Chapter 13: Episode 14 — Ozawa Clan

“We’re going to your home?” Tenshi asks in surprise.

“Yes, we are.” Astrid cups Tenshi’s face, “Just as I promised you.”

Tenshi gave her a sad smile, “I’m sure mother is very happy now.” 

She turns and looked out the window. Astrid stares at her remembering what she had gone through with Mikael.

“If you need to talk, you know I’m always here, right?” Astrid whispers. Tenshi gave her a questioned look. “It helps, before, I thought as long as no one knows, it doesn’t matter. That I would eventually forget about it.” she stifles a laugh and looked away. “But I was wrong. The more I saw the people I love, the more I was being tormented of my past.”

Her thoughts were broken by laughter from the other side of the plane where the others were playing poker.

“I never plan for them to know about me and what I’ve done, or even of my whereabouts. I thought my years of being a heartless assassin can mask every emotion that I need to hide, but they saw through it all, they saw the pain and my fears.” Her gaze now rested on Damien, “He didn’t even give me time to run away. He just understood and made everything right.”

“He?” Tenshi asks.

At the same moment, Damien looks up at her and sent a wink before setting down his cards earning groans and cheers around him. Astrid felt the tears forming in her eyes which she quickly wiped off; she turns to Tenshi and smiled. “He.”

Tenshi looks toward where Astrid was looking at and sees Damien laugh along with the others. “Aren’t you scared?”

“Every day.” She answered truthfully, “Even before I was at the Duchovny house I brought trouble to them already, but seeing them like this, being with them, I’m willing to take the risk.” She says.

Tenshi looked at her closely, Astrid knew what she was thinking. It was the same look on Dimitri’s and Kale’s face when they arrived, they were thinking of how weak Astrid has become because of her family, but Astrid disagrees. She knows that she is stronger now, simply because she has more to lose now.

“Angel…”

“We’re with my real family now Tenshi, which you’ll soon be part of, so call me Astrid.”

Tenshi smiles back and gave a weak nod. “Astrid.”

When they arrived at the States, they went to one of Johnson’s hotels and took a suite, waiting for the hour of their departure to NSA. Astrid sat by the window looking at the view, Tenshi was still asleep and so were the boys who were in their respective rooms. 

It was two A.M and Astrid was still up counting sheep, wishing the old folk tale would help her sleep, only ending up wondering how many kinds of sheep are there.

Just as she reached her thousandth sheep, she gave up and started planning on how to get Tenshi and Kale in the NSA.

There’s just no other way. She sighed, I need to speak with grandpa.

A faint beep on the table told her that it was already 4:30 am, and there was no way she’d be able to get any decent sleep even during the ride to NSA. It would be best to wait for the end of school before she even thought of sleeping.

With a shrug, she stood up, grabbed Mikael’s palm tap from the table, and checked on its emails, Still no news. 

She made her way out of the room wearing the pajamas Damien demanded her to wear while saying he’d be damned before he lets her sleep half-naked with Kale and Dimitri a few doors away. The same goes for Tenshi seeing her sleep in the same pajamas Astrid was waring with only a different color, but it was probably to keep her safe from Derek.

Astrid steps into the common room of the suite and turned on the radio in a low volume.

“..to party-goers who are just on their way home, to early birds and to those who kept their radios on all night and just happen to hear this…”

“Don’t bother with good morning, no one would care,” Astrid mumbles before moving the sofa and table to the side to start with her morning exercise. She tossed the palm tap on the sofa and started stretching, crunches, and push-ups.

Half an hour later she was on doing push-ups- while in a headstand. When something caught her eyes at end of the room, she stood between the door frame and looked at the pole above the door. Five minutes later she was hanging upside down doing crunches.

The radio starts to play 99 red balloons and pull herself up in time with the beat. Suddenly an arm takes a swing at her, she quickly unhooks her leg from the pole and caught herself on the floor before rolling away from her attacker. 

Tenshi stood there with a smirk and attacks again. Astrid blocks every hit while attacking as well, she finally sees an opening and hit Tenshi on the gut making her move back Tenshi glares at her, Astrid grins and raised a brow. Tenshi attacks again, this time faster. But Astrid blocked every hit and caught another opening hitting Tenshi between the chest, Tenshi falls on her back a little bit out of breath.

“Nice try,” Astrid says, standing over her and reached out a hand to help her up.

But Tenshi had other plans, she pulls out a dagger from her ankle and took a swing. Astrid moves back in time, but the dagger’s tip ripped the front off her top tearing it open. Tenshi jumped back up on her feet and smirked.

“Then let’s try again.” She says and attacked again.

Astrid grins and blocked Tenshi’s attack, keeping an eye on the dagger. Tenshi lunges forward grabs Astrid’s sleeve and pulls her in, Astrid pivoted away, taking off my top in the process. We both looked down at my torso, I had a hanging black tube top on, with now a little rip in the middle.

“Close call,” Tenshi says, almost out of breath but continued to attack. 

Astrid was still in defense, she knew how deadly Tenshi can be, defense alone won’t stop her, so Astrid grabs a pillow and used it as a shield; at the same moment Tenshi lunged forward for the kill; the dagger pierced through the pillow, Astrid roughly tugs the pillow making Tenshi drop the dagger and ripping the pillow halfway causing feathers to fly all over the room.

“What the hell are you two doing?” 

Tenshi and Astrid turned and saw the boys standing at the end of the hall, topless. 

“That would have impressed me if I didn’t grow up seeing half-naked guys,” Tenshi says making Astrid laugh.

“I know this is ritual for you girls,” Kale groans, “but seriously, just one morning of peace is all I ask.”

“Wasn’t yesterday’s drama enough?” Derek whined, “I expected better from you girls.”

Astrid chuckles before picking up the dagger, “Sorry, I’m done with my exercise anyway.”

“So am I.” Tenshi says, sounding bored. “You guys can go back to sleep.”

“Oh no,” Derek says, “we can’t leave you two on your own. Mother will have our heads if you ruin any more of the pillows.”

“It’s just one pillow.” Tenshi and Astrid say in unison.

“One pillow that mother will never forget.” Derek corrects.

“Anyway, I’ll catch sleep on the way back to the NSA,” Ash says. “We should start preparing.”

“Anyone want breakfast?” Allana asks.

“Yes.” The boys answered in unison.

“Better start cooking Astrid,” Collin says. “You have seven boys to feed along with three kick-ass ladies.”

“What?” Astrid. “Why can’t we eat downstairs?”

“Consider it punishment,” Dimitri says.

“But-” Tenshi was about to 

“You know the rule, no weapons during sparring.” Dimitri says, “With the looks of it, you almost dissected Astrid.”

The guys turned to me as if only noticing that I was almost topless. I glanced at Damien who raised a brow.

“Six-pack?” Derek runs his hand down his face and through his hair, “Are you serious?”

“Eyes away Derek,” Damien warns.

“Well tell your girlfriend not to get naked in the common room!” Derek whines and looks away. “Anyway, start cooking Astrid am hungry, and clean this up Shi, you aren’t completely forgiven, fooling us that you didn’t speak English… tsk, where’s the trust?” 

Shi? Astrid raised a brow, he already has a nickname for her? 

“Fine.” Tenshi snapped, “Boys…”

Astrid grins and ruffles Tenshi’s hair. “Let’s start working then.”

