Chapter 5

A Harsh Reality

Erin woke up with the right side of her face burning in pain. She slowly and carefully brought her hand to feel the are that was hurting and felt some sort of fabric wrappings there. The brunette then realized that she was no longer laying on the alley she had passed out on, but was on an actual bed. Someone had taken her in and treated her wounds.

Once she realized what her current situation was, Erin slowly got up on a sitting position and looked around herself. The room she had been sleeping in didn’t seem like it belonged to a hospital or, much to her relief, a prison. This meant that the brown-haired woman had not been taken to the authorities, but was being taken care of by some kind individual that had found her. The only questions that remained were who this person was and why they had helped her.

As Erin was wondering who would have helped her, the door to the room suddenly opened, revealing a very familiar person. It was none other than one of her regular customers, Holly Hollings.

”M-Ms. Holly?” the brunette called out in surprise. ”Did you take care of me?”

”Who else do you think did? Santa Clause?” Holly asked sarcastically as she walked up to the bed and sat on a chair next to it. ”Honestly, I have no idea why dad asked me to do it, though. I think we should have just left you there, seeing as how much of a dumb ass you are.”

Erin was taken aback by the somewhat hostile attitude of the blonde, as she was used to her being very nice all the time. The brown-haired woman had always thought that Holly and her father were some of the kindest people around, so this was unexpected. Then again, she did think similarly of Eba, so she probably wasn’t in a position to make such assumptions.

“Hey, are you just going to sit there and stare at me like a dumb puppy?” Holly asked with a frown. “Isn’t there something you should be saying to me right about now?”

“What are you-? Oh!” Erin began to say, only to quickly realize what the blonde wanted. “Thank you for saving me.”

“That’s a bit better,” Holly said and stood up. “Now, I see that you’re in good enough shape, so get your ass up already and follow me. My dad wants to talk with you.”

Without saying anything, the brown-haired woman got out of the bed and followed the blonde. They went to another room in the house, where Ryan was waiting for them. The room seemed to be the lounge of the house, as the man was sitting on a couch while watching TV.

Erin noticed that the TV was currently showing the news, where they were actually talking about her. More specifically, they were talking about the murder of Harger.

”As for the suspect responsible for Officer Harger’s death, the police don’t have many clues. However, a suspicious person that was found at the scene of the crime has been arrested and taken into police custody,” the reporter on the TV explained. ”So far, they have provided details on the suspect’s appearance, so the police will be on the lookout for her. Any sightings are to be reported to the authorities, so that this murderer can be put behind bars.”

Erin’s eyes went wide as she saw a hand-drawn picture of herself on the screen. Whoever this person that had been taken into custody was, they had given out her looks to the police to look out for. The brunette couldn’t help but feel cold sweat run down her back, as she realized that she was now an outlaw.

”You know, I always wanted to kill that bastard Harger personally, but I’ll take what I can get,” Ryan said as he turned off the TV and stood up from the couch. He turned to look at Erin and Holly. ”For someone with no real combat training, that was pretty well-done, even if it was mostly due to luck. My only big problem with the way you handled that was the fact that you left a witness alive. I honestly can’t understand why you would do that, as even the dumbest of morons should understand that witnesses are a problem.”

“W-Wait, you’re talking like I planned to murder that police officer!” Erin said. “I did that only in order to defend myself! I never wanted to kill anyone!”

“Whatever the case may be, you’ve got blood on your hands now, don’t you?” Ryan asked, causing the brunette to turn pale. “You can try to justify your actions as much as you want, in any way you want, but the fact remains that you killed a man and that’s final. Do you think we care about the details relating to the whole thing, let alone the cops themselves? If you want, you can go ahead and try explaining it to them. See for yourself how that turns out.”

No matter how much she wanted to, Erin couldn’t really defend herself. Ryan was right that she was the one responsible for Harger’s death. She herself had even intentionally killed him. Even if it was in self defense, the fact remained she was responsible for someone’s death, and that someone’s child was now an orphan.

Thinking about Harger’s son almost caused Erin to throw up and burst into tears. She remembered the visions she had seen back when she had killed Harger. The brunette remembered what a loving family they had been, how Harger did everything he could to keep his son safe and how willing he was to sacrifice anything all for the sake of his only child.

