Vessa rose from her knees to stand as she watched as the crowd continued to go nuts. People were screaming and the speaker’s wife was pushing her way through the crowd to hold the target. When the woman got to the target, held in one of the bodyguards’ arms. She pushed back the hair back and began kissing the target’s forehead, as a mob of people fled around them. The bodyguards like a boulder in a river.

The plaza emptied and the man who’d been speaking with such strength melted off the platform and came over to the target, his daughter. He took the target, the girl from the bodyguards, and held her. His body began to shake with sobs.

Vessa should be leaving. The assignment was completed, the target dead. All the worry over Vessa had been unnecessary. The target was dead. The mother was cupping her daughter’s face and kissing the target, kissing the girl’s forehead.

Vessa fell to her knees, staring at the little girl as the mother began to braid the girl’s hair.

“She wanted it braided, but I didn’t have time.” The mother said.

“Ma’am”

“Ma’am.” Vessa looked at the male fingers in front of her face and realized someone was talking to her. Vessa put hers in the proffered hand and was pulled to standing. An imperial guard was looking at her. The visor on his helmet pushed up, showing his weathered face.

“Did you see what happened?” He asked as another guard pointed to Vessa in her peripheral.

“Did you see what happened?” The guard asked, his voice kind. Vessa jerked away from him and looked at the girl. She was eight years old, with all of her years ahead of her.

Vessa remembered when she was eight. She had still been at the homes. Vessa remembered when protecting Samilla and the other children had been her first priority.

“She was killed.”

“Did you see who did it?”

The girl’s hair now hung in many small braids, her mother braiding more. Her father’s face had tears streaking down it and the bodyguards looked fierce as they stood around the family.

“It was magic.” Vessa said, magic that Vessa had once fought to keep from killing her or her friends. She remembered when the numbers had been about how likely different things were to kill her. How many times had she stayed up with the other children of the home? So that one of them that was really struggling wouldn’t be alone in the night?

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

The guard looked away from her, talking to people with medical equipment. Vessa took off into the city. She heard shouts behind her, but she didn’t care. She just kept running and running. Samilla eyes staring at Vessa in her memories, and she just kept running, trying to escape the look.

She fell against an alley wall as her heart pounded. She had no idea where she was as she fought to breathe. Air seemed to know what she had done. As her lungs failed her, Vessa heard voices and looked up to see four guys: two with bloody knives and two with guns. They looked down the alley and spotted her.

They approached, laugher filled the air. Was that her?

Numbers Sharp and Clear came into her mind as the men came closer.

Male 19:1%, Male 21:1%, Male 20: 1%, Male 15: 25%

“Give us your money and maybe a peek, and we’ll be on our way.” The twenty-year-old said as he pointed his gun at her.

“Or else.” The twenty-one-year-old brandished his knife at her. Maniacal laughter filled the air. Worried looks past across the four faces. Oh, how little they knew.

She tore through them. Male 19: 100% likely to cut his carotid on accident; male 21:100% likely to stab his 20-year-old friend and be shot; male 20: 100% likely to shoot himself out of guilt.

Male 15: 25%

Vessa stopped. They looked at each other. The fifteen-year-old was staring at her, not moving, despite the gun in his hand. His eyes were wide. His face still more child than adult. He was less built than the rest, more lanky with pimples.

Vessa panted, looked down at her shaking hands, looked up at the boy.

Male 15: 25%

It was possible Vessa killed him, or he killed himself, or someone killed him, or he died by accident. In that order; which frightened her. Just in the morning, she didn’t think she could kill one. Now the next seemed easy.

Vessa still couldn’t seem to catch her breath. She stared at the boy as he began crying.

“She wanted me to braid it, but I didn’t have time”

Vessa looked for a way that the boy survived this day.

She pointed to the trash. He dropped the gun, opened the lid, and got in. Going back and forth from the twenty-year-old male to the trash, Vessa wrote: help locked inside. The blood was smudged but still legible.

Vessa stumbled away.

Walked around the city that had flashing lights, spaceships in the sky, and the sound of hovercraft in the air. People were all around her. Running with and without weapons, smashing in glass, stealing from stores, and burning things. She just walked and watched. None of the many people approached her.

She watched as the imperial military came off shuttles and marched. She watched as people knelt, others pointed weapons and were shot down, and still others ran. Military came from all sides with shields and weapons.

Four uniformed people came to her. She stopped walking and just looked at them, studied the clean and pressed uniforms. So much brown and green with bits of the other colors. They surrounded her and she walked with them. Other people joined in their walk, military and nonmilitary. They got to a building swarming with people.

Someone guided her to a bed. They rubbed alcohol on her inner elbow; the smell was sharp. Vessa began to cry, then her eyes grew heavy.