Juan Mendoza had received a message about a possible “deal” at the south of El Paso, at the heart of Abilene’s district. He often sent out his men to go around the city’s bars, nightclubs and other derelict businesses to see if they find someone that fits their target demographic: disgruntled or addicted parents with lots of debts that just so happen to have children, and in their desperation are willing to consider selling them off if that relieves some of their woes.
However, there was something suspicious about this new opportunity. He had already made a deal with someone in that location, in fact it was the same address, the one that lived there was some fat bastard called Gustavo Savaleta. As far as Juan knew, he only had an 8-year-old daughter and he had already sold her to him.
So, that could only mean two things: or he had some child hidden around for whatever reason, or there was something funny going on. Nevertheless, this situation was something unusual for Mendoza, and was curious enough to go back there and see for himself what was happening.
Just for safe measure, he brought a handful of his thugs with him, Gustavo was an inoffensive drunk, but it’s not bad to be cautious in this line of business.
They made their way to the south in a van, his men were armed with rifles and pistols, and he had his own trusty magnum he so cherished.
Gustavo lived near an alley way that would make for a perfect meeting spot, no one else ever wandered around those parts, it was practically the most deserted part of town at that point of the day.
They parked the van around the corner and then went up the street towards the alleyway, whoever saw them coming turned around and made haste towards safer places, they didn’t want to be any closer to the location where a group of potential cartel members were doing their usual businesses.
Juan walked at the front of the group, he wasn’t afraid of any incoming threats, at that point in his life, and seeing how everyone always seemed to bend to his desires, he felt like God incarnate.
After a short walk, they finally reached the alley and walked in, just to find Gustavo standing right in the middle of it with no children, no package, no tribute; nothing at all to give.
“Gustavo!” - Called Mendoza. – “What’s the meaning of this!? Why did you call us here?”
But Gustavo didn’t reply, he remained still, in absolute silence; Mendoza’s men could already smell something was up, some of them even took the safe off their guns.
Mendoza was quite perceptive too, there was something off about Gustavo, he seemed more disheveled than usual, his greasy hair covered half of his face, and he clutched to his arm quite tightly.
“Gustavo…? What the hell is going on?” -Mendoza was starting to get edgy. – “…Say something!”
“…B-b-bb-bb-b-b-…”-He kept on stuttering, and suddenly fell quiet once again, but right afterwards he managed to whisper something. – “…Behind you.”
“¿What!?” -Mendoza didn’t manage to hear him, but he certainly heard the whistle coming right behind him and felt the droplets of blood as they fell on his face.
It all happened so fast yet so slow for Mendoza and his men, he turned around to see one of them fall with a huge hole on the back of his head. They didn’t have time to react when another one went up flying backwards when a bullet pierced through his chest and through his back.
The rest managed to turn around and see that they were getting shot at from a cargo truck parked at the bottom of the opposite alleyway. They raised their guns to open fire but that was the moment when the shooter decided to hasten her trigger finger.
The intensity of the onslaught was too much for them, Mendoza’s thugs dropped like flies, and when he desperately shot his magnum hoping to hit the shooter, he received an impact in his right shoulder and right leg, effectively neutralizing him.
He screamed because of the pain, but no one would come to help him. In his desperation he turned to look at Gustavo for help, but he had already given up, having fallen to his knees and muttering prayers in hopes he would be spared of being a victim of this massacre.
“Help! Somebody help me!”-He kept on screaming while the shooter came out of her hiding spot. Alicia was lucky to find a blanket that could cover her body perfectly inside that truck; it made for the perfect sniping spot.
She dropped the empty mag and replaced it with a new one, then walked up to the scene of the crime, being careful to not trip over any of her victims.
“A fine job as always, killer!” -Said Ten, excited for the mission.
“(We are just beginning.)” -She picked up Mendoza’s magnum and walked up to him. – “Mr. Mendoza?”
“Fuck you!” -He tried to drag himself away from her but she stopped him on his tracks by shooting the other leg. –“Ahhhh! You bastard!”
“I’ve got a simple question for you.” -She said while crouching by his side. – “Where can I find Schmidt’s turf?” -She was consciously trying to give him a chance to give her the information willingly. But obviously he would waste that chance by jumping towards her trying to tackle her into the ground.
He failed at his attempt and received a kick in the chin as a reward, sending a tooth flying out of his mouth in the process.
“Told ya’ he would be stupid.”
“(Had to try)” -Alicia put her boot over one of his bullet wounds, making him scream in agony. – “Where does he keep the children? Where is it?”
“Ahhhh!” -Mendoza caved in easily. – “Amarillo! Hermosillo Slaughterhouse! Around Cereza Avenue. In the basement! He keeps them in the basement!”
