Perfect School

Jonah:

After I greeted Paublo and Andrew, Eve tugged me upstairs with her. She knocked on Kira’s open door.

“Kira, I just wanted to apologize. I was the one who threw your medicine out… I didn’t realize it was yours, I thought it was something that had gone bad… I’m so sorry, I didn’t know you would get sick without it,” she said. I stood in the hallway behind her, but I could still see Kira.

Kira:

I was sitting on the floor unpacking and sorting through the clothes from my open suitcase and backpack when Eve knocked on my door. I looked up with a pair of shorts in my hands while she made her apology. I didn't say a word during her coming in or the apology she made and after it was done I tossed the shorts into the appropriate pile. "You should have asked. What's done is done however. Try not to make the same mistake again. I'm not sure my body can take going without again." I wasn't upset, which surprised me. If anything the information made me feel tired. "If we are going to be going on more missions together might I suggest getting to know everyone first? Everyone has quirks, gear, or clothing they need to bring. For some it's a matter of desire and wanting to have it. In this instance it was a matter of me choosing to continue being alive." I turned my gaze up at her, "The team is more than just Jonah."

Jonah:

Evelyn was embarrassed but she played it off. Over the next few days she took Kira’s instructions. She made more of a point to interact with the rest of the group, which was good because it distracted from the fact that I had lost interest in her.

I had wanted to make more connections through her, but the one that I had made was valuable, and she made no mention of meeting anyone else soon. It the week that we had returned from the mission, I only spent one night with her.

And after a week and a half, Evelyn was gone. I woke up early in the morning with a note shoved under my door telling me that she had left and wouldn’t be coming back. She thanked me for the experience she gained and for the ‘fun’ she had while she was here. It was a simple, unemotional note that had matched our relationship. I didn’t care that she was gone, but something about the way she left bothered me. It was that I hadn’t been involved in the decision. I didn’t get the final word.

I got dressed and made my way to the gym where Kira now spent most of her time. As was usual, we were the only ones awake at this hour. Before I would spend the morning working with Eve, but she was gone now.

Kira:

The next week and a half I spent most of my time in the gym. I worked out, I trained solo, and I still did work with the others when it was time for team training. My goal was to work myself back up to the same physical level I had been before. Being even a few days without any sort of training made me feel weird, but to be stuck in a hospital dying made me want to be moving all the more. I collapsed a few times but never while anyone else was around.

When I found Evelyn was gone I wasn't all together sad to see her go. She'd made a costly mistake and while she had tried to fix it things had continued to be awkward feeling throughout. I had even watched her go from the gym doorway before going back inside and warming up.

Jonah:

I started my morning workout routine in silence but my eyes would occasionally fall on Kira. When I saw her taking a water break, I took one too and moved over to her. “Evelyn left.” I could tell the moment I said it that she had already known. I was telling her as a way to work out my own feelings on the matter. After all she was my closest friend, if that was something I could even call her.

"I saw. Will the team be alright? You brought her on to fill an empty space." I took a sip of my water as I watched him, gauging his reaction less on what he said and more on what he did. That he was coming up and stating the obvious was it's own curiosity. Eve hadn't seemed happy here for several days.

Jonah:

“Of course. I only brought her on because you were gone. Together, you and I make up for another person easily,” I said, taking a swig from my water bottle. She was a replacement for Kira. In more ways than one. She was a distraction. Her presence made it easier to ignore Kira. And then it made it easier to get under Kira’s skin. Once Kira was back to being more receptive to me, I lost complete interest in Eve. I should have told her to go the moment we were back.

I nodded and swirled the last quarter of water in my bottle. "Fair enough. All the better I get back at my usual skill then." I paused for a moment then looked at him again. Jonah didn't need to tell me the question that came to my head, and yet I still was curious about the answer. "And how are you handling her leaving?"

Jonah:

I looked up at her and met her gaze. She usually didn’t care this much. She never asked about me. And same with the incident in the train car, I didn’t like the question on me.

“Well it’s better than the way Emily went,” I said. It was a rather dark joke, but it conveyed the message. That I was done with her, that I didn’t care she was gone.