Astrid walks toward the kitchen playing around with the dagger on one hand, when a familiar beep caught her and Kale’s attention. Astrid snatched the gadget from the sofa before Kale finds where it is and continues to the kitchen with a smile, waiting for the new mail to open. She glanced back at the others who were starting to fool around, she watches them, amused, until she looked back at Kale’s phone.

A frown slowly crept into her face as she read the mail, almost dropping the dagger.

“Astrid…” Dimitri call.

Astrid looks up at him as if it was a movie scene where the slow-motion button was hit, the moment our eyes met, the front door crashed open and an armed man stepped inside. I gripped on the blade of the dagger and flicked it toward the intruder, hitting him between the eyes before he can even pull up his gun and shot around the room.

“Gear up!” Astrid shouts, when someone pulled her from behind, a gun on her nape.

“Astrid!” Damien was about to run to her.

“Gear up!” she shouted again and elbowed the attacker on the side. pushed the gun away, a stray bullet hits the ceiling. She hits him again on the gut, causing him to double in pain, she knees him on the face and grabbed the gun and shoots him on the back of his head, another attacker stepped out of the kitchen, like the others, she shot him dead. She steps inside the kitchen and shot another attacker coming out of the vent. When no one else followed she ran out of the kitchen checking for attackers.

“Astrid!” Dimitri shouted, she turns around and caught the straps of her blades along with her guns and quickly put it on. “Everyone’s gearing up.”

“I killed three coming from the vents.” She counted, “Didn’t know the hotel offered that kind of service as well.”

Dimitri grins as he cocked one of his guns and shoved it in its holster, a gunshot came from Derek’s room breaking Astrid’s sane mind.

“Derek…” she runs to his room but came across Derek on the way, holding a gun and shaking his head.

“They’re all over the place.” He says as if he does this every day. “Coming out of vents like Mario and Luigi.”

Relieved, Astrid stifled a laugh. “That makes one of us Bowzer.” She says trying to cover her worry, she sighed and reached for his face making sure he was ok.

“I’m fine,” he says, “worry wart.”

Astrid laughs and ruffled his hair, 

“Let’s check on the others,” Derek says, “we’ll meet at the common room.”

Astrid agrees and ran through the hallway checking in the rooms, seeing the others gearing up. She reached Damien’s room, but it was empty.

“Damien?” she calls out, no answer. She raised her gun making sure to check every inch of the room, “Damien-“

Damien steps out from the bathroom, and Astrid released a breath that she was holding. She ran up to him and gave him a long kiss which he longingly returned. It was far from pleasurable, she kissed him with need, with the reassurance that they were still there. She pulls away breathless and almost in tears.

“What was that for?” he asks, huskily.

“Good morning.” She smiles before stepping away, but Damien grabs her by the wrist and pulled her back. “Damien-“

But her voice was muffled when a cloth was pulled over her head, as quick darkness took her, she came face to face with Damien again and gave her another kiss, this time softer almost just a peck.

“Get out of your pajamas.” He whispers after pulling away. Astrid stifles a laugh and looked at the shirt Damien pulled on her.

“I have clothes you know.”

“Really? You couldn’t have fooled me.”

Astrid laughs and ran to her room and changed into jeans. Soon she joined the others in the living room. It’s been ten minutes since the last attacker made it in the room.

“They aren’t smoking us,” Kale says, as he cocked his guns one after another.

“They need a sure kill.” Tenshi answers.

“Probably tampered with the surveillance cameras,” Dimitri says as he tapped away on his laptop.

“These people are sick,” Allana says, as she tucks another gun behind her.

“Dimitri, I need eyes on the number and whereabouts,” Astrid says, cocking a gun and tucked it behind Damien.

“What house is this?” Ash asks.

Dimitri and Astrid exchanged looks, before glancing at Tenshi. “Ozawa.”

As expected, Tenshi stiffened and turned to Astrid.

Astrid walks up to her, “I’ll understand if you are still faithful to them, they are your family.”

But Tenshi shook her head, “My place is beside you.”

“We have come,” Dimitri calls out as he stretched out his hand handing out there ear and mouthpiece. We all grabbed one and put them on.

“Location?”

“Rooftop and through the fire exits.” He says as he quickly browses.

“Windows?” Kale asks.

“Clear, we’re in the middle of the building, I don’t think they’ll be thinking of rappelling down.”

“Building interior?” Tenshi asks as she fills another gun with bullets.

“There’s about a foot or two space between the walls, it was for the soundproof-“

Then they hear a clamper above them. Tenshi shot the ceiling and there was a loud clatter and then silence.

“That’s either a huge rat or the soundproof isn’t working,” Derek says.

“We need to get to the main hall,” Astrid says.

“But won’t that attract attention?” Jared asks.

“Exactly.” Kale says, “They can’t do a kill in public.”

“We have to separate,” Tenshi says. “I’ll take the fire exit, if they’re coming from above, then I won’t be having any problems.”

“Derek and I will go with Tenshi,” Jared says.

“Collin, Allana, Ash, take the elevator.” Astrid orders, “The moment it starts descending open the emergency hatch above and get out. Once you reach the ground floor, wait for the elevator beside you to stop, and change elevators. Go three levels up and take the stairs from there.”

“Why?” Collin asks.

“We don’t want you to be tailed,” Kale says.

“Movement outside the hall,” Dimitri reports. “Three teams about forty-five armed men. Two teams coming from the fire exits at both ends of the hall, and another from the middle elevator.”

“Go to the terrace.” Astrid says as she checks out the entrance of the intruders, “Jump to the terrace next door and exit from there, Kale go with Ash.”

They all exchanged looks.

“Go, we’ll meet you at the lobby.” She says pulling another gun from the bag and checked its magazine. “Dimitri be my eyes.”

“You’re taking them head-on?” Allana asks.

“I need to clear out the front before you can slip out.” Astrid picks up an M-15 and shoved two magazines in my back pocket.

“I’m going with you,” Damien says.

“No.” she shook her head, “I’ve already let you guys kill in Russia, this is different. Ozawa fighters barely have any weakness, much more mercy.”

“You are not going out there alone,” Damien argued.

“Dimitri is with me,” Astrid argues back.

“No,” Ash steps in the argument, “no offense Dimtri, but I’ll feel better knowing one of us is with her. So it’s either you take one of us or we’ll all go with you.”

Astrid stares at Ash pleading, but I knew better. She shrugs and tossed another gun at Damien, “Same deal?”

Damien grins, “Not going to argue with that.” Slipping on the gun strap over his shoulder.

“Keep in contact and wait for orders once you reach the main hall stay away from any surveillance camera, but make sure you are in the view of each other.” Astrid continues to instruct.

They all nodded, then she walks up to Ash and kissed him on the forehead, “Please be careful, big brother.”

He smiles at her, “I’ll see you downstairs little sister.”

She looks at the other boys and raised her pinky finger, “I’ll see you boys downstairs.”

They grinned and Derek wraps his pinky on hers first, “Promise.”

Jared, Ash, and Damien follow, “Promise.”

“You guys need to go now, they’re already at the end of the hall,” Dimitri looks back at his laptop, “Ash, your group will be hitting dead air the moment you step inside the elevator, the trip is about a minute or two if there are no stops. Our only way out is the elevator, the fire exit, or the windows. Those are the only places you’d most likely see us come out of.”