“You ain’t lying to me, are you?” -She aimed the magnum at him, making sure he wasn’t just lying to get out of the situation.
“It’s true! It’s the absolute truth!” -He yelled. –“Please, don’t kill me! I told you what you wanted to know!”
“Yeah, appreciate it.” -She said, just before blasting his brains off with his own magnum. She dropped the piece to the ground and walked towards Gustavo, almost done with what she went to do there.
“I did what you told me to do! We are even now, right!?” -Gustavo looked up, hoping that this teenage sicario would find the mercy in her heart to spare his life.
An hour back, he was relaxing in his home about to eat breakfast, until he heard a glass breaking in the kitchen. He got up from his chair to go check it out and the next thing he knew he was getting kicked in the nose by an assailant.
He tried to fight back and throw a punch, but she easily grabbed him by the arm and dislocated his shoulder, forcing him to his knees.
“I’ve heard a few things about you, sir.” -She said. – “You sold your child to a sex trafficker. I should kill you right now, but…what if you do me a favor instead?”
“¿Qué es lo que quiere? ¡Hare lo que sea!”(“What is it!? I’ll do anything!”) -He responded, almost uncapable of thinking because of the pain.
“You still got the number of that slaver? I want you to call him to meet up with you.”
“What!? NO! He’s going to kill me!” -He replied, and then he felt a burn as she started to pull his arm upwards.
“I’m afraid you are in no position to refuse.”
In the end, he caved in and reached out for his phone to call Mendoza; of course, she didn’t look away from him, not even a single second, to not give him a chance at escaping or calling for help.
She stayed around him like a looming shadow until it was time to meet Mendoza, and even then, he never thought of running away, he was uncapable of doing so. Every time he tried to figure a way out in his mind, the same scenario kept repeating itself: him running in the dark and being cut down by her, one way or another.
His only choice was to play his role and hope for the best.
“You are going to let me go, right!?” -He asked as she approached, still on his knees.
Her left arm moved on its own, unsheathing the knife and slicing the side of his neck, splitting the artery. – “Talk with the knife.”
Gustavo dropped to the floor and died on a puddle of his own blood alongside the others.
Alicia walked back to the truck to put the rifle back in its case. She was very surprised that the police didn’t seem anywhere close to arriving at the scene, it reminded her of the wasteland, although the wasteland didn’t have buildings as tall as the ones she could see downtown, but the neighbors did behave like the civilians in the war zone, staying inside their houses, hiding in a corner, scared of the terrifying men with the big guns.
“This might be easier than we thought if people don’t call the police.”
“(If this doesn’t make them call the cops, I don’t know what does.)”
“Anyway, at least we now know where to find that old man’s little business. What do you say if we crash the place?”
“(That’s what we were hired to do anyway.)”
Alicia disappeared from the scene, and the locals came out of their homes to witness the aftermath shortly after. They reported the shootout to the police not before taking the guns away from their corpses and hiding them inside their houses. Alicia thought that this town had many things in common with the desert, now she needed to locate the Hermosillo Slaughterhouse, it was kind from the organization’s part to provide her with a map of the city, making it easier to find the Amarillo district.
Alicia found it more convenient to move through the alleyways and barren zones of the city, that way she wouldn’t attract unwanted attention. She always did the exact same thing back with the Crimson Rangers when they had to operate in small settlements for whatever reason.
“(It’s all so similar…but the air smells different)”. -She walked through an alley, heading towards the Amarillo district. That alleyway in particular reminded her of one in Baghdad, full of mud and dampness. – “(This city is big…too big.)”
“That’s civilization for ya’, girl. Their system is built all around these big complexes, or that’s what I think, remember that we aren’t exactly smart people.”
“(A system…)” -She walked into the sunlight and found herself before an open field with a couple of houses around and a big highway that split the field in half. Even greater buildings lied at the distance. For everyone else this was a common sight, for Alicia this was like awakening from a century’s slumber, seeing this part of the world and comparing it to the countries she was in, it was like night and day for her.
However, she had already made an idea for herself of what hid inside those buildings.
“(All the sin comes from here…)” -She thought, not referring to the country, but to civilization itself.
She proceeded forward, throughout the open fields, while halfway through her march, she heard gunshots at the distance, a rapid succession; probably an SMG.
“Apparently this country has a lot of problems with organized crime.”
“(If we are lucky, we’ll be capable of taking out as many of them as we can along the way.)”
“You are always thinking on how you can kill as many as you can, why don’t you cool it off for once and stop being so edgy all the time?”
“(No relaxing while at work.)”
“You are going to age poorly if you keep it up.”
