The Assassin's Shadow

Chapter 12

I woke up groggily the next morning and tightened my grip around the pillow I was laying on.

"Didn't know you were so cuddly in the morning." a voice chuckled and began to stroke my hair.

"What the hell?!" I yelped and jerked up. Somehow my foot managed to get tangled up on his foot and I tripped off the couch, hitting my head against the corner of the table. I could feel pain in my forehead but disregarded it as I jumped up to face Zach. Whatever cut had formed there was already beginning to heal. Last night came back to me and I remembered we had been making out on the couch and things had gotten pretty heated, hence the shirtless Zach I was currently staring at, but nothing had really happened. We had just eventually fallen asleep, both too tired to go to our own rooms.

"And so graceful." Zach said with a wide grin on his face, amusement clear in his eyes.

"Old habits die hard." I shrugged. Zach sat up and grabbed my hips, pulling me down so I was straddling him. He wiped the blood off of my forehead with his thumb.

"Hey Zach?" I asked.

"Yes?" he rested his forehead against mine.

"Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?"

"Ask your question and see." he said it with amusement but I could tell the slight hesitation in his voice.

"Who was the first person you ever killed?"

He didn't answer immediately. Instead he grabbed my hand, which had been trailing on his collarbone, and played with my fingers.

"Why do you want to know that?" he finally asked.

"I'm going to have to kill someone." I kept my face neutral as I said this since he was currently searching it for any hint of weakness from this conversation. I had no doubt he would report all of this back to Cody.

"Yes, you will." he nodded. "Does that bother you?"

I opened my mouth to say 'no' but couldn't get the word out. Instead I just nodded. Zach surprised me by smiling. He let my hands go and dropped his hands to my leg and rubbed reassuring circles with his thumb on the top of my thighs.

"You'll be fine. It's what you were trained for, the rest is all instinct."

"But how do you deal with the guilt?" I whispered, almost afraid to voice the question.

Zach shrugged. "The first times the hardest, but it's easiest when you don't think of them as people."

"Who was your first?"

Zach smiled at my not so subtle way of bringing it back to my original question, then to my surprise he answered,

"My step-father."

"W-what?!" I stuttered, eyes wide. Zach's grin widened further at my response. I had a feeling this was not at all like Ash's story.

"I lived alone with my step-father, my mother died a while ago. He was an alcoholic and slightly abusive, overall a pathetic excuse for a person. My gift developed when I was around eleven or twelve years old and I kept it a secret from him. When Cody and Andy came to get me I was more than willing to go with them, but before I went with them I said there was something I had to do first. I went home that night and he was drunker than usual, something about his boss at work, I didn't bother to find out further. He yelled at me and hit me around a bit, as usual, and I let him think he was in control before using my power to throw a chair on top of him, pinning him to the ground. I would have used my powers to kill him, but for some reason I can't use it on anything that's living. I let him have a small taste of fear before I broke his neck. Cody got his men to cover it up for me and I left with them."