admiring the scenery and headed for the lab building. He had done enough research on the school during his free time to know it like the back of his hand.
As any normal person would do, he hacked their system and studied the blueprints, imagining himself in class there—sometimes even watching the students through the school CCTV, contingency planning.
The Underworld had taught him that much.
The only people he would run into were bored security guards, janitors, and the occasional student with nowhere better to be.
He slipped through, dodging cameras, and entered the lab building, moving upward. He chose height and distance over speed.
His pursuers would not expect him to hide in a school.
On the fourth floor, he ducked into an empty chemistry lab and locked the door behind him.
Rummaging through cabinets, he brought out hydrogen peroxide, spirits, acids, and smelling salts, and lit a Bunsen burner.
He sat with his back against the wall, reached into his duffel for his first aid kit, and began to work.
He patched the wound in his side while smiling faintly at the memory of Harold's face the moment he realized the grenade was already in the car.
He reached in with tweezers and pulled the bullet out. Then he heated a conductor rod in the flame before pressing it to the wound. He gritted his teeth as the flesh sizzled and cauterized.
He poured spirit around it, then hydrogen peroxide. He had been in worse shape. Considerably worse.
He had a total of seven fingers. Four on his left hand, three on his right. His left pinkie had been cut off during a torture session when he was caught on a mission.
His middle and ring fingers on the right were gone from catching a shotgun at close range—which, in retrospect, was a learning experience.
He sighed and reached for his duffel, changing out of his blood-soaked clothes. As he pulled the shirt over his head, scars littered his body.
Ranging from third-degree burns to cuts, stabs, gunshot wounds, and healed gashes that mapped his body.
He took off his mask and felt his face. Most of the left side was missing, the result of an explosion at close range.
It had burned off half his skin, his ear, and had come very close to taking his eye. The explosion, as greedy as Mr. Krabs, had also taken part of his throat.
The side effects made him sound like Frankenstein after giving more head than Bonnie Blue, and he could only eat liquid food.
He stared at his reflection in the dark window glass for a moment. "I should get a coin," he muttered.
He switched to a plain black hoodie and joggers. His gaze dropped briefly, acknowledging the absence where his family jewels used to be.
Taken as punishment for trying to run away when he was younger. An organization that owned you wanted to make sure you remembered it.
He trashed all evidence of his arrival down the waste chute, put the acids and smelling salts into his bag, and prepared to leave.
He opened the door—then immediately retreated back into the lab.
Unfamiliar voices. Heading his way.
Shade locked the door again, pressed his back to the wall beside it, and waited.