She hastened her pace, feeling like she was taking too long to walk through that field.
“(If I relax, the consequences of anything that happened that I could prevent are on me.)”
“Pff…whatever, hero.” -Alicia didn’t like being called a hero, and Ten knew that, she just wanted to pick on her for a bit.
She wouldn’t be a real hero until she could actually make up for being so slow in the past.
A couple of hours passed before she made it to the meat market, and following the indications around the light posts, she found Cereza Avenue and thus made it to the Hermosillo slaughterhouse. It was still pretty early in the day, and she was now pretty deep into the concrete jungle, so she could expect the police to answer faster when the shootout started, and if they didn’t come, she could expect Schmidt’s reinforcements to arrive if someone raised the alarm.
Alicia wasn’t intimidated by the odds; she wouldn’t have made it that far if she was. She looked around, searching for an easy access point, the front would be too straightforward, so the back where the trucks packed with meat were stationed would be the best course of action.
She lurked through the alleys, both her inner voice and Ten were silent, focusing on the task ahead. After making it to the back of the slaughterhouse she jumped the high wall that separated the lot with the rest of the streets and landed on the other side. She made sure to leave the case hidden between two crates, as it would be cumbersome to move with it for the action that lied ahead.
She quickly took cover behind a truck and analyzed the place. Suddenly a person came out of the building, holding a phone over his ear, she could hear him berate to himself at that distance.
“Come on…why doesn’t he answer? What is that fat fuck doing?” -He muttered to himself, walking and turning hastily. –“I told him to answer whenever I call him, no matter what!”
Another person joined on the scene, he had a very obvious SMG dangling from a belt around his left shoulder.
“What’s up, boss? What happened with Mendoza?”
“He isn’t answering my goddamn calls!” -He closed his flip-phone too hard and put it back inside his pocket. –“He said that he had a business with a “former client”, we only deal with the common folks once and be done with it! What the hell is he thinking?” -He showed his back to the henchman and started to think, his mind quickly reached to one of the worst possible outcomes. – “Shit! What if he got canned? He must’ve been set up! I want your men to go look for him at that address, now!”
“Yes, sir!”
The thug went back into the building, most likely to gather his men, leaving the boss to ponder on his own in the exterior.
“They’ll find the corpses soon, we better get this over with before they have any idea of what’s going down.”
“(Even so…I’ll wait for them to come back.)” -Said Alicia, something that didn’t surprise Ten at all.
“There you go again, wanting to be “thorough”, ha!”
Alicia sneaked behind the boss who was busy making another call.
“Yes, we’ve got the latest batch of “products” from the border, we’ll make sure that Ricardo doesn’t rough them up that much, but you know how we work, we must punch a little bit of compliance into them, and if that doesn’t work, Ricardo’s appetite should do just fine… hey, a missing product or two shouldn’t make a difference if your clients want them to be in a docile state when they get to them…what’s wrong with the boxes…? In that case, you shouldn’t be talking with me, you’ll have to talk with Mr. Schmidt, alright? Once you do that, we can talk again. If that’s all, I’ll be hanging now.”
He ended the call, and the next thing he knew was that he was feeling the all too familiar edge of a knife over his neck. He stood there, paralyzed, trying to process how someone had been capable of approaching him that deep in his own territory, and worse yet, get so close to him without him even noticing.
“Who are you?” -He asked, but Alicia wouldn’t answer that question. – “What the hell do you want?”
“One question: How do I get to the basement?” -She asked, and he instantly knew what she was looking for.
“I won’t tell you a goddamn thing.” -Was his response, but then he felt as the edge of the knife started to press harder on his skin, making it bleed a little. Usually, this wouldn’t be enough to intimidate him, but for some reason, this time, it was as if he was being dragged into a cold abyss; the pressure around him was too much for him to bear.
“Is that your final answer?” -She asked as she pressed the knife even harder.
“…Go inside, and turn on the left, you’ll find the stairs to the basement. There’s a door at the bottom with a code pad, if you let me live I…”
“Tell me the code.”- The pressure kept on rising; he was already shivering uncontrollably. He couldn’t know what was wrong with himself, he couldn’t think of fighting back, he couldn’t think of posing any sort of resistance against this mysterious assailant that had ambushed him.
“…Please…I can unlock the door for you! Y-you can use me as warrant for my men down there!” -That man didn’t know it yet, but if the dead could speak, they would tell him that bargaining with The Butcher was always a bad idea, especially if you are on the receiving end of her guns.
“A warrant…?” -She said, tilting her head. The man could feel as the edge of the knife strayed away from his neck’s skin, only to be replaced by the cold feeling of a gun’s cannon right behind him. –“…Lead the way, then.”
