“I know you’re wondering who it is Dante sent him to spy on.” Amy grumbled between fits of coughing. “And I want to assure you that I don’t know.”

“Honestly, I’m more concerned about you right now.” I sighed from across the room.

Our positions were reversed now. I was alone at the chessboard playing against a ghost while Amy laid down on the bed and coughed her lugs up. What was previously only a figure of speech was sounding more and more like a reality with every fit. I could have sworn I even saw blood dripping from her mouth just as we arrived back in the den, but it was gone the second I blinked.

“Don’t be. This isn’t the worst thing I’ve ever been through.” The particularly painful hacking she’d just finished said otherwise, but I let her go on. “And before you ask, the most painful injury I ever had is a tie between being drawn and quartered and getting a Columbian necktie.”

“No.” I actually gasped in shock at her response. “No no no. Stop. I do not want to know about either of those times.” I could feel my stomach turning at the mention of the primitive execution methods.

“To be honest, they were the only two really gruesome moments, unless you count fighting the lion, but let’s face it that’s just a great story.”

“I really hope nothing like that ever happens to me.”

“Trust me, there are worse ways to go, though thinking about any of that definitely is not helping how I feel.” A cringe of pain was now clearly evident on her face.

“At least let me tell Hope about this, maybe she can help without asking Felix.”

“No.” Despite the obvious pain she was in, her voice was very firm. She almost sounded normal for a second.

“What about Dante?”

“Dante already saw my condition. Not that he’s my go to standard of pride, but it would be a real kick in the face if I got that disappointed look he’s so fond of giving you over something like this.”

“And when you say something like this, you mean agonizing pain that isn’t going away and your body isn’t fixing?” I was having a hard time believing that after everything I’d seen, she still wasn’t willing to ask for help. “The solution is so simple, just do it already!”

“Your right, the solution is very simple.” Amy reached over to the bedside table and removed her knife from where it had been embedded in the ancient wood. “I’ll just take a nap.”

“That can’t be the right answer.” I stood up, ready to stop her, but she held out her other hand in protest.

“I’m doing this, even if it isn’t the solution. Maybe you can think of some better options for me though and I won’t have to wait in pain for those.”

I didn’t bother responding to her, she’d made up her mind. Even if she was in pain I knew she could mop the floor with me in a fight, so there was no way I was going to stop her. And then she had another coughing fit. There was blood in the air, and she dropped the knife at her side. It was clearly much worse than she was letting on and I couldn’t stand to see her like that.

“Don’t worry, I’ll figure something out, and until then I can’t let you stay like this.” I grabbed her knife and placed the point over her heart. “But only if you want this.”

“Do it.” The grunt was faint but clear.

As I drove the knife down I saw one last glimpse of relief before Amy’s body went limp. I’d never actually killed her before, and even though I knew it wasn’t a permanent thing I still felt… guilty for some reason. I mean, I had just put a knife through her heart. I’d killed her. The act was still the act, murder was still murder. And I was, and forever will be, a murderer.

“Well I’m convinced, Samantha, you are a cold blooded little beast.” I froze. I didn’t recognize the voice at first, which was startled me. The sudden appearance of someone behind my back was all but normal now, but a stranger in my own room was a shock.

“Who…” The second I spun around I shut my mouth. I was frozen again for a whole new reason. “You’re…”

“Eleanor. Though of course I’ve had several different names in my many years.” She sighed casually, like she didn’t want to eviscerate me where I stood. “When I wandered the Sahara, for instance, the few nomads I came to know called me El-Hashim.”

“Does that mean…”

“It means ‘the crusher,’ dear.” She was clearly threatening me. “Of course the last name I had, you stole from me… but, and as much as I want to be otherwise, I didn’t come to see you about that.”

“Then why are you here? What are you doing in my room? How did you even get in here?”

“That’s a lot of questions for a simple girl like yourself, and a lot of answers for such a simple mind.” There was a hiss in her voice that had probably been growing since she first spoke up, but I hadn’t heard it until then. “To put it simply, I’m here because I want expendable help from someone I’ll enjoy seeing die.”

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“As fun as that sounds, I don’t work for you. I work for Dante.” Eleanor cringed at the mention of Dante. I didn’t even want to think about their relationship. “So unless you have something signed by him, I’ll be declining your invitation.”

“I’m not asking.” Her glare was monstrous. I didn’t have much experience with mother figures in my life, but there had always been a constant among the ones I had met and that was their penetrating glare. “And while I don’t have a signed release form from that boy, I don’t need one to make you do whatever I want.”

“What are you going to do then, kill me? Because that won’t work, as much as I wish it would sometimes.” Though honestly, I only said that to defy her. I didn’t want to die, I just knew she couldn’t kill me.

“I don’t have to harm you at all, or even threaten you.” In a second she was mere inches away from me. “I just have to take you with me.”

