No one would ever pay to have someone like Fenra Fetter killed, and that is why he lost. Even though Bruce was cleverer and possessed so much more tact… Now, he found the head of a sledgehammer swung to his face.

The sledgehammer began its approach on that special dreary morning on the train platform about a year prior. He had been on his way to the upper city and she was on her way down to some insignificant high school in the lower. The issue was that the trains didn’t make it to the lower until evening, so there was no reason for lower folk to be at this station now at all. But Bruce didn’t know that Fenra Fetter was lower folk, so he didn’t do what any sensible citizen would do and keep away. And unfortunately for Bruce, his custom-tailored suit caught her attention. More specifically, the emblem on his breast that signified his association with the Holmes Group. No one, upper or lower, knew what the Holmes did or why they were so wealthy. Their station was so supreme that even the Prime Servant of the nation invited them to his annual ball. Therefore everyone, both upper and lower, shrugged. They were just another high society organization. Perhaps a detective agency?

“Holmes…?” Fenra stepped in front of him and leaned forward to touch her nose to his breast and emblem. “As in H. H. Holmes? The serial killer?” Her voice had a charming sort of sing-songy rhythm to it, though it was lost on Bruce. The train station always had a brisk draft running through it, so perhaps it was that chill that froze him. Perhaps we should ignore how Bruce rapidly mouthed that last word to himself, over and over. Killer. Fenra stood up straight and smiled at the sight of the frozen Bruce. “Hello? Ya still there? Was I wrong? Was it based on Sherlock?”

“It’s neither,” he said. “It’s only an a—”

He caught the word in his mouth before he could speak it. What was he thinking? For some reason, this odd girl had made him believe that telling the truth was preferable to the alternative.

“It’s Sherlock,” he settled on saying.

“Huh?”

“You’re right. We’re meant to be descendants of Sherlock Holmes.”

Fenra seemed intrigued by this. “Really now? I thought he was fictional. Are you sure?”

“It’s my family,” he said. “Why would I be unsure?”

The coy of Fenra’s brow and lip made him shudder. Distilled bloodlust. That’s what Bruce felt in those eyes. Fenra gripped Bruce by the lapel and pulled his ear to her cold and chapped lips. There was not a single person on this planet before her that had the gall to do this to him. That bloodlust, the craze of her eyes, it all made him—

“I want to kill you,” she said. “Think you can catch me, detective boy?”

And only when Bruce looked at her now, with her shabby clothes and no wristband, did he realize she was from the lower. Unable to bypass his shock, he let her scurry away from the platform, her brain without a bullet in it.

Every morning from then on, Fenra appeared at the same time at the same platform, and greeted Bruce with a smile. Her bloodlust remained. And every morning, Bruce arrived, fully equipped to dispatch the girl. What would it take? A knife? A gun? Poison? Venom? Toxin? Or should he stalk her to her living quarters instead and take her out there? She was only a lower, but still, a student. Every student had a chance to become an upper, and so murdering one in broad daylight would be looked down upon. His family couldn’t afford such a spotlight. He decided on her house. Stalking was something Bruce was practiced in, but that look in Fenra’s eyes—he feared that she would catch him.

He decided to get close to her instead. Learn more about her. Let her learn more about him. She had the gait and eyes of a psychopath. She skipped school often. Her parents were usually out working so they could just barely avoid moving down a level. She was lonely. Bruce marked everything down in his notebook, all in preparation for the day he would kill her before she could kill him.

But as they walked to her house together on that day, he doubted. She seemed happier than usual today. Even as he powdered poison into her dinner, he considered taking it back as she hummed. She looked at him, and those eyes smiled. Strange. They were kind eyes now, but they looked exactly the same as those bloodthirsty eyes he saw before. Was he wrong? He could take the plate back. She was in the kitchen to grab something. Now would be the time to change his mind, better now than five seconds forward.

He was about to reach for the plate right when Fenra emerged from the kitchen. The sledgehammer had been there this whole time, he even knew it. But for some reason, this odd girl that appeared in his life out of nowhere had made him forget. The handle was wrought from a branch, hardly shaped after being cut from its tree. Bruce thought that perhaps Fenra had crafted the handle herself. He imagined her working to desplinter it, sand it, cut it. The sledgehammer’s head was hewn from stone. The craftsmen of the lower were primitive, so it was likely she found one to make it for her. Ancient letters were engraved by the edges with great detail, most likely a specific request to mimic the hammer in that popular comic series. He remembered those comics by Fenra’s bedside the one time she let him in to give a tour. She’d been so reticent, so embarrassed to have a wealthy man from the upper see her most personal space.

Now that well-hewn head of that janky sledgehammer swung at his face. She’d been barely able to lift it from the ground—the stone scraped across her hardwood floor as she brought it over—but she amassed enough strength in that moment to swing it with great force. Seeing it closer now, perhaps she had made the head as well. It was shabbier than he first thought, something even Fenra could do if she put enough hours into it. It slammed into his temple, then. The last thing he remembered before his brains splattered across Fenra’s dining table was how she glanced at the poisoned plate the moment she emerged from the kitchen. The look in her eyes was no longer kind. There was no more bloodlust. There was only sorrow, and Bruce realized that perhaps he had been wrong this entire time.