“S-s-sure, let’s go.”
They walked into the slaughterhouse, being welcomed by the smell of refrigerated meat, blood and other liquids that Alicia couldn’t really guess what they were. In her mind, ignorant of how the civilized world worked, thought that a place like that could only work as a façade for trafficking operations such as the one she was about to destroy.
As they walked down a hallway, he asked her:
“And what are you supposed to be? A sicario? Did our rivals in the market send you to fuck us over?”
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
“That is not the right question.” -She pressed the cannon of the pistol in his back harder. –“And you are in no position to be asking questions.”
“It’s strange in many ways to see a sicario attacking a potential contractor. What is it in this for you? Whatever they paid you, we can double it!” -Once again, negotiations were of poor taste for her.
“Money is secondary.” -She replied, feeling her trigger finger itch, on the edge of just shooting him to stop him from uttering another stupid question. He was particularly surprised at hearing that.
“What!?”
“My reward is right here…” -But suddenly, their unamicable exchange was interrupted by the presence of another person.
“Boss? I have to tell you…” -they crossed paths with a young man, he had a gun dangling from around his hip. He fell silent and stood in place like a statue at the sight of his boss standing right in front of a person he had never seen before around those parts. He took one careless glare into her eyes, and saw exactly what Kirsten saw on multiple occasions. He thought of reaching for his pistol, but every fiber in both of his arms denied to obey him.
The boss swallowed before recomposing himself. –“…Benito. What did you want?”
“W-w-who is…?” -Before he could complete that question, the boss raised his hand and stopped him.
“She’s just an associate, no need to worry, alright?”
But Benito didn’t seem convinced at all by what he was saying, he could clearly see that his boss was so terrified that his legs were shaking. He had never seen him like this before, Benito thought that no man or woman would be able to intimidate him, but this person was absolutely different.
“S-s-sir…what do we…?”
“He can come with us if he so wants to.” -She said, sinking the boss’ heart to his stomach, this was the last thing that he ever wanted to happen.
He whispered back to her:
“Please, no. He’s green, he doesn’t have anything…” -But she interrupted him.
“You want to test me?” -The pressure around them became heavier. –“You want to test a “sicario”?”
He turned back to Benito, who seemed to be getting more anxious by the minute.
“C-c-come with us, Benito. I want to show you something.”
“Sir?” -Benito caught a glimpse of the gun Alicia was using to threaten his boss, now the situation was quite clear for him. His heart was telling him to fight, but his legs were telling him to run.
“Come with us, Benito…” -He said, but Benito could only hear him telling him to do the exact opposite.
Benito turned back and started to run. The next thing the boss knew, he received a strong impact on the back of his head, stunning him and rendering him on his knees. He lost his hearing for a moment, but he still could see how Alicia took out her knife and threw it at Benito, piercing him right through the back.
Benito dropped to the ground, and his boss wasn’t able to even hear his last whimper, the ringing in his ears had taken that away from him.
His vision became blurry for a moment, until she walked back to him having retrieved her knife from Benito’s corpse.
“Get up…”
“You bitch…” -He tried to protest but she grabbed him by the arm to force him to get back up.
He couldn’t believe he was being tossed around by a girl younger than him; this was a nightmare, he was convinced of it, but he didn’t know how to wake up.
“Don’t look at me like that.”-She said, feeling disgusted at the very idea that this man was trying to pretend he wouldn’t have done the same in her place. “You know what they say: What’s one more, right?”
“Fuck you!” – She hit him in the face with the butt of her pistol, bruising his left eye and impairing his vision.
“I think he wants to do this, Ali!” -Said Ten, stirring the flames lying inside Alicia’s heart.
She grabbed his face and leaned in closer, looked at him straight in the eye. The boss soon could see that thing that wanted to devour him whole. – “Take me to the basement.”- She said.
She forced him to get back up, then they continued walking through the hallway, making sure to not stumble upon any other unexpected individuals. Alicia was lucky for having caught the boss when the civilian workers were out on a break, they wouldn’t be back for a while, or rather, they wouldn’t ever go back after what was about to happen there.
They finally reached the staircase and descended through it, finding the access door to the basement. Like he said, it was shut by an electronic lock that required a password.
“Input the code.” -She ordered and he obeyed, the door unlocked on its own. They walked through another long hallway until they reached the access door. They could hear the faint sound of salsa music coming from the other side. There were guards there, enjoying their break; this was a good moment to use him as a bargain, like he suggested to her.
Unfortunately, The Butcher had other plans.
“My men won’t shoot as long as I’m alive.” -He said.
“What a pity.” -She replied then kicked him through the door, surprising the four guards on the other side.
