𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐖𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 | 𝐊𝐚𝐢 𝐇𝐢𝐰𝐚𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐢

Chapter 07: We are all pretending, no?

"I don't know who I am now, not after years of pretending," 

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[Two months after Ahana joined the team] 
Typing...


Ahana 

There was blood in her hands.

"These were expensive gloves you know," she muttered, as she stared at the leather glow torn from the centre from the cut that bleeds, mixing her blood with the others, "damn you people, can't care about fashion," she huffed, kicking the groaning man aside while she walked forward.

The warehouse smelt of blood, metal and something worse, something rotten.

But Ahana didn't pay any mind to it, her boots clacked against the floor as she moved forward, her black coat swaying with the wind. She knelt down near one of the man who was clutching his stomach, his breath ragged.

Her hand slid into the man's hair and yanked his head up until his neck strained. He whimpered, face pale under the harsh light above them. "P-please—don't kill me—"

"Tsk, I don't kill," she muttered, her gaze almost pitiful as she looked at him, "not usually anyway, I don't even like staining my hands with bloods you know, but some people-" she tightened her grip ever so slightly, while he whimpered, "just wouldn't let me live in peace, so, I am gonna ask you this, one time, one, what the 'hell' are you doing here?"

"We-we were just hoping to steal-"

"Wrong answer," she sighed, slamming his head on the ground instead, before she again strained it back, "I have intel, and you are stupid. So let me rephrase my question, who sent you here, so you are circling my team members for the past week. Or more specifically me?"

The man's eyes darted around the warehouse, to his unconscious team sprawled around her boots, "W-we were sent to retrieve you–"

"Retrieve?" she echoed, one brow lifting, while she mused if she should be amused or offended, "you make it sound like I'm a parcel that got delivered to the wrong address,"

The man flinched, "He-he said it like that, he wants you back there," his voice was low, barely above the sound of the clock ticking, but it was enough for her to hear.

For a second, there was silence.

Before she laughed.

Not in amusement.

Not in anger.

Just a slow, hollow, broken laugh.

Almost like she was surprised at fate, "Of course he does," she said, her voice cold, though her eyes betrayed a flicker of emotion, "That old hag just know how to take and take and take, until you are nothing,"

"He also sent us to–" that man hesitated torn between his loyalty to the hefty payment he had received and his heartbeat that thud painfully against his ribs, he had broken a few ribs for sure, "– gather information about, Mr. Hiwatari and-"

She looked down.

Jaw clenched.

Kai, huh?

"And?" her voice was low, like a melody, a dangerous, deadly melody.