“Did we what? Have sex?” she replied with deadpan features and turned a page. “Figure it out.”

I laid confused, but at least she patched me up. There was bloody cotton and bandages over yonder. “T-thanks,” I gently touched the bandage wrapped around my wound. “Listen, about the Calamity pi–”

“Info ain’t free. I require payment, which you cannot supply.”

“How can I–”

“Work,” she said, closing the book. She sure loved cutting people off. She turned off the nightlight and turned her back away from me.

The following morning, we went to a junkyard. “Can you just tell me–”

She put a finger to my lips, then pulled a flask of bourbon from her leather jacket, “Drink and relax.”

Before I could retort, something zoomed past my face. She grabbed my collar and brought me down, then returned fire in the direction of the bullet that almost killed me. I scurried away behind cover.

There was continuous gunfire for a while, then someone shouted, “Come on, Risky! How many times do we have to play this game? You’re getting too old for this!” Whoever shot at us was trying to rile her up.

Did he call her Risky?

Something suddenly rolled by my feet. I watched on in stupor. It was a grenade with a missing pin. I ran away, and just as I did, the grenade blew up, then bullets flew in my direction because I just ran away from my cover. “What the fuck?!” I yelled out. “Why are you shooting at me?!”

“I dunno! Ain’t you with Risky?” the man asked from afar.

“No!” I replied snappily. “Well yes, but no!”

“Well? Which is it, dumbass?!” the man asked, all while in an intense shootout with Risky.

I didn’t know how to feel about it. “I just need her for information!”

Risky suddenly peeped out from behind a car and glared at me, “Now that’s cold, kid. You mean I’m nothing to you after all that fucking we did last night?”

What am I hearing right now? “Wait, so we fucked?!”

“What information do you need?” our assailant yelled. I’ll tell you anything about anyone in Alkell for the right price, bud!”

A-are you trying to do business while shooting at your potential client? What the hell is with this city? My mind was having trouble wrapping around it. Should I answer? I mean, what are the chances I’ll get the information I need from this lunatic anyway? I then looked at Risky, who was probably just as much as a lunatic as the guy shooting at us. Well, what the heck… “I gotta find a calamity pilot. You know where I can find one?”

I peeped through the junk I hid behind at the old man. A bullet that grazed my cheek told me that was a bad idea. The old man laughed hysterically, “Them pilots are all dead, son! I mean, only one alive still is Risky, and she’s pretty risky!” he shouted.

My mind hit a wall and halted. I looked at her with newfound hatred. “Risky…”

She grinned and showed me a tattoo right between her breasts, the signature wing tattoo of the calamity pilots. My brother had one just like it.

“You fucking bitch!” I couldn’t believe her.

“Want my help going through the Calamity? Then help me deal with this calamity first!” she smiled maliciously and threw a rifle over to me. “Keep consistent fire on him,” she said. Without waiting for me to even agree to her madness, she just ran out into the open like the psycho she was.

I didn’t want the bitch to die, so I came out as well, and began firing at the old man. We walked down different paths to corner him, and he eventually felt the heat and dashed on my side. Who’d want to face off with a crazy chick like that anyway? I dived out the way and did a bit of blind firing to deter him from recklessly approaching me. Suddenly, I heard him yell out in pain. When I peeked, I noticed he got shot in the leg.

Like a lioness smelling wounded prey, Risky sprinted out, shot the man in his arm before he could properly aim his gun and stamped down on that arm. She restrained him. “You’re a natural, kid. Ain’t too bad with that dick work either.”

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“Can you not remind me?” I rued. I was already pissed that she hid the fact that she was a calamity pilot, but she had to rub that in my face. I didn’t even know whether or not I should hate her for it because she did save me from being mugged and probably saved my life in the process.

Some minutes later, we returned to her theatre-turned-home, and she retrieved the severed heads from a freezer. Who the fuck does that?! Of course, I hurled. And of course, she called me a pussy.

We then went over to an underground pub and she gently put four heads on the barkeep’s counter, then handed the finely dressed and mannered man the contracts. He handed her four more contracts, “Happy hunting, Ms Risky.”

“So,” I sat on a stool, “you’re an assassin?” I asked, whilst she downed some bourbon and counted her cash. That was surely her favourite drink.

“Oh, no, no!” she denied, then poured me a glass.

I watched the liquid with suspicion. “You didn’t spike this like last night, did you?”