Alicia took out her other pistol, shot the boss in the back of his head, and when his body plummeted to the ground, she gunned down the guards before they could reach for their rifles, all in just a couple of seconds.
That scandal was enough to draw the attention of the guards standing by on the rest of the basement.
“Let’s send them packing!”
Alicia grabbed the SMG on the table and walked further into the basement.
She turned on a corner and heard the hasty footsteps of the guards approaching, drawn in by the echo of her shots. When they got close enough, she popped out of the corner and opened fire, taking them down with a barrage of firepower; now the others knew they were actually under attack. Alicia could hear them raise their voice to gather up their guns, one of them screamed “watch the kids!”, with that she could confirm they kept the kids there.
Alicia pressed forwards and rushed through another room; she had entered the office where they kept all the paperwork on their grim transactions. There were two henchmen inside waiting for her, they came out of their hiding spots behind the desks and opened fire. She quickly dashed to the right side and took cover behind another desk, when she heard one of them reloading, she popped out of her cover and put a burst of bullets in his head.
She rushed to shorten the distance between her and the other gunman. When he came out of the cover, she grabbed his shooting arm, keeping his gun down, then shot two bursts into his stomach and a final one to the chest, eliminating him.
“Over here!” - She heard a voice coming from the other side of the door at the bottom of the office, she switched the SMG’s firing mode to fully automatic and unloaded the magazine on the door. The bullets pierced through with no difficulties, hitting the gunman standing at the other side.
She dropped the SMG on the ground and took out her pistols once again.
“Step right up, you rats!” – Yelled Ten as Alicia sprinted towards the door and pushed it through with a dropkick.
She had managed to throw two guards out of balance with that stunt, she took that chance to put two bullets in the chest of each of them.
“Sicario!” -A man yelled right behind her, raising up his shotgun to shoot a barrage of pellets that would surely kill her. with fast reflexes, Alicia rolled back into the office, evading the pellet storm. When she made a full turn, she applied all of her strength into her legs and jumped forward through the door frame and place a bullet in the man’s dome midair.
Before the other guards arrived, she approached the corpse and took his shotgun, then she kept pressing forward. She turned on the hallway’s corner, taking a gunman by surprise and sending him flying with a shot of the shotgun, the others were approaching from the bottom of the hallway, so she pushed them back by unloading the shotgun on them relentlessly, taking down another two of them, the last one managed to retreat into the room unscathed. She used the eight shots of the shotgun and dropped it to the ground.
While approaching the room at the bottom she heard a child squeal. She had effectively cornered that man to desperation, and he was willing to step so low if it gave him a chance at survival.
“We got a situation in there!” -Pointed out Ten, who also had an idea of what they were going to find in there.
Alicia kept her guns in their holsters and stepped into the room.
The gunman was holding a little boy hostage, pressing a kitchen knife over his throat. The boy kept on struggling to no avail, he couldn’t escape his grasp. That thug was more than willing to kill him if it meant he would get some advantage over the sicario that had come to assault their facility.
“Drop your weapons now! Or he dies! I swear, I’ll slice his throat out! You want this child’s blood to be on your hands!? Huh!?” -The man kept on throwing threats around, but Alicia wasn’t even listening to him anymore. She was focusing exclusively on her hands; on every movement she could make with her fingers. – “Didn’t you hear me!? drop your goddamn weapons! He’s going to die!”
“Sie machen zu viel Lärm” –She said right before quick drawing her left hand’s pistol and blowing his brains out with a swift movement the thug didn’t manage to perceive on time.
The boy ran away screaming and hid under a table, crying his eyes out, he was scared when he was brought there, but this situation was overwhelming him completely.
“…We should leave him alone, for now.” -Advised Ten, it was better to not aggravate him with her presence any longer.
Alicia went back to exploring the basement, following the echoes of the voices of the remaining guards that had entrenched themselves in the closed rooms. She could clearly hear them argue and threatening the children so they would keep quiet. One of them informed the others the reinforcements shouldn’t take too long to come, that they must hold out until then. Another one mentioned that they should inform Ricardo of what was happening, as he was confident that as the most competent mercenary in the gang, he would be able to dispose of the intruder in no time
Ricardo’s kitchen was isolated so he certainly hadn’t heard the gunshots, and he didn’t like phones, so he didn’t have any. None of them were brave enough to rush out of the room and try to reach out for him.
A minute passed; the survivors were overburdened by the heavy silence that had settled around them. Effectively, there was nothing to be heard, inside or outside.
One of them decided to open the door and check the area. Maybe they were lucky and she had overlooked them completely, going her merry way, and they could use this small window of opportunity to escape.
Unfortunately, Alicia was already outside the door waiting for him to come out.