“Well, that cuts that list short.” Astrid teases, but Dimitri doesn’t laugh. “We’ll get through this Dimitri, this is a piece of cake.” Dimitri gives a weak nod. “Everyone ready?”

They nodded and the others start to walk toward the terrace, while Dimitri, Damien, and I walked up to the door.

“Kale takes the room on this site, it’s nearer the elevator, Tenshi, take the one on the other side, you can use that fire exit,” Dimitri says.

“Hey, Astrid…” Astrid turns to Jared, “you have thirty minutes tops to finish this, ok? We have a plane to catch.”

Astrid grins and nods, “I’ll see you downstairs then. Oh and Jared?” Jared looked back, “Order me some coffee, I’m hungry.”

Jared laughs and turned to leave, “Make sure you get there while it’s hot then.”

“I’ll make sure of that,” Astrid says with a wink, finally they were out and she follows Damien and Dimitri by the front door.

“We ready?” Astrid raises her gun and looks the boys over.

Dimitri held out night goggles for me, I saw Damien already had on one around his neck.

“It’s morning Dimitri.” Astrid rolls her eyes.

Dimitri grins, “You never care about where you sleep don’t you?” he says, then he flicked a switch tinting the window and leaving the room dark enough for the night goggles. “One shot per head?”

Astrid puts on the goggles and faced the door, “Bet I’ll kill more than you boys.”

“You sure you want that bet?” Damien asks.

“Why not?” Astrid shrugged and looks back to the door. “Makes things interesting, one bet on top of another.”

“Or we can just have fifteen each?” Dimitri says, sounding unimpressed.

“But where’s the fun in that?” the boys gave her a look, “What? Am already doing something I don’t like, might as well enjoy.”

Suddenly a gunshot broke into our teasing, she looks outside and shot the attacker dead.

“I mean, it’s hard enough to be running around killing people in secret, you know?” she continues the conversation, before catching another attacker hiding at the end of the hall, she shoots him dead.

“Astrid, head on the game?” Dimitri whines.

“I already have two dead, and you, my friend and boyfriend are still zero. So if you don’t mind, I want to stay on the lead.”

She grins and ran out of the room, the attackers now attacked head-on. Astrid pulls out another gun and shot at the one nearest before they can shoot at me.

Damien and Dimitri were shooting those who were out of her view. One of her guns ran out of bullets, so she hits the attacker on the face and shot him with her other gun in zero distance, she quickly moves to the next and hit him with the handle of the gun and kicks another attacker making him topple over the other attackers buying her time to grab new guns. She drops on my knees, pulls out two new guns from her holster, and shot at the incoming attackers. She reaches the elevator and hit the button.

“Get your butts out here now!” she shouts.

Tenshi, Derek, and Jared runs out of the room and straight to the fire exit at the other end of the hall. Ash, Allana, Collin, and Kale had to shoot down some of the attackers as they make their way to the elevator. I shoot at the attackers that were coming from the fire exit. Astrid keeps the door on hold the moment it opened.

“Astrid behind you!” Ash shouts. Astrid turns around just in time to see the huge man walk upon her.

“Astrid!” Damien calls out and shot at the attackers from the end of the hallway, Astrid moves away from the elevator making way for the man who was glaring at her. 

“I’ll be there in a minute, baby…” she says over her shoulder.

The hall came into a standstill and silence as the man stepped out of the elevator. Only then was she able to take in his full size, almost like a giant compared to her 5’8 built. “Shit…” she says under her breath, “Make that two minutes.”

“Astrid-“

The man turns to glare at Ash and the others. Astrid frowns and pulls out one of her blades, a gun on the other hand. “Your fight is with me, puppet.”

He turns to me, “Angel, I have heard so much about you.”

“And I’m thinking it wasn’t scary enough?”

He grins, “I’m a curious man, I want to see for myself.”

“I’ll make sure you won’t be able to live to tell the tale.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.” He lifts his cane and pulled it apart, producing a thin sword.

“Astrid!” Ash shoots at the man, he simply moves swiftly, shielding himself with the sword against the bullets, we all stared at him with awe, while he kept his glare at Ash.

“Wow, there’s something I never thought I’d see again,” Astrid says, genuinely impressed, trying to take his attention back to her.

“I’m guessing you never thought your brother would die, either.” He lunges toward Ash, but she quickly ran after him and rammed him to the wall. She fell back, rolled on the floor and back on her feet and knee, she clears her head and looked back at the huge man and he watches him with a glare.

“I’m guessing you’ve never fallen on your ass before?” he grunts a response and stood up. “Go.”

“But-“

“They stay.” The man says, standing up and walking toward them, but I raised my blade and blocked his way.

“Your fight is with me big man.” I shout, “Leave them out of this.”

He grimaces. “Then I’ll just find them after I’m done with you, little girl.”

He lunges forward and attacked, the moment our hilts met, gunfire broke the silence. Though she kept her attention on her attacker, she caught a glimpse on her peripheral of Ash staring at us and Collin pushing him to the elevator. 

“Astrid!” he calls out again.

She steals a glance at him and smiles, after that he nodded and ran off. Relief ran through her when the elevator door closed. She looks around her checking for more space to maneuver.

Then he raises his sword and brought it down on her, she raises her blade, meeting his. She grinds her teeth in pain as he pushed her down. Seeing she was already chest level of him, she pushes back and rammed him on the chest and swung twice. But he was too quick and moved back, he looks down his suit and sees his necktie fall in three pieces on the floor.

“That was my favorite tie.” He says with a sadistic look on his face “I’ll kill your brother for that.”

She frowns, “I’d like to see you try.”

“Well, seeing you asked so nicely…” He pulls out a remote from his coat, “What floor would they be in now? 17th? Or maybe 20th? Since they are stopping at every floor, I’m saying 21st…” Astrid’s eyes widen as fear set into her. “Say bye-bye to your brother and friends princess…”

He pushes the button and in less than a second, there was an explosion from above.

“NO!” 

The building shook, the elevator doors puffed out smoke and dust.

“No… Ash…” Astrid turns toward the elevator about to run toward it.

“Now, you have no more distractions, where were we?” He attacks again, but this time, Astrid made contact first taking the chance to attack.

“Astrid, where are you?” I hear Damien in my earpiece. I didn’t answer. “Astrid!”

“Stay there!” Astrid screams before she finally sees an opening and lunged forward and pierced the man between his chest and stomach.

He stares at her and smiled, a quarter of her blade pierced him, he raised his hand and slaps her strong enough to make her fall backward, her blade falling a few feet away from her. He hovers over her and glanced at her blade deciding to pick it up or not.

But Astrid’s scream of pain shows his alternate decision of stomping on her hand.

“Argh!!!!” Astrid continues to scream in pain and fighting back the tears, she glares at him urging him to raise his sword over her, for the final blow.

“Now let’s see how many pieces can I get from you.” He says.

“Astrid I’m coming...” Damien says over their comms.

“No!” Astrid shouts through gritted teeth, unsure if the gun down was coming to an end or if she was losing consciousness.

“Say bye-bye little girl.” He grimaces over her.

The ground shook making them move back a little, so they ran to a corner, hiding behind the wall.

“What do you think that was?” Damien asks over the noise across the hall from him, shoving a new magazine on his gun and did the same on another gun.

“Well, I’m pretty sure it was an explosion, I’m just hoping it isn’t in the main hall.”

She shook my head, “It was too near to come from the main hall.”