The disorientation I felt whenever Dante took me anywhere had worn off, but Eleanor must have been doing her thing some other way, because when we landed at her destination I was more nauseous than I’d been since burning alive. I didn’t actually think what she’d just done was even possible until she had actually done it, the thought of it hadn’t even crossed my mind. I’d been kidnapped, more or less, by the mother of the boy I murdered. A mother who was also a contractor… and clearly wanted to see me suffer.

“I still don’t have to do what you tell me, I’ll just do nothing now… or get Dante to take me back home.” My response was hindered by the lurching of my stomach, so it had taken a while for me to deliver my rebellious lines.

“And how, pray tell, do you expect to contact him?” She had a proud smirk on her face that I didn’t like the looks of.

“I just ask… I guess. I’ve been operating under the assumption he can just hear me if I call out to him and it’s been working more or less so far.” Though the more I talked, the less sure I was that he would pop out of the blue and come to my defense. To be honest though, the likeliness of him actually defending me was slim to begin with.

“Naïve child.” Eleanor sighed. “Oh to be simple and safeguarded from the scary world around you, never knowing that your call for help will go unanswered.”

“Can you at least get to the point, rather than try to make a fool of me? I think we both already know who has the upper hand here.” Clearly she did, but I let the statement be ambiguous on the off chance I could convince her I had an ace up my sleeve.

“The boy, the one you work for, has some amateur following me.” She sighed her response, as though it were a dreadfully boring matter. That didn’t change the fact that she’d gone to the effort of acquiring my assistance over such a dreadfully boring bit of business. “I can’t seem to identify him however, all I know is that he’s following me. I have brought you here,” she motioned around us, “to do what I cannot.”

I finally felt secure enough to take my eyes off of my captor as she motioned to our surroundings. We were in a shopping mall, of all places, and strangely we weren’t drawing any attention at all. Despite our appearances we certainly were acting casual enough; her in her mom jeans and pale blue blouse, me in my… collector uniform. No one gave us a second look. Not the teens shopping, not the old folks lounging on the benches, or the mother of four pushing her oversized cart loaded with children down the slightly sloped tile floor.

“Why would I do that? I mean, apart from the fact that you’ve presented yourself as my only option back to my employer, which doesn’t really mean that much by the way.”

“Since you insist on being so difficult, I am willing to trade.” She paused. I could tell she hadn’t been prepared to actually have to convince me to help her. “You have been plunged into a world you could not hope to comprehend and left in the dark almost completely. I will answer any one question to the termination of its thread of information. No strings attached.”

“Tempting offer, but circumstance may prevent you from answering my question once I’ve done what you want. Your payment will have to be up front.” I wasn’t finished, the second she opened her mouth I picked the negotiation back up again. I needed her to know I wasn’t in the dark when it came to making a deal. “My consideration for the trade will be my favorite knife, located in my left boot. It is one of the very few things I own. You will hold it as collateral until I’ve completed the task which you have already asked of me, which is to identify the individual following you, but only so long as it does not compromise my employers design as I will be unable to do so if this is the case. If your request cannot be completed, you will keep my knife, which I assure you I will seriously regret losing, and our agreement will be null and void. These are my terms. Do you accept?”

“What on earth…” Eleanor’s reaction was satisfyingly shocked. “Why is it that you, a murderer and a child, think you have the right to contract me? Further, how is it that you have any knowledge on the matter of contracting?”

“Out of respect, I read all of your son’s novels.” Her expression changed from shock to rage. As if on signal, all the shoppers in the mall began to leave and gave us as wide a berth as possible. “They only made me regret my actions more. He was very smart, and a good kid. I learned a lot from what he wrote.”

“Don’t you dare talk about my son like you knew him. You don’t know anything about him.” Her expression was wild. If she were capable of killing me, she would have done so a long time ago. I could see it was taking everything she had not to at least try.

“Like I said. I did that out of respect.” The room was starting to feel cold, cold in my mind like it had the first time we’d met and she’d actually tried to kill me. Something told me that if I couldn’t calm her down I was due for a repeat scenario. “And like you said, I don’t know a thing about him that he didn’t write down for the world to read. But I do respect him, the same way I respect you and what you’ve lost. What I took away from you. Everyone’s lost something like that, maybe not so horribly, but I get where you’re coming from. Which is why I know nothing I say or do could make it right between us.”

She paused, and for a few seconds it felt like the world was frozen around us as she decided how to take my plea. I knew this was one of those situations where there was no right answer. I’d committed murder, not because I wanted to, but because I wanted to live more than I cared if some stranger did. That didn’t make it right of course, but it didn’t exactly condemn me to hellfire either. I regretted what I did, but I still don’t think I could have done anything differently if I had another shot at things.

“As a bonus to you, if you accept the terms I laid out before… I’ll give you as much time as you need to take out your anger on me. I can’t promise that will help you at all though.” I just wanted this encounter to be over.

“Fine. I accept your terms and conditions.” Eleanor held out her hand.

There were no dramatic blue flames, no lights, and no ceremony about it. It was a contract all right, but it was a straightforward and honest one. Everything was normal as we shook hands in agreement.