The man peeked his head out the door, only to be received with a bullet to the brain that splattered the door with his blood.
The kids screamed in terror, the remaining guards panicked, one of them snapped and turned his gun at the children, but before he could pull the trigger, Alicia rushed into the room and blew his brains out with a well-placed shot to the back of his head, and at the same time, raising the gun on her right hand, shot twice and blew away the legs of the other thug who was aiming at her. He pulled the trigger on his mac-10 while falling to the ground, shooting a burst of bullets to the wall and to the roof and dropping it when his torso hit the ground.
Now he was the one crying and screaming instead of the children, the man was completely petrified by pain he couldn’t even think about trying to crawl away to safety.
Alicia put an end to his misery with one last shot. Right after killing that man, Alicia could finally pay attention to the place she was in.
The kids were trapped in small cubic cages, filthy and some of them rusty, Alicia counted at least a dozen kids inside those cages, some of them looked malnourished and starved, a live indicative of how long they had remained there.
“Sick fucks.” -Said Ten, wishing she could kill people twice.
“(We got no time to waste.)” -Alicia approached the cages and broke the padlocks that kept them closed. The children crawled out of the cages, scared of what the big bad murderess could do to them, but Alicia, or rather, The Butcher was not that kind of killer.
“Help these two, you have to save them!” -She said, pointing at the two malnourished children. A couple of kids from the group approached them and dragged them out of the cages, slowly as to not hurt them. – “Keep them safe, hide in a different room and let no one hear you, I’ll be back soon.” -She said and left them there, she still had one more room to clear out.
She walked through the bloodstained corridors, being careful as to not trip over the corpses and staying alert for any suspicious noise that could indicate the basement wasn’t completely cleared.
Finally, she arrived at a two door’s entrance and opened it, discovering a spacious room that served both as a meat processing lair and kitchen. All sorts of meat were hanging from hooks and sprayed over big tables across the room, surrounded by vegetables, spices and condiments.
However, on further inspection, Alicia noticed that some of that meat didn’t belong to animals, judging by the severed hands placed neatly on a table to her right, small hands to be specific.
There was a man in the middle of the room, chopping some tomatoes with his knife. He raised his head when he noticed someone had entered his territory.
“Can you stop it with the noise? I’m trying to prepare a new plate for the b…-He turned around to face Alicia. – “…Oh, hey. I don’t think we’ve met, and I’m very intimate with all of Mr.Schmidt’s men. Who are you?”
“You are Ricardo?”-Asked Alicia, making a conscious effort to keep her hands at both sides of her body, this wasn’t the moment to lose her patience, she had to get a good reading on this man first. –“(I can see it, this one is different.)”
“I got a feeling that this one can hold his own with us.” -Commented Ten, looking at him from top to bottom, wondering what that man is capable of.
“Oh, where are my manners? Schmidt just hired you, right? Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Ricardo Finley Beaumont, enchanté.” -He said while bowing to her as a sign of courtesy. –“I’m the chief cook, and maybe the best cook on this side of the frontier, dare I say. The men that know me admire my dishes, even if some of them are too…refined for their palates.”-He pointed with his knife at some sliced pieces of meat he had laying around and finally at the hands piled up on one of the tables. –“In that case I keep my best recipes all for myself, you know what I’m saying? You want me to prepare something to start up our professional relationship on good terms? How about a wellington steak of the highest quality?”
“(People like him…so far into civilization…)” -Alicia couldn’t believe what she was hearing nor seeing, the entrails of the civilized world were darker than she thought of. –“(Too much work…too much work to do…)”
“Relax sis, maybe he’s an exception to be cut off, ya’ know?” – Her sister tried to calm her down, but suddenly, she noticed Alicia’s muscles tensing up, her vision entirely focused on him, her train of thought had gone quiet; this man, Ricardo, had a certain type of smell.
Ricardo leaned to the right to look behind her, and noticed one of the corpses lying around in the hallway, that’s when he got the full picture of the situation; he had received a very peculiar diner.
“Oh…I get it, an assassin eh? Did Jiménez do something to piss off Mr. Schmidt? Di done of our competitors hire you?, One of the children here is the son of a powerful man who sent you here to rip our balls out?, am I getting close?” -Even if he recognized the severity of those scenarios, Ricardo didn’t take the situation seriously at all. In fact, even if his opponent had the guns on her side, his experience cutting down armed opponents put him at ease.
“Likely the latter, not sure.” -She shrugged. –“I don’t think it matters.”
Ricardo’s eyes opened wide. – “I see… I think you and I understand each other better than you may admit. I doubt you are doing a job as risky as this one out of a sense of duty or justice. Nah, people like that only exists in novels and TV shows. I do this because it’s the only way I can sate my peculiar appetite, just like my dad, my grandfather and the father of my grandfather, and beyond, generation after generation.”