Damien glances at the end of the hall where Astrid was fighting with the giant earlier, but they were not there.

“Where did they go?” He shouts over the shooting.

“Knowing Astrid, she’d be looking for a wider space to maneuver,” Dimitri says out of breath.

Then they heard a scream from the other end of the building.

Damien reaches for his earpiece hearing the same scream, “Astrid! Astrid where are you?!” he shouts when an attacker crept upon him, he drops down the floor and shot him on the leg, when he fell on his knees he shot him on the throat. “Astrid where are you?!”

I can hear her heavy breathing and gasping, “Astrid I‘m coming…”

“No!” she shouts, Dimitri brushes her off. “Dimitri, Astrid is hurt, I need to go.”

“I’ll cover you.” He glances at his palm tap again, “I only have twenty to go,” he grins, “it’ll be a piece of cake.”

Damien nods, “I’ll be back with Astrid.” Looking back at the attackers who were moving in, Dimitri grabbed his M-15 and nods at Damien. “Now!”

He steps out into the open and shot at them, before they can even fire back they were falling. Dimitri and Astrid are crazy for doing this head-on attacks, but they sure know what they’re doing.

Damien ran behind Dimitri and toward where he last saw Astrid. He hears the familiar hitting of two blades, then a punch and a groan. Damien stepped into the hall and saw Astrid on the floor, rolling in pain. Her lip was bleeding and her face was bruised.

“No more spunky girl. I told you not to mourn your brother’s death. Be angry, hate me, kill me!” he taunts.

Ash’s death?

Astrid glares at him, and rolls unto her knees, and lunges forward, but the man simply moves aside, grabs her hand holding her sword, wraps an arm over her neck and her sword was pointed over her throat. He lifts her about two feet from the ground, so he’d be in level with her face.

“That’s it, be angry.” He taunts as Astrid struggles, her face covered with tears and her sword was on the wrong hand, but then again, she can manage with her left hand just not as good as with her right.

“Any last words?” he says.

“I condemn you to hell, you fat bastard,” Astrid shouts hitting him with the back of her head, breaking his nose. He drops her and Astrid made a swift move and swung her blade on his torso, slashing his waist up to his torso, Astrid made another swing, this time slashing him from below his left eye across his nose and his right eye. He screamed in pain, his hand covered his right eye, blood sipped through his hands.

“Astrid!” they both turned to me, then I caught him grimaced.

“No, Damien get out!” Astrid screams.

The man changes the hold of his sword and was about to throw it at Damien, but Astrid lunges forward and toppled over him. She was on top of him, her blade pushed into him up to the hilt.

“That’s for my brother and friends.” Astrid sneers before holding the hilt with both hands and pushed it upward making him twitch. “That’s for trying to kill Damien.”

He sneers at her, amused by the situation, “And you?”

Astrid pulls out a gun and puts its nozzle in between his eyes, “This.”

She shot him dead, his blood not only literally on her hands, but all over her. And as if it wasn’t enough she shot him again and again until she emptied the magazine, even after that she kept pulling the trigger.

“Astrid, love…” Damien walks toward her and taking the gun away.

“He killed them…” she whispers, then she looked up at me, pain and tears in her eyes, “He killed Ash.”

She broke down and cried. Damien held her as she shook and cried, pulling her close, this time there were no words to make everything right. It was impossible, it was Ash who was killed, not just any of us. It was her brother, her twin brother.

“I failed them Damien…” she says, “I failed…”

“No, don’t say that.” I said, “You did not fail, this was out of hand-“

“Ash…” she whines. “Ash!”

This was far worse than when she came home, her pain was radiating. It was painful for Damien to see her like this at the same time losing my best friend. But he refuses to be weak, for Astrid’s sake.

“Damien! Astrid!” Dimitri runs up to us and saw the man dead. He looks back at Damien with a face saying, what the fuck happened here?

“Ash…” Astrid sobs, “he planted a bomb on the elevators… he killed them…”

“Shh, Astrid…” Damien whispers, running my hand through her hair. “You of all people should not believe what he says.”

“But I saw-“

“I’d rather see their corpse than take a word of a fat bastard.” He quotes her.

“Damien is right,” Dimitri says, “They are with Kale, you know he is always one step ahead of everyone.” Astrid just kept her head down, Damien held her closer while Dimitri pulls out the blade from the man’s body then he walks around the room and picks up the other blade from across the room.

“Looks like Shadow needed to kill this time.” He points seeing the silver sword didn’t have any blood marks.

“I didn’t even know his name,” Astrid says trying her best to stop sobbing.

The boys exchanged looks; Dimitri then sighed and checked on the guy’s pockets. Finally, he pulls out a wallet and grinned, he hands her the wallet. “You’d like it.”

Astrid opens the wallet and we both read his name. Harold Ozawa.

“Another dead leader.” Dimitri says, “I’m pretty sure Tenshi would probably do the same.”

Then his palm tap beeped again and he frowned. 

“We need to go, they’re sending in more men.” 

“We can’t take the elevator.”

“But the stairwell would probably be infested by now.”

“Then we’ll just have to take care of that,” Astrid says as she squeezed my hand, then she took a deep breath, before pulling herself up. “We still have enough ammunition?”

“I think so,” Dimitri says.

“Astrid, you’re hurt, I can’t-“

She faced Damien with her lifeless eyes. “Every last one of them will die today.”

She walks away and Damien was out of words.

“Damien, it will be better if we let her do this.” Dimitri says, “She is beyond angry, if she doesn’t do this now, she’ll find some way to do it later on.”

Damien frowns and just followed her lead. 

When they reached the room she was already done with reloading her guns and was slipping it on her belt, her back at Damien.

“Angel…” I called to her she stops but still won’t look at me. “Love, can-“

“I’m sorry Damien, but I have to do this.” She says as she continues to put her guns on her holster.

“I know.” I walked up to her and hugged her from behind. “I just want you to be careful. I can’t lose you too.”

She turns to me tears still pouring as she shook her head and smiled. “You will never lose me, Damien. Not like this.” She cupped his face, “I love you, Damien, I’ll never let anything happen to you, not even give myself a chance to hurt you.”

“Thank you.” she kissed her on the forehead. “That’s all I needed to hear.”

“Astrid, Damien, we have 15 minutes to end this before we are scheduled to depart for the airport,” Dimitri says walking into the room carrying some of the old guns.

“Have Tenshi reported in yet?”

He shook his head, “They’re probably still in the stairwell, Tenshi doesn’t like talking while in a mission, she’ll probably be the one to shoot Derek.”

Dimitri puts a bag over his shoulder and tossed another bag at me.

“Additional ammunitions are inside.” He says, then he glanced at Astrid, “Your hand ok?”

Astrid lifts her hand and flexed it, wincing as she did.

“I’ll live.” She says, “Asshole tried to break it.”

Dimitri sighs, “This is far worse than we expected Astrid, they’ve sent in their best men.” He hands over her blades.

“Well, good thing we’re better, isn’t it?” she says sliding the blades back to its sheath.

“We’re at the lobby,” Derek says over comms.

“All clear?” Dimitri asks.

“Well,” Derek mumbles.

“What is it?” Astrid asked.

“Tenshi’s up there.”

“What?! Why?”

Then there was another explosion and the ground shook this time, longer.

“I just gave you a clear path for the stairwell,” Tenshi says.