Now Erin had taken all of that from that innocent child. He was now all alone in this world with no one to help him and it was all her fault. The blood that was on her hands wasn’t just from Harger, but also from the young boy, who could lose his life due to her actions.

“The hell is wrong with you?” Holly asked in an annoyed voice. “You look like you’re about to cough up your lunch.”

“I… I’m just so overwhelmed by all of this,” Erin managed to say weakly. “Not only have I killed someone for the first time in my life, but the man I killed also had a son. I just… I just can’t help but think about him.”

“Why? How does that matter to you?” Holly asked with a raised eyebrow.

“How does it matter…? Don’t yo realized what I’ve done!?” the brown-haired woman asked in a shocked tone. “That boy never did anything wrong, but now I have left him orphaned! He is completely alone now that I killed his father! How could that not matter to me!?”

“Because it shouldn’t. It’s that simple,” Ryan answered. “Did you think that you’re the only person with family? Every single person in this world has at least some sort of family that is going to be left behind once they die. Is that supposed to stop someone from killing them, if they go around being dicks to people? No. It’s their own damn fault for doing stuff that earned themselves enemies, so they shouldn’t expect any sympathy for themselves or their loved ones. That’s just how it is.”

As much as Erin wanted to argue, she couldn’t. Not only did she know that there was no point to continue arguing over this matter and that it wouldn’t lead to anything, but she also couldn’t really deny the truth behind Ryan’s words. It was true that no matter who you were, you always had some sort of family, yet people would still kill each other through wars and other kinds of conflicts. If one were to pick up a weapon with the intent to kill, there was a good chance they would end up dying themselves.

Still, Erin couldn’t help but feel like she couldn’t simply brush this all aside with logic alone.

“...Thank you for helping me,” the brunette finally said after a moment of silence and bowed her head. “I’ll be taking my leave now, so you won’t have to-”

“Hold up a second there, missy!” Holly quickly said and grabbed Erin’s shoulder. “Do you really think you can just leave like that, after everything we did for you!? Not only did we use up our own materials to fix you up, but you owe your life to us! Don’t you think you should try to pay us back for all of that!?”

“I… What?” was all the brunette managed to say.

“Did you think that we saved you out of goodwill alone? Hell no,” Ryan said. “When you owe someone, you have to pay them back, right? We helped you out in the hopes of you providing us with something in return.”

“I’m not trying to be ungrateful or anything and I am willing to repay you,” Erin quickly explained as she started to panic. “But I don’t know how I’m supposed to repay you. I had to run away from Eba’s place so fast that I couldn’t take anything with me. The only thing that I had were the clothes on me.”

“We are very well aware of that, but I’m sure my dad wants something else from you,” Holly said. “I personally have no idea what he’s thinking. If it had been up to me, I would have just left you to die at the alley I picked you up at. No reason to risk our asses to hide a fugitive.”

The brunette turned to look at Ryan, wondering what he had planned for her. All sorts of ideas were popping into her mind, ranging from all sorts of “favors” the man could demand from her.

However, what Ryan’s answer was truly surprised Erin.

“I want you to take part in our profession,” Ryan answered. “We have a lot of work piled up on us and we need some extra help in order to fulfill all of our requests. I feel like you have the possibility of being good at what we do.”

“Hang on! Hang on!” Holly quickly yelled. “You want THIS to join our work!? Are you crazy!? Not only are we talking about a completely green idiot, who doesn’t know when to distrust someone, we don’t even know if we can trust her! Why the hell should we take her in!?”

“Say what you will, we need the help,” Ryan replied with a shrug. “We can’t handle all of the requests we get on our own, which causes potential customers to go to our competitors. We have already had issues thanks to not being able to handle some of the jobs we’ve been sent, so I want to fix that before it gets too bad. If nothing else, newbie here can take care of at least some of the scrub work.”

Holly was about to voice more of her issues with this, but Erin managed to speak up before her.

“You want me to come and work for you?” Erin asked, earning a nod from Ryan. “Exactly what kind of work are you looking to have me do?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Ryan asked with a raised eyebrow. “We are assassins. We kill people and so will you.”

Silence fell over the room as Erin stared at Ryan in disbelief. She looked at both him and Holly, waiting for either of them to tell her that this was all just a joke, only to see that they were completely serious.

“You… You can’t be serious!” the brunette managed to say. “You expect me to kill people for money!? There’s no way I could ever do that! No deal!”