Alicia was thinking of making a move that could take him down with a single blow, but Ricardo was just as perceptive as her, the moment she drew out her gun he would take cover and attack and if she tried to shorten the distance and slash him, she wouldn’t come out unscathed from that fight.
“A peculiar appetite?” -She asked, tilting her head to the left.
“Meat is wonderful, is it not? It’s the number one food all around the world, all who are sane consume it. beef, deer, pork, chicken… some madmen even eat dogs! – He laughed, thinking of the foul taste those kinds of people have. – “But few are like me, who recognize there’s a meat whose flavor triumphs above all others, something so Delicious God himself forbade us from eating it …once you take a bite, you change completely, and you can’t go back… -He pointed the knife towards the fridge. – “And I, as an artist of this culinary category, I’ve discovered that the most tender the meat is, it tastes better.”
Alicia’s left eye twitched, now she realized that she wasn’t imagining things, there was a certain scent coming from that man, a scent she hadn’t caught in such a long time that she had almost forgotten about it.
She was almost entranced by it, compelled by it. Her vision became a tunnel in which he was the center.
“The adult meat is too rough, not fine at all.” -He continued. – “But the young one, is certainly a delicacy…”
“This is why you work for Schmidt? To eat children? what does he think of that? aren’t you hurting his earnings?”
Ricardo pretended to be offended. –“Ha! No, nothing like that, he gives me the right to choose one he knows won’t bring him any benefits, he ensures the obedience of the others like that. They behave once they know they are within reach of a fairy tale’s Monster. Maybe Schmidt doesn’t understand my tastes, but he knows how to get an advantage out of them. Besides, if someone steps out of line or doesn’t pay their debts, I don’t like the adult meat, but I have no reservations about cutting.”
“This compadre is seriously fucked in the head…” -Commented Ten, but Alicia wasn’t listening anymore. –“Ali?”
“(He’s one of them…)” -She whispered into her mind. She had remembered what that scent meant. –“(…He has to be.)”
Just when she said those words, Ten could also smell that fragrant and intoxicating scent, and just like Alicia, she couldn’t help but be attracted by it.
“Oh…I get it…yeah, I think we caught another one.”
“You may want to judge me.” -Continued Ricardo. –“But think about it, we are almost seven billion monkeys on this planet! More mouths to feed, less food, less water, less of everything! But many die every single second, even a thousand on a single day, millions if we are lucky. Only a few will miss the ones who fall, but the world? For this world, we are not even a foot note.” -He finished his diatribe with a sigh. –“…Is there any reason for why you let me monologue? Any other hitman worth their weight in gold would’ve tried to attack me already. If you like my voice so much, let me ask you: Do you have any idea of what human meat tastes like?
“Chicken…” -she replied, the change had already settled. – “The answer is…chicken.”
Ricardo gasped with amazement. –“It can’t be…you too?”
“Have you ever had an Arabic steak?” -She asked him, and Ricardo was overjoyed.
“Wonderful! I thought there was no one like me left in this world…but, since you and I are on opposing sides of a conflict of interests, I’m afraid we cannot be friends.”
“No way.”-Replied Alicia, then she walked up to the table to her right, there lied the biggest knife she had ever seen, you’d think that it wasn’t designed to cut chunks of meat but to cut logs in half. –“…The only thing that matters now…” -She grabbed the knife, for a single second her muscles resented trying to lift that piece of sharpened metal, but then it was almost as if it didn’t have any weight at all. – “…Is if you think that you have what it takes to survive this…”
“It’s such a shame it’s come down to this.” -Replied Ricardo. –“I’ll make sure to turn you into the greatest dish I’ve ever prepared, I’m sure my best clients will be delighted out of their senses, given that your essence has mixed with an exotic flavor.”
Ricardo prepared to pounce; Alicia placed the dull side of the knife on her shoulder. Without realizing, her facial scars started to tremble, burn, and finally they reopened, letting out streaks of blood that slid down her face, and the crimson glow made itself present, bursting out of her scars like fire.
“Do not blink, don’t lose focus. If you do… [your right arm will come off.]”
At that moment, unbeknown to the entire world and whoever it may concern, Alicia and Ten had achieved full synchronization; Ten and Alicia had become one, the one harbinger of terror in the middle-east.
“I’ll devour you!” -Ricardo, showing that he wasn’t a simple cook, slid 4 small knives from under his collars to his hands.
He threw the knives at Alicia, but when they were close to pierce her body, she swatted them away with great speed.