“Go to the hall,” Damien says, “We’ll meet you there.”

“I don’t think I like being with better assassins.” Dimitri says, “Everything’s an easy way out, I was excited for that gun down on the stairwell.”

Astrid and Damien laugh as we stepped out of the room as Astrid cocks one of her guns.

“Do you want me to have them check the hall for Ash and the others?” Damien asks Astrid.

She shook her head and forced a smile, “I’d rather see it for myself.”

We ran to the stairwell which was still filled with smoke.

Dimitri checks above and below, “All cleared.”

“Go,” Astrid says, taking off the safety lock of her gun.

We quietly ran downstairs, still no trouble.

“Hall still quiet?” Dimitri checks in.

“As quiet as the night.” Tenshi answers.

“There’s no sign of the others though,” Jared says. “They’ve closed the hall going to the elevators.”

“They’ll come out of the stairwell.” Astrid reminds them.

“But-“

“We’ll be there in a minute,” Damien says, we were already on the fourth floor when we heard gunshots on the other side of the door.

“Dimitri,” Astrid says as she stepped up the door, she pulls out her silencer and put it on her gun. Then she hands Damien another one as she waits for Dimitri’s response.

“On it.” Dimitri taps on his palm tap, “Same suits, there are about fifty of them, almost two dozen down.”

“Where’s the center of the attack?” she asks.

“In one of the rooms.” He sighs, as he continues to check on his mobile, “I don’t have visuals there.”

Astrid nods open the door and checked. “Clear.”

Damien tries to reach for her but she was already walking ahead, he follows and checks behind her, Dimitri steps inside and walks between us, eyes glued on his gadget. There were no visuals of the room and the end of the hall.”

“Then we’ll go in blind.” She says, then she shot one attacker and continued to another. 

We run-up to the smoked hallway and shot every attacker on the way, they’ve pretty much run around the whole floor. That’s when we saw the man standing by the door, ramming himself up to it, forcefully opening it.

“What do these guys drink?” Dimitri asks under his breath.

“I don’t have time to ask.” Astrid and Damien said in unison.

Damien shoots the man; he drops on the ground with a little shake. I saw him bleeding on the head and arm.

Astrid shot him again on the chest, throat, and between the eye. “Damn bionic assholes.” She mutters under her breath.

Then she walks up to the door, “Please, please let me be right…” Astrid heard her whisper as she reaches for the doorknob and shook it.

Ash stares at the elevator door, the memory of Astrid fighting a man thrice her size burned in his mind.

“Ash, we need to move,” Kale says.

Ash snaps out of my reverie and cleared my mind. “Sorry.”

Collin steps down and pulls the wires of the surveillance camera.

Kale grins, “You're worried about her, I understand that. But you should also understand that Astrid is the best among us, she’ll get through that guy with ease.” Ash nodded, “I just wish he’s the only one here.”

“What do you mean?”

“He just looks familiar.” Kale says, “And I’m hoping I’m wrong with my guess of who he is.”

“That ass pressed on all buttons.” Allana says, “We’ll be stopping at every floor.”

Kale presses the button again but the lights didn’t go off, he looks around and up the hatch. Then he tosses his gun at Collin.

“Give me a boost.” He says standing under the elevator hatch to where Ash pushes him up. He opens the hatch and slipped in, not a second longer he lent out his hand, “We need to get out of here, Allana you first.”

Allana reaches for his hand and lets him pull her up.

Ash signals Collin to go ahead, and I give him another boost, then he and Kale pulled me up.

“We can’t wait for the ground floor anymore.” Kale says, “We need to transfer to the other cart.”

We stood by the edge of the elevator and saw the next cart was on its way up.

“Jump on my signal,” Kale says not leaving his eyes from the cart. “Now.”

At the same moment, we jumped an explosion that came from above us.

“Stay down!” Kale shouts.

The cart we were just in was plummeting down, while fire ran down the small room above us. We lied flat on the steel, the fire not reaching us. Kale opens the hatch and slid inside, we heard him talking with someone.

“I suggest that you step out now and leave the premises.” He says, “We’re already looking for the culprit ma’am, do not worry.”

Then the elevator stopped and we heard the bell, soon we were moving down.

“Get down.” He calls to the others.

Collin slid himself down, followed by Allana and me.

“So we go on with the plan,” Kale says pulling the wires of the surveillance camera. “We’ll stop on the third floor and walk from there.”

Ash leans back on the wall, adrenaline was slowly slipping away from me.

“You ok?” Allana asks.

“Just…” Ash shrugs to know how Astrid was, I’m pretty sure that explosion won’t go unnoticed.

“She’ll be fine,” Allana says. “We need you here Ash.”

“Yeah, yeah…” Ash shook away the worry and tried to get her head clear of Astrid. “I’m here.”

“Two floors before our next stop,” Kale says. That helped a bit, knowing I’d be able to speak with Astrid once I step out of the elevator.

“Third floor?” Allana asks. “That’s the conference floor, isn’t it?”

She groans, remembering how the Johnsons always have a conference area in all of their hotels, there was one for a big conference and one for small and private ones. We’ve seen a lot of it whenever grandfather called for us, checking on us and work.

“We won’t be staying long anyway, it’s cool,” Kale says.

“The whole floor is soundproofed.” Collin points out. “There are five circular rooms, one in the middle and four in corners.”

“It’s a complete waste of space, but it was necessary to assure the privacy of the rooms. You can go around all rooms, it isn’t so much of a maze, but it will take a few seconds longer to walk around.”

“Well, if Dimitri is right that the attackers are all on their way to our room, then we won’t don’t need to worry about anything.” Kale says, “Just be ready, in case they found out how special this floor is, then we’ll have a problem.”

The elevator stops, we leaned back on the wall as the door opened. It was quiet, Kale steps forward and checked if it was clear, but the shooting says it isn’t.

“Move!” he shouts and they all stepped out of the elevator and ran straight, then he moved to the left.

“They’re coming from the fire exits!” Allana calls shooting three attackers behind us, we were stuck in the middle.

This was supposed to be the easiest floor to run around in seeing that all path leads to the fire exits, but seeing the attackers coming, and the pile of the corpse on the floor, it was going to be harder.

The shooting suddenly stops until only one specific footstep is heard, they looked to where it came from and saw the man who Astrid was fighting with. But something was different about him, his body was bigger and he seems taller too.

“Shit…” Dimitri says under his breath. “We need to get into one of these rooms.”

Ash nods and ran off to the door of the conference room in the middle and started punching in the internal password of all the doors that only us knows of.

Shooting begins again I look over my shoulder for a second and saw Allana shoot behind him. St the end of the hall more attackers arrived about to gun us down, but Allana hits them first showering them with bullets from her M-15.

Ash finally unlocks the door, “Allana go!” he shouts. “Collin! Kale!”

I walked backward covering for them, once we were all inside Collin hits the close button and locks it. Ash leans on the wall and slid down the floor.

“You ok?” Collin asks.

“Just out of breath.” Ash grins, “Damn, I hate this swinging its plans.”

Then we heard a thumping on the door.

“Slide it sideward, stupid.” Allana mumbles, putting down one gun on the table and starts to reload.

“Astrid is going to be so pissed right about now,” Ash says, walking up to Allana.

“I can just imagine,” Kale says with a chuckle. “Wonder what she did to that guy she was fighting with.”

They looked up at him, questioned. “What do you mean?” Allana asks.