His attempt at humor brought a faint frown across my lips but I brushed it off. It felt strange asking him how he was or what he was thinking. Normally it was the other way around, after all he did treat me like his own personal puzzle. But unlocking his own secrets seemed like an interesting idea.

I finished my water and stood, dusting myself off though there wasn't a speck on me. "You should remember that people are looking towards you. Don't ever let it show that you don't care about anyone."

Jonah:

“That’s not true,” I said. I used to feel like Kira was the one person I could be myself with. I wondered now if that was still the case. She saw more now than she ever did before and I found that I didn’t like that. I didn’t want to be looked into.

“I care about my team. I care about you. I’m not heartless.” Kira was the one who could be heartless. She was cold and unfeeling. But with the emergence of her family, she was beginning to show that she could care. She tried to hide behind her many walls, but they were slowly crumbling.

And what about me? Emily’s death had only bothered me because of the memories it resurfaced. I felt nothing from the fact that she died at my hands. And Evelyn leaving only bothered me because she controlled her situation, not me. Something as intimate as sex had no impact on my emotional connection.

Something disturbing settled in my chest. Beyond my team, I cared about nothing. And even my feelings for them were conditional. If they were out of my grasp, what did it matter what happened to them? Kira was the only exception and that was because my feelings for her were more complex than anything else. If I permanently lost access to her, without a shadow of a doubt, would I care about her wellbeing?

Kira:

"Isn't it?" I raised an eyebrow at him then shrugged and began stretching out my muscles before they cooled off too much. "I suppose you might know better than I. And I wouldn't call you heartless, but I would say you are focused more on yourself and what anyone else can offer you."

The more I thought about it, the more sure I was about my observation. Not once did Jonah do something that didn't in some way directly benefit himself. Even if he helped one of us, it was to ultimately help him. I couldn't say it wasn't uncommon for such a thing to happen but it was a large part of his motivation.

"Care to work out with the sandbag with me? We can trade off at intervals." Having someone hold the bag while you hit it made for smoother and more efficient training over letting it swing freely.

Jonah:

“Sure,” I said with a shrug.  I finished my water bottle then moved over the sand bag with her.  I let her go first and distracted myself from my previous thoughts by talking to her.  We discussed the upcoming mission for some time.  

“Have you thought about your family?  Do you know if you want to get to know them yet?” I asked her after a little while.  Since we had gotten back from the hospital, Kira had mostly been focused on training.  I had to tell Kyra to give her some space, because Marie had instructed me to do so, but she seemed to mostly ignore me.

I called a switch instead of answering. Moving to take his place I held the bag and took my stance so it wouldn't go anywhere. I was still able to watch him from around the bag but I didn't look his way. "I think I am going to wait. She originally said she didn't want me. If that has changed at all then she will have to take the first steps."

After adjusting my grip slightly once he started hitting I looked at him. I wasn't sure if I should admit that I did want to get to know them. Even if just a little. But what Krissy had said was still too fresh and all she'd done at the hospital and what I remembered her saying were not only not enough to make up for that. But I questioned if she honestly cared for me in that sense. It could have been an act.

Jonah:

I took a few hits before I replied. “And if she does?” I asked. “If she reaches out to you and wants to take you away from all this? What would you do?” I wondered how far Kira would go with them. It was clear that Kira’s family was a soft spot for her. Nothing else had been able to pull her out of her shell quite like they had.

"Refuse. The circumstances of my birth don't matter, what does matter is that Marie owns me and has brought me up. I can't leave so easily." I shrugged slightly while drumming my fingers against the punching bag. "I might visit I suppose if they did want me to be around."

Jonah:

It was a dangerous topic, but I had to ask anyway. “Why are you so loyal to Marie?” I looked at her even as I continued to work the bag. “You aren’t afraid of death, so that threat isn’t an issue. You could so easily take her out for all that she has done to you, yet you don’t.” The same could be said of me, but I had other motivations, and Marie didn’t trust me like she did Kira.