“Nice!” -Ricardo turned around for a moment to grab his cleaver and rush at Alicia, but when he turned his head once again, she had completely disappeared.
Time slowed down as his brain tried to process the new information. He stared in shock as he witnessed how his right arm went up in the air and fell to the ground, leaving a crimson trace behind. Alicia was standing next to him, now there was a single line of blood covering the edge of the great knife.
“(I’m an idiot.)” -He thought as she quickly gyrated on her feet and plunged the knife through his back all the way until it pierced through his chest. Ricardo screamed in pain as anyone would do, but his mind was oddly quiet, reprimanding himself. – “(She warned me…I shouldn’t have taken my eyes off of her.)”
Alicia couldn’t think of anything else but her yearn to see this cannibal drop to the ground, victim of one of his own tools.
She twisted the knife and pulled it up, cutting through his right shoulder and splitting him.
“(I am…an idiot…)” -That was the last thing Ricardo thought before hitting the ground. He had been finally beaten by someone that under other circumstances, would’ve been just another one of his forbidden meals. But here, it was almost as if she was created for that single moment.
His blood slowly turned into a puddle and stained the soles of her boots. There was a quiet whistle in Alicia’s mind, she stood still like a statue for half a minute, feeling it and processing it. That man carried the scent, he was just like them, the ones she had met during her childhood.
“(…Have I killed the evilest man in the world?)” -She wondered, trying to probe every single inch of that feeling, hoping that finally, after so long, she had managed to recreate the same feeling she got in that place, 5 years before, when she closed her hands around the neck of the man that created her.
After a meticulous inspection, sound returned to the world around her.
“…Was it him?” -Asked Ten, because Alicia was the only one out of the two that could be completely sure of it.
Alicia didn’t respond immediately, but after another half a minute, she said:
“…He came close…he came very, very close…” -Alicia clutched at the great knife. – “But it wasn’t him…”
“Geez…” -Ten sighed with frustration. –“He set the bar too high though.”
“Yeah.”
Cooling down, but the crimson glow was far from disappearing. That supernatural strength wouldn’t abandon her, for there was still a lot to be done.
Suddenly, she heard a loud noise coming from behind, at the bottom of the room, there was still someone left. A fat old man was staring at her, paralyzed with fear. It was Miguel, Ricardo’s assistant. Miguel wasn’t staring at an assassin, the only thing he was looking at was a monster so terrible it had managed to kill Ricardo, a man he thought was invincible.
The crimson glow became more intense when Alicia noticed there was someone else left.
Miguel reacted, snapping out of his shock and realized what he had to do. He turned back and ran to the bottom of the storeroom, there was a shotgun there he could use to hopefully kill the beast
He stopped on his tracks when the great knife came flying, spinning like a jet engine, cutting his right shoulder right before nailing itself on the wall at the bottom of the room.
Miguel screamed in pain just like his master did, though the wound was not deep and not even lethal. If he had finished organizing the supplies on time. But regardless, there was no way he could escape the fate that had now fallen over him.
Miguel shrunk, falling on his knees, clutching at his wound trying to stop the bleeding. He touched the cold floor of the storeroom with his forehead; the pose he made as he curled up in pain and fear resembled that of a man bowing to God.
Alicia walked past him to retrieve the great knife. It was a pretty good knife given it could endure being thrown around with such strength.
She stood in front of Miguel who shrunk even further when he was covered by her shadow.
“Wanna ask you a question.” -She said. –“Who takes the children and where?”
“T-t-there’s a truck, Road Runner Courier services, it’ll come here soon…” -He responded. –“It takes them…to the headquarters in the outskirts…”
“…I see…” -She thanked him and tightened her grasp on the knife.
“Plea…” -He tried to plea for his life, but Alicia had already cut through his neck, a cut so fast and swift, he didn’t realize his neck had been severed until a few seconds later, when the separation between his neck and shoulders was made evident.
She walked out of the room while Miguel’s sight turned blurry and everything faded to black.
“(A truck, huh?)” -She thought. – “Surely, it’ll come, but before it gets here…”
“We must get rid of the new guys first!”
“Let’s hide the children somewhere safe…” -She placed the knife over her shoulder once again. –“I don’t want them to see what I’m going to do…”
Alicia walked back to where she had left the children, to see what she could do for them so they could endure a little longer, walking right over the trail of corpses she had left behind.
She wasn’t lying when she told Kirsten that she didn’t do “this kind of stuff” often, she wasn’t lying when she talked about how stress kept piling up. Kirsten didn’t understand her, but what she meant back then was that her forcing her body and techniques beyond their limits was all about aggravation.
In that environment, surrounded by the meat of both animals and children, Alicia was feeling quite aggravated.