“Well, he did just try to kill us, didn’t he?” Kale says, “I’m sure Astrid noticed that.”

“She’s probably kicking that guy’s ass to hell,” Collin says and glances at me making me grin.

“She probably is.”Ash murmured and reached over his heart, feeling an ache. Please be ok…

Suddenly the cover of the vent fell off and an attacker jumps down but Collin shot him midair before another one jumped down and shot at us. They all dropped on the floor and Allana shot one of the attackers Collin then jumps over the table and shot the other one. Dimitri positions himself under the vent and shot at it, then we heard more clamper by the door.

“They’re hacking into the system!” Collin says over the noise. 

Ash was about to hit the emergency button when the door opened. But instead of seeing the giant, I saw Damien pulling away Astrid. They turned to Ash, surprised.

“Ash!” she says relieved, her face stained with tears and threw her arms around her twin and held unto him tight.

“I knew it was you,” he whispers, wrapping her in his arms.

Astrid pulls away and checked on me, “Don’t you ever scare me like that.”

“Sorry.” Ash grins, “The whole floor is soundproof, no communications.”

“Are you all ok?” Damien asks.

“Yeah,” Allana says, “They just came popping out like the villains that they are.”

Astrid stifles a laugh and looks back at Ash. Only then did he noticed her bruised cheek and cut lip. She was covered with blood.

“Your hurt.” He says.

“I’ll live.” She says, “Tweedle dumb upstairs used you guys to distract me.”

“And Tweedle dumber here paid for your anger?” I teased.

“Damien and mine.” She corrects, “I wasn’t the only one who almost lost you.”

Ash looks at Damien who gave me a look, “Thanks.”

He shook his head, “Just take care of yourself, you made a promise.” Ash nods. “Anyway, dumber here had a quick death, bet he didn’t feel anything.”

“Lucky guy.” Dimitri says, “You should have seen dumb.”

“What no pictures to brag?” Kale asks.

“You’d lose your appetite if I did,” Dimitri says. “Anyway, let’s go. Knowing the Ozawa, once they don’t receive a response they’ll send in more men.”

We walked through the hallway, passing by the corpse and Dimitri picking up his guns.

“How do you know if it’s yours?” Allana asks.

Dimitri grins and raises one gun, “White trigger, hardly recognizable unless you are familiar with all types of guns.”

“Well, that’s handy,” Collin says.

“Helps avoid leaving evidence behind too.” He says.

Then Astrid stops and ran back.

“What is it, Astrid?” Ash asks.

“Just a sec, I forgot something.” We all watched her run back to dumber and searched him.

“Seriously Astrid?” Dimitri asks, exasperated. “You’ve already gotten the big kill upstairs.”

She pulled out something from his pockets and shook her head and laughed, “This is sweeter.” She tossed the wallet to Dimitri whose eyes widened after checking it.

“Tag team?” Dimitri asks and tossed the wallet to Kale who whistles.

“So you’ve taken care of two, guess there’s another one to look for.”

“Another one?” Collin asks.

“So the rumor is true?” Astrid sighed.

“Tenshi said so herself.”

“Care to let us into the conversation?” Allana asked.

“The Ozawa brothers,” Kale says handing them the wallet. “That one’s Hanson, as you’ve seen his specialty is close contact fighting, fighting him would have meant sure death for us, even with guns, he has this condition wherein he cannot feel pain, their father made use of that.”

“The one upstairs was Harold, the blades specialist,” Dimitri says, “It is said that he is deadly with any kind of blade, and with his speed and perfect eyesight, he could probably bring down an army with just a butter knife.”

“But he didn’t have anything on our Astrid.” Collin grins.

“U-huh, yeah right, he’d probably have killed me by now if I didn’t blind him on one eye.” Astrid says, “So there’s the third brother?”

“Chibi, Chibi Ozawa,” Kale said.

Astrid stifles a laugh, “Chibi? Are you serious?”

“Well, he isn’t as big as these guys, but he’s the deadliest.”

“Do you think they’ve come for Tenshi, right?” Astrid asks as they reached the lobby.

“Well, I’m pretty sure they won’t kill her.”

“Why is that?”

“She’s their twin sister,” Kale says.

That would have surprised them more if only they weren’t seeing what was going on in the lobby.

“Pretty sure huh?” Dimitri gives Kale a look.

Tenshi is fighting with a boy that was about the same built as the two men before, with had a sword twice the size of Astrid’s blades with a hole in the middle.

“Lightning is what he calls his sword.” Kale says, “Specially made to butcher his targets, that’s what those little holes on it are for.”

“Background,” Astrid speak up.

“No specialty.” Kale says, “But extremely deadly in all styles.”

Astrid tipped her head sideward, “Interesting.”

“You are not butting in on that fight, Astrid.” Ash blocks her way.

“I’m not planning to.” She says watching in full interest over her twin brother’s shoulder.

“What took you?” Jared came jogging toward us.

“We ran into another one of those.” Collin pointed at the boy. “Where’s Derek?”

Jared shook his head, worried, “I’ve been looking everywhere for him, but he isn’t here.”

“They took him,” Astrid says under her breath. “We need to find him.”

“How?” Kale asks. “It’s not as if we can go ask them around.”

“Plus we’ve killed all of them,” Dimitri says.

“There’s still one.” Astrid pulls out a dagger and flicked it toward the one fighting Tenshi, who had his sword up. 

Astrid’s dagger went perfectly through one of the holes and pierced it through the wall beside him. He and Tenshi look to where the dagger came from, Tenshi’s face was full of relief while his brother was of interest as he set on Astrid.

“You have someone I want back,” Astrid says.

“Weakness.” He sneered. “Maybe we can negotiate.”

“I’m listening.” Astrid tips her head sideward again.

“I have something you want, and you are something I want.” He says.

“An exchange is out of the negotiations,” Astrid says.

“Well, I’m not fighting a weakling.” He says.

“You haven’t even seen me.”

“Oh, I’ve seen it.” He says, “how you pull away from fights, not pulling a punch, thinking twice before killing those people back at Russia. What happened to Angel?”

“I don’t need her,” Astrid says.

“Then I’ll just have to kill your friend.” He says pulling out his phone, “One phone call and he’s dead.”

“Leave them out of this!” Tenshi shouts and kicked him on the side, making him move back.

“You bitch-“

Astrid pulls out her gun and shot his hand that was about to grab Tenshi. He cringed in pain and glared at Astrid.

“You want Angel,” she says, “I’ll give you Angel.”

He smirks and glares at Tenshi, “I’ll kill you later.”

Astrid steps forward, “Hey Angel.” Dimitri calls out. “You are forgetting something.”

Astrid sighed, “I swear Dimitri, you care about looks more than I do.”

Dimitri chuckles, then I saw Astrid pull out something from one of the pockets in her belt and pulled her hair up.

“That’s the Angel I know,” Dimitri says.

“Let’s get this over with,” Astrid says and pulled out her black blade and grimaced, “Chibi.”

The man grew angrier and pulled off the dagger and took his sword and walked up to Astrid. In full force he drops his sword on her, their blades met with a clash, then he slashed with the dagger, but Astrid stopped him, by grabbing his wrist and twisting it, making him let go of the dagger. But then he kneed her on the side and pushed her back. He reached behind his coat and pulled another sword.