“...But you already have killed, haven’t you?” Ryan asked, causing Erin to go wide-eyed. “Like we already discussed, you have killed and there’s no denying that. Sure, it was in self-defense, but you still killed someone. And let me tell you something. That person wasn’t just some random bum no one cared about. He was a police officer and a high-ranking one at that. Do you think the other cops are just gonna turn a blind eye to that? Hell no. They’re gonna make sure you’ll get caught and executed for it, and you’ll be lucky to get away with just that.”

“...So what you’re saying is that I have no other choice?” Erin asked after thinking about her situation for a bit. “If I don’t join you, I’ll get caught by the police eventually. Is that it?”

“Pretty much, but there’s also this,” Holly said as she pulled out a dagger and placed its blade on Erin’s throat. “You see, we don’t like the idea of someone knowing about our profession. We have a made a good number of enemies in our line of work and wouldn’t want our faces and identities to be known by them. So you’re either with us or we’ll carry your corpse on us next time we go outside. Got it?”

The brown-haired woman considered her situation and realized that she didn’t really have any options. If she didn’t join up with Ryan and Holly, they would immediately kill her. Even if she somehow managed to fight them off and escape, her future prospects were very grim. The police would be looking for her everywhere for what she had done and it wouldn’t take long until she got caught, either by the other cops or people like Eba that would be trying to turn her in.

With a heavy heart, Erin made her decision.

“All right, I’m in,” the brunette said with a sigh. “I’ll work for you from now on.”

“Good. Glad you could see things our way,” Holly said with a smile as she put away her dagger. “Don’t get me wrong, though. I still think it’s a bad idea to have you in our crew. I just don’t want to clean up your bloodstains. Those are a pain in the ass to get out of carpets.”

“So what will I do now?” Erin asked. “Am I going to take on an assassination job right away or something?”

“For now, you should just rest,” Ryan answered. “You still haven’t healed enough to take on any jobs, so sending you out there would be a suicide. Not only that, but we need to teach you how to do what we do. You might have lucked out against Harger, but it won’t work all the time. With your current level of skill, you won’t last long.”

The brunette gave a nod in response and silently walked back to the room she had been resting in. Once she had left, Holly turned towards her father.

“Okay, why did you really want to take her in?” Holly asked. “You know that this is a big risk to us and that we can’t fully trust her at all. I mean, the idiot let herself get fooled by Eba, after all.”

“I wasn’t lying at all when I said we need more help here,” Ryan answered. “This place is crawling with people holding grudges against others to the point of wanting to commit murder. No matter what business you’re in, you need to catch as many potential customers as you can. With just the two of us, we won’t have enough time for all of them, which leads to our competitors taking a bigger chunk of the market.”

“I know that very well, but I doubt that was the only reason for this,” Holly said. “I remember how much you objected when I suggested some people as colleagues that even had actual combat experience. You said that they could never be trusted and that they would ruin us. Yet here we are, with a new recruit that is completely green when it comes to assassination and you happily let her become one of us. Either you’re going senile or you have some motive that I can’t grasp at all.”

“First, never call me senile. You know damn well that I’m not old enough for that,” Ryan said with a slight frown, not liking the way his daughter was talking to him. “However, I suppose I might as well admit it. There is a special reason as to why I decided to take her in. I might be wrong in doing it and it can very well backfire at us, but I wanted to give it a shot.”

“So what exactly is this reason of yours?” Holly asked. “What makes her so different from everybody else?”

“It’s her potential,” Ryan began to explain. “I’m not referring to potential in combat either, but something different. I saw something in her the very first time we laid eyes on her that made her different from everybody else. Like she was a pure gem in a pile of rocks. I want to see where that can go.”

“Aren’t you perhaps getting a bit too poetical here?” Holly asked with a raised eyebrow. “I mean, what is that even supposed to mean?”

“It’s just the most fitting thing that came to mind. Don’t mind it too much,” Ryan answered. “The point is that I got a hunch from her and I have always been able to trust such instincts when it comes to people. It is what convinced me to start training you originally, after all. Now I’m just hoping to see if this girl can become something we couldn’t.”

“You can’t mean-!?” Holly said in shock with wide eyes, having realized what her father was referring to. “Are you seriously expecting her to do something like that!?”

“It’s a long shot, but I want to try it out. I need to see if there are people out there still willing to fight the good fight, like we did back then.”