“Why the fuck would I spike it? We still have to ride home. Besides,” she then handed me what was apparently my cut of the cash she earned, “if you crash on the way home, I can’t ride that dick tonight.”

“If you don’t burn in hell for murder, then I hope you burn in hell for sex crimes,” I said, then took that drink.

“Why would you wish such a thing on an angel like me? I’m hurt.”

The barkeep and I made eye-contact for a split second, then we both laughed. “What part of y–”

“Why the Calamity, kid?” she asked, quite seriously.

“It’s personal.”

I could tell by her expression that she heard that a million times. “Listen, when people say that, it usually means they lookin’ for someone who went missing inside. Whoever you’re looking for, forget it, kid. They’re gone.”

“You don’t know that,” I replied weakly. She was beginning to sicken me. Shooting, killing, constantly drinking, non-existent tact. Images of my degenerate of a father kept smothering my mind every time I look at her. I wanted so very badly to just walk out of that bar, hop on my bike, and just get away from it all. But I’d prove to be just like my father if I ran away from my responsibilities. Finding my brother was my life now.

Risky looked at me and smiled coyly. “Well, alright mister dumbass. I’ll get ya into the Calamity, but that shit ain’t free. Most contracts are ‘round five hundred. Be my assistant and get a fifth of the money.”

“And how much do I have to pay for you to do what I want you to do?”

“Ten grand.”

I spat the bourbon out. How long would that take me? I tried doing the math in my head and it felt like such a horrible idea. I knew the chances of her dying was stupendously high if she acted like such a mad lass. Heck, her name was Risky!

Not only did I have to pay a stupendous amount of money to her, I had to make sure she didn’t get herself killed like an idiot in the process. “Alright, then let’s get started.”

It felt like those were the magic words. She got up immediately and dragged me outside. We entered a building and went up a couple stories. She casually handed me her rifle and pointed at a group of guys on the side of the street. “Kill ‘em.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said kill ‘em,” she repeated.

“I heard what you said! Why?”

“Uh, ‘cause practice?” Risky was dead serious.

I turned to face her, “You want me to kill innocent pe–”

She suddenly grabbed me by the face, “Listen here, ya fucking jackass. No one in this god-forsaken city is innocent! None! If ya continue with this bullshit, then get the fuck out of Alkell City because you just gonna be another body rotting at the side of the street before the week’s out.” She pushed the rifle onto me, “You cannot survive without killing.”

She retrieved her flask and leaned against the wall. What she said rang true to me. Although limited, all my experiences in Alkell City had me fearing for my life. There were probably other ways to make money that wasn’t as scummy. But in a city where people at a pub would just casually continue eating and drinking after a man got his brains blown out, getting a legitimate job was nothing but a fairy tale.

I took the rifle with shaking hands and aimed it. There were four guys hanging around an old car, in plain sight. It was obvious they were thugs, but just the fact that I was going to kill a human being for no real reason felt like crossing a line. Once I crossed that line, I knew there would be no going back.

“Breathe slowly,” Risky advised. Her cigarette smoke wafted through the air. “Don’t worry about your aim too much. Don’t think. Just pull the trigger and register the feeling.”

She’s right, I told myself. If I didn’t convince myself, I’d never be able to see my brother again. He was worth it. He was all I had remaining. You can do this, Oel. You get closer each time you pull the trigger. With a last deep breath, I shot. The bullet zoomed down, the gun recoiled into my shoulder, the sound smashed my ears, and my adrenaline pumped, just as the man who got shot in his leg and still skipped away. I released a few more bullets, and was able to take him out. The others escaped to cover.

“Good work,” Risky patted me on the shoulder. She took the gun and showed me how to reload, then gave me a couple magazines. “Get ready to cover me.”

“Wha–”

Risky suddenly jumped out the window and used her robotic arm to hold onto grooves in the wall so she wouldn’t land too heavily. She sprinted over to where the guys hid and went into a shooting frenzy with her two pistols.

Somehow, despite them being armed, she still got them to run out of cover. Despite her dicey choices, she somehow survived. I managed to take down another thug after wasting most of the clip. She had to deal with the other two herself.

After she took photos of them, we were on our way to even more training. Hell, the next few weeks was a suffocating miasma of firearm training and maintenance, close combat training, recon training, surviving a deteriorating conscience, and putting up with Risky.

After six weeks of living through that hell, Risky looked me right in my eyes, “Alright, time for your first job.”