Astrid grins and attacks nonstop, and every time one of his swords meet with Astrid’ he would pull back and swing the other one at Astrid giving her less time to breathe. But Astrid pushed on, she would go on defense and attack all at the same time, kicking and sweeping him. But as Kale had said, he was good.

“Is this it Angel?” he sneers.

“Yeah, gloating comes from the guy with two swords and fighting a girl,” Allana mumbles sounding bored as if she was just watching a movie.

“Well, if that’s all you have, I guess you have to flaunt it,” Collin says before checking his watch. “Five minutes!”

“Wait, we can’t leave Derek-“

“With all the mess we made here, I’m pretty sure that mom and dad had already called Father Johan.” Jared says, before sipping on the bottled water he was holding, “Water?”

Ash shook his head and looked back at the fight. Their family is crazy, but Jared is right. We’d never hear the end of it from Grandfather, and not to mention from mom and dad.

“Why not just give up Angel?” the man says again, “You are being hunted by every house in the world, you are a priority.”

“Unfortunately that isn’t what I care about.” Astrid glared.

“Then maybe I should change that.” He says and points his sword at me, and though he was meters away from me, I moved back. “That boy seems to look so much like you, I’m thinking he’s your brother…” Astrid glares at him, “twin brother perhaps?”

Dimitri chuckles. “Wrong move, buddy.”

Astrid lunges forward and pulls one gun out, the man stepped back as if excited of the anger he had ignited on Astrid. Astrid changes her hold of her blade as well as raise her arm meeting his sword with hers, then she quickly raised her gun on his hand and shot it again.

“Damn, shot twice on the hand has got to hurt,” Kale says. “Surprising he can still move it and fight with a sword for ten minutes.”

Then Astrid hits his face with the butt of her gun and kicks him down, making him fall on his back, in pain. His nose was broken, but he still held his sword up. But Astrid took care of that and slashed off his hand. They all cringed and looked away.

“Shit, Astrid is angry,” Dimitri says. “Can I have a whisky there Collin?”

“Is she always like this?” Ash asks Dimitri, “When she was out killing before?”

Dimitri smiles and shook his head, “She was deadlier, but her kills were clean, single shot on the forehead, a stab on the heart, poison, she never dismember.” He glanced at Ash, “He threatened to kill you, Ash, your sister won’t let that pass.”

Ash looks back at his sister who was now hovering over the man, her blade pressed on his throat. I can see her talking but I couldn’t hear her, then she grabs him by the collar and hit his head on the floor. “Tell me what I need to know!”

“That’s much better,” Allana says, taking the drink Collin prepared for her.

“You sure you don’t want a drink Ash? Damien?” Kale asks. “It’ll help with the blood and dead and stuff.”

“No thanks.” Damien says, “If Astrid is as angry as you say she is, then we’ll need a clear mind to be able to calm her down.”

“Damien’s right, I don’t want to go walking around with a paranoid Astrid,” I said.

“If you don’t talk now, I will find it anyway, I will let you lose, then I’ll kill every one of the Ozawa clan and say that you sent me to them saying that they are the ones who you sent to kill me. And with how you’ve been running the Clan with blackmail, I’m pretty sure it won’t be hard to make them believe that.”

“Then do it!” he said through his teeth, “they’ll never find me.”

“Shouldn’t you be saying that they’ll never do it?” Astrid then sneers at him. “Dimitri.”

“Yeah?”

“Make a bounty for Chibi Ozawa, ten million dollars, with a possibility of an extra.” I saw his face drop, and turn pale. “Description is one hand short, the other hand has four fingers left, hardly deadly…”

“Just kill me now.” He said.

“But where’s the fun in that?” Astrid teased him. “Now that I think of it, the fact that you’ll be the third Ozawa I killed today will be the fun.”

“Tenshi will never forgive you.” He sneered.

“Yeah, mad that she’ll make the kill and not me,” Tenshi says, holding the dagger on one of her hand and flicked it at her brother hitting him on the side of the head. 

Then Astrid sat on the floor beside him, arms over her knees, and ran her hand over her face.

“Astrid…”

“I can’t leave Derek.” She shook her head.

“We don’t have a choice,” Ash says, “Grandpa would have known this by now and would not clear any of us to leave the country.”

“But he’s still here.” She snaps.

Ash sighs, “Collin, hold all flights and ships throughout the country, call the air force and marines to keep an eye on any means of transportation in air and water all over the country’s area of responsibility.”

“Got it.” Collin pulls out his phone.

“Allana, report a lookout for Derek, I want checkpoint in every border and highway.”

“Got it.” Allana made the call as well.

“They can do that?” Kale asks.

“The Matthews can do so much more.” Damien says, “And upsetting the heiress will mean death to those who upset her.”

“Damn, no wonder she was such a brat.” Kale shook his head taking another drink.

“I heard that.” Astrid snaps.

“We’ll find him,” Ash says. “Just be a little patient.”

She took a deep breath and nods. Then cars screeching outside the hotel were heard.

“Just when we thought this can’t get any better.” Jared groans finishing his whisky before his parents’ guards rushed into the room.

“Are you kids out of your minds?!” Uncle Ashton shouts, they were all sitting in the sofa heads down, while Astrid lazily stood by the door. “The last time I checked you,” points at Astrid, “were the one being hunted, not the other way around!”

Astrid shrugs, “And that’s one house to worry about, dad-“

“I don’t care!” Uncle Ashton slams his fist on the table. “You are lucky that Keith was there to clean up your mess in Russia, but seeing you right now and with Derek missing, I guess you weren’t so lucky this time, were you?”

“You don’t say.” Astrid murmurs.

The others roll their eyes and glares at her, Damien on the other hand, grinned and shook his head. Father Johan, Uncle Ashton, Aunt Hannah, and my dad gave me the?-look I looked away, trying to hide his amusement.

Astrid sighs, “Listen, this is my fault, let them go.”

“No!” Uncle Ashton shook his head and sat back down trying to calm himself. “You are all in trouble, the death of Jetson meant more rogue assassins, and you even brought two home,” he glares at Tenshi and Kale, “for remembrance, hm?”

“Tenshi is my responsibility, it was just a matter of time before she joins me, I just decided that earlier is better,” Astrid says. 

“There is no room for being reckless Astrid-“ Aunt Hannah says as calmly as she could.

“I wasn’t being reckless.” Astrid argues, “It was a well-planned ambush, I get it, I lost Derek, and I’ll find him.” Damien looks up at her and caught her looking away from us. “I’m taking full responsibility for this, can’t we just drop it?”

“No, because I won’t have your assassin attitude in this house.” Uncle Ashton was now red in the face, furious. “We are trying our best to hide and protect you from this mess you have started, at least have some sense of self-preservation Astrid!”

Astrid looks at him, surprised and hurt. Then she gave a sarcastic laugh, “Assassin attitude, wow…” Astrid stood up and walk up to him, “Then you should have just left me out there if my assassin attitude is such a nuisance to you.”

“Astrid-“

“It was just too good to be true.” Astrid took a step away from him, “You know what, Mr. Matthews, I wish you never took me from the orphanage, then maybe we won’t be here now.”

With a mocking bow, she stormed out of the room.

“Astrid-“ Damien stands to follow her.

“Let her go.” Father Johan says.

“But-“

“She’ll be ok,” My dad said, “she just needs to calm down, she’s been cooped up too long.”