"This is everything I have ever known. This life, this training, the push and pull of those above me to perform. I don't have a life outside of doing this. Can you picture me sitting around and working as a waitress? At an office desk?" I raised a brow at him, "I'm good at one thing, and everyone in my life is either retired from such a life or still in such a life. There is no leaving for me. So I stay where I can put my talents and skills to use."

Jonah:

“Kira, you do know that Marie is not the only one who can offer you this life? You don’t have work for Marie just to be an assassin. I’m not always going to work for Marie, and I certainly wont ever have a normal life.” It was incredibly risky to say those things out loud, but I trusted Kira not to go to Marie with that information.

I shook my head. "Are you saying you would be willing to take Marie's place for me? Whose to say I would even bother following along Jonah. You asked why I'm loyal to Marie and it's because she made me what I am. And ultimately loyalty is something I cling to because it's one of the few things I do have control over in my life."

Jonah:

“I am not saying I would take Marie’s place. You don’t have to be controlled by someone,” I told her but in truth that was exactly what I wanted. Eventually I would have enough power to take Marie’s place, and when that came, I hoped to have Kira as my own.

"I'm a weapon Jonah. Would you rather I do nothing and be useless? We have our allotments in life. Going against it is wasted time and effort." A bitter edge crept into my voice and I stopped looking his way. I wasn't sure how I'd handle being on my own. To not be under the direction and control of someone else. I had a lot of freedoms but like livestock I had all the room in the pasture but I was still held behind fences.

Jonah:

Pausing what I was doing, I looked at her with raised eyebrows. “No offence Kira, but that is the most stupid thing I have ever heard come out of your mouth. Going against our allotments in life is exactly what humans have been doing since the dawn of our existence. We wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for people going against that. Hell, I hate to think where I would be if I had sat passively and let others decide my life for me. I certainly wouldn’t be here now if I did. I wouldn’t be the person I am now. I wouldn’t be here with you.” I made an effort not to visualize the life I would have had if I had not taken matters into my own hands.

“Kira, very few people get what they want out of life if they don’t actively seek it. Life isn’t something you have to let happen to you.” I watched her around the sand bag, no longer in my punching stance.

"So...I shouldn't follow my own choice to be this way and instead go with what you believe is the best course for me to follow?" I raised my own eyebrow right back at him. Releasing the bag I looked away from him, fingers flexing and unflexing slightly. "I don't know what the best course of action is. My instincts are telling me things are dangerous I should hunker down. My brain tells me that it is smarter to stay as I am. My heart.....who knows what it's saying."

Growing silent my feelings began to bubble and well up inside of me. Thoughts stacking on top of each other into a chaotic mess. I couldn't help but lash out because of it. My fist struck the bag even while the rest of me remained expressionless. "I'm going to go for a walk then shower." I mumbled as I turned towards the gym door.

Jonah:

In the next couple weeks Marie called and made arrangements for Kira and me to go on a mission. Alone. I couldn’t imagine that I had won her trust that easily so I knew, in a way, this job would be a test for the two of us, to see how well we could work together, and how well we could follow her orders.

We also found out that our time in the house was limited. My whole team would be returning to the school to act as instructors. After our trip, Kira and I would be returning to the school rather than the house we had lived in for nearly a year.

Kira and I picked up our nightly training sessions, but this time they had a purpose. We were preparing for our assignment, for very possible way in which it could go wrong. It was in both of our best interests for this to be successful. For now, I was resisting my games with Kira. I used the time to grow close with her in the biggest thing we had in common; our skills.


Kyra:

The night before Kira and Jonah were to leave, I pulled my cousin aside. “I wanted to talk to you before you go,” I said. I was nervous about bringing it up because I knew how touchy she was about it. “Well… I doubt we will have as much privacy at the school, so I wanted to tell you now. I’ve been talking to Krissy and Michael. They want to get to know you… They wanted to come visit, but I thought it wouldn’t be a good idea for them to come here, and then the news came that we’re going to be going back to the school… I talked to Zero about maybe finding a way for us to meet somewhere under the guise of a mission of something… That is… If you would want to of course…” I trailed off.