“He’s right Damien, don’t worry about her,” Tenshi then turns to Uncle Ashton, “Angel is far from foolish. She won’t do anything stupid.” She stands and faced Father Johan, “If our presence here is such a nuisance, then just grant us a peaceful departure, we mean no harm to anyone.”

“Tenshi…” Ash says.

“You may leave anytime you want and would not be touched by any of my men,” Father Johan says, “you are, after all, Astrid’s friend.”

“Thank you,” Kale says, they both bowed and was about to leave.

“Wait.” Ash stood up and faced the adults. “Astrid won’t be any happier if she finds out that we let Tenshi and Kale leave. We might as well pack up her bag for her so she can go and follow them.”

“Well, what do you have in mind?” Father Johan asks.

“A compromise,” Ash says. “We’ll stay in NSA with Tenshi and Kale. Damien and I will talk to Astrid. We’ll keep her in check, and out of trouble.”

“That sounds fair.” He says with a nod, “But the thing is I can’t approve without your sister’s assurance that she’ll keep her end.”

“We’ll make sure that she does,” Damien says, “she just needs to clear her mind about this Derek business, right now all she wants is to get him back home-“

“That’ll be my job.” Uncle Ashton says. “Just make sure you keep your end of this bargain.”

“Yes, father,” Ash says.

Then we heard the gates open, Collin then frowns, “She left.”

“Not foolish you say?” Uncle Ashton glares at Tenshi.

Damien stares at the headlight of the motorcycle until it disappeared.

“I think I know where she’s going.” Damien ran out of the room and to the garage, grabbed the motorcycle he and Ash kept there, they all had one car and one motorcycle in each of their houses, in case they needed it.

“Damien!” Ash walks up to Damien. “She went to the orphanage, didn’t she?”

“I think so.” Damien shrugs, “She mentioned wanting to visit given a chance.”

He nods, “Make sure she comes home, ok?”

“You should come, she can never say no to you.”

He chuckled and shook his head. “I don’t want to worry her.”

Damien gave him a questioned look which he answered with a forced smile. “Earlier, when she killed those three, she did it thinking that I was dead, that they killed me. That last guy didn’t even get to throw anything at me and yet he was killed.”

“He was killed by Tenshi, not Astrid.” Damien reminds him.

“No difference, seeing how Astrid lose herself only to save me,” he shook his head, “I don’t want to see that again, I don’t want to lose her when she’s so near me.”

“Astrid won’t lose herself to her assassin attitude.”

“How sure are you Damien?” Ash asks, “There might be a chance that we already lost her while she was at Russia.”

Damien shook his head, “You losing hope and trust in her will hurt her most, Ash. Don’t doubt her.”

He nods, “I know, I guess I just don’t want to disappoint myself by hoping.”

“She won’t disappoint you, trust me.”

Ash doesn’t answer instead he hit the button for the garage door. “You better get going, we don’t want her out alone. Lord knows what kind of mess she’ll get in.”

Astrid sat in the middle of the treehouse, staring at the full moon.

I won’t have your assassin attitude in this house.

“Assassin attitude…” Astrid grimaces, “stupid man, there’s no such thing…”

She looks out the window and sees an oncoming headlight. She sighs realizing who it was and the motorcycle stopped beneath the treehouse.

“I know you’re up there Astrid.”

Astrid shrugs and didn’t answer either way she was sure he’d climb up to check. He popped in and stayed there.

“Found you.” He says playfully.

“Yey…” she mumbles.

Damien stifles a laugh, “That’s it? That’s all I get for being nosy?”

She grins and glanced his way. “I should have known you’d find me here.”

He crawls in and sat beside her, “Yeah, well, I’m good.”

She stifles a laugh and looked at the moon, “Yeah, you are.”

They sat there in silence for a moment.

“You know he didn’t mean it, right?” Damien says.

“I know.” She took a deep breath, clearing her mind. “The painful part is that it’s what he feels.” He turns to me, but I didn’t want to face him, I didn’t want him the pain in my eyes as I utter the truth. “The human brain is an amazing thing, when you’re angry it’s like when you are heavily drunk, you say what you feel, what is true, your deepest secrets or fears.”

“Astrid, I can’t say anything right now that can take away the pain you feel because of your father’s words.” He says, “But I do know is we lied to them, we broke our word to stay safe, we endangered ourselves and now we lost Derek.”

“I want to find him-“

“But that changes nothing, Astrid.” Damien says, “The fear you had when you thought Ash died, that’s what they are feeling whenever you are in trouble. Knowing that you’ll probably go pull an all-out war on the houses just to find Derek doesn’t help.”

“What do you want me to do?” Astrid snaps, anger rising, “Stay here, safe and sound while Derek is probably being tortured to death?”

“No, I want you to stay here and tell us what we need to know so we can find Derek and at the same time keep you safe.”

She shook her head, fighting back the tears, “I can’t… I can’t do that Damien-“

“Yes you can if you’d only trust our men-“

“No!” she snaps, “Can’t you see? They’ll never stop until they get me, I won’t let others die for me!”

“So you’d prefer to die for everyone else?” Damien snaps back, “Do you think it will end once they kill you? They can go after the Matthews and everyone else just so they can make sure that we’ll never get the last laugh. You said so yourself, you are the only one who can protect the family, and I do agree, but that doesn’t mean you have to do it alone.”

He looks away and shrugs, “Ash and I agreed with Father Johan,” he raises his head as if scared of what his words will bring. “We’re going back to the NSA as soon as possible-“

“No!”

“We will stay there while Uncle Ashton looks for Derek.” He continues. “All you need to do now is tell your dad what he needs to know and he’ll take it from there.” He faced her, “Astrid, just listen to reason, it’s a good plan, we can’t have them get you angrier by getting to us.”

She looks away and lets the tears fall, “Derek…”

“He’s strong and smart, he’ll probably talk himself out of it.” Damien says, “And by talk I mean he’ll be irritating his captors and they’ll give him up freely or probably kill themselves.”

She stifles a laugh and faced him, “Maybe I should just keep Derek there.” Damien laughs as well. Then she pulls her by the waist.

“You know I won’t agree to this unless it’s necessary, right?” Astrid nods, “Everything will be fine. Uncle Ashton has never failed us before, and he knows how important Derek is to you, and he’ll do everything in his power to get him home.”

She sighs, “You know what?”

“What?”

“You are good.”

He stifles a laugh and made her face him, “I’m very good.” Then he leaned in and kissed me but I pulled back. “What’s wrong?”

“I got bruised.” She says, “I broke the deal.”

He grins, “If I am not mistaking the deal was no gun holes and broken bones. Scratches are exempted.”

“What about bruises? Cuts?”

He grins, “I’ll categorize it under the scratches.” She laughs and met his lips with hers. As always, Damien was careful. She could feel his need and want, but passion took over. He loves me, and she never doubted it for a second. I knew that by going back to NSA was the best for all of us.

She pulls away, keeping her eyes in his, “That was a stupid deal, wasn’t it?”

He chuckles and nods, “Yes it was.”

She looks back out the window and saw the light on one of the rooms of the orphanage flickering.

“Looks like someone’s starting a party.” Damien says, watching the orphanage as well, “Want to go inside? I’m sure Mrs. Jefferson wouldn’t turn down her most favorite rascals.”

She laughs and shook my head, “Not now. Maybe when Derek comes home.”

He nods and gave her a quick kiss, “That sounds like a plan.”