~June 1887~

Running.

That's all you could do. The cold wet feeling of blood under your feet was the only thing telling you that this was real. Not the heat, nor the sweat on your skin could convince you that this was not a dream. The only thing you could hear was the beating of your own heart because it was drumming in your ears. You could've sworn there was supposed to be light here but you could barely see now. You burst through a door and the cold night air of London hit you like a brick. Immediately gripping your shoulders, you hid in a corner somewhere behind some barrels. Looking up and blinking a couple of times trying to focus you saw the building was on fire. You were too perplexed to remember if it was on fire while you were inside. You were exhausted, it felt like you were running for miles. Wiping sweat from your face, you drew back your hand with blood on it. It was splashed everywhere on your body.

This was real, you killed over a dozen men in there that wasn't what shocked you, you're an assassin you've assassinated people before but never like that. It was bloody, and you don't recall a thing except that you killed them by simply losing control of yourself, that's what shocked you.

Out of the flaming building walked a boy and a tall man both clean and unscathed. You couldn't see them clearly; only the glint of a blue diamond ring on the boy's thumb was significant. Blood boiled underneath your skin as an adrenaline rush hit your veins. Swiftly stepping towards them the tall man faced where you were and fear took over your sudden desire to kill them. You couldn't see his face properly and retreated back into your corner like a shadow. He advanced towards your hiding spot and you curled into a ball closing your eyes.

"Ah so soft~"

You opened one eye peeking at the man, the smoke coming from the building was starting to obscure your vision but from the sound of purring he had picked up a cat.

"Sebastian put the bloody cat down and let's go," you heard a sigh from the man and a troubled 'Yes, my Lord'. You held your breath so you wouldn't cough from the smoke and alert them to your presence. The cat made its way over to you and curled up next to you, not wanting it to suffocate along with you, you picked it up and were sickened by the fact you could feel its ribs, not a nice feeling. Blinking tears out of your eyes you walked in the direction of the two strangers. You sighed, they were nowhere to be found, far enough to breathe properly you put the cat down which found your ankles the ideal place to curl up against. You knelt down on the empty London street and petted the cat, it purred and looked at you. Wine coloured eyes, odd colour for a cat or for any eye for that matter. Nevertheless, it was charming.

~

About a week after escaping your captors you were hellbent on finding the boy and the tall man to dispose of them. If they weren't looking for a sex slave then what else would they be doing there, you guessed they were just fortunate to come out alive. Walking the streets of London was no easy task for a woman who wasn't of noble status. Every drunkard thought you were a prostitute and every store owner thought you were a thief. Women hid behind their fans gossiping about your wear, no corset and a cloak with a hood and plain boots. You were self-conscious some days but on days that you're concentrated petty things like that don't distract you until after. Looking for that boy and man wasn't going to be easy. All you had was the name Sebastian and the knowledge of a blue diamond ring on the boys' finger.

You soon found yourself at an old acquaintance of yours. The words 'Undertaker' stared at you from above the door. Opening the door you walked inside ready to sit on your special coffin you both made as a joke, "Undertaker I need to ask you some- " you stopped short there was an adolescent boy sitting inside already with a beaker of tea, his hat and his walking stick sat next to him and standing behind him was a man clad in black, the material hugging him perfectly and his hair drawn perfectly to fit his face. If there was ever such thing as a perfect-looking human, he'd fit the description. Perfectly. To put the cherry on top, his eyes were the colour of red wine, just like the cat that followed you. Breathtaking.

"Oh, I see you're busy," your voice was caught in your throat and it came out squeaky and low. The boy turned around and stared at you; an eyepatch concealed his right eye and his left blue eye stared at you, his face was cold and unmoving. Quite strange for a young boy to be here, he couldn't be more than twelve or thirteen.

"Y/n dearie, come here there's someone I'd like you to meet." A broad grin was plastered on the Undertaker's face. You inched in a little on the other side of the boy and this man, something caught your eye. The dancing flame of a candle reflected off a ring on the boy's thumb, a blue diamond ring was visible, just like the one that was on the boy you saw come out of the burning building.

"This here is the Earl of Phantomhive, common customer. I'm surprised you haven't run into him on your visits here." Your jaw was locked tight, and all you could bring yourself to do was nod and hum in response. "And this is his butler, Sebastian."

Sebastian gave you a closed eye smile that irked you a little. That confirmed it; it was them, you came looking for information as to whether or not Undertaker could tell you about them and here they are, practically gift wrapped. "Earl this is Y/n a dear friend of mine, she may come off cold at first but she's just shy, think nothing of it." The earl looked at you and declined his head curtly before returning his gaze to the Undertaker.

"Well Undertaker I guess we're done here, you have a guest it seems. Sebastian." The butler started to button the boys' coat and put his hat on his head and held his master's walking stick waiting for him to take it. They walked out of the parlour leaving you with the Undertaker.

"Now dearie what is it you want, I saw how you looked at the earl I wouldn't advise getting mixed up with him," the Undertaker's sing-song voice always put you in what passed as a good mood. "What do you know about that boy?" He hummed in response. "You know my price as well as anyone." You weren't in the least bit funny, at least on purpose. It was always hard getting information from him and having been locked up with disgusting nobility who sold to others in need of a young mistress did not improve your sense of humour.

"Undertaker..."

He gave you one of his cookies to nibble on while you two talked. "Nuh-uh dearie, you owe me quite a lot of jokes already and information on that boy requires at least two jokes." There was no getting past him so you decided to follow them.

"Come back soon dearie you've been gone for far too long," he waved you goodbye. You heard the jingle of the door as you closed it and saw the butler Sebastian on top a carriage driving and decided to follow. A charming manor came into view as you travelled a bit outside of London. Certain there was more than one servant in such a vast manor; you kept your distance and stayed in the trees. When night approaches you'll strike.

~

You wanted to make sure everyone was asleep which is why you waited for night, you crept into the manor which was pitch black except for the floor by the windows, those spots were bathed in moonlight. Not even two steps in and you felt a cold blade on your throat.

"So you found us at last, well done." The butler stood behind with some sort of small blade at your throat. "Quite rude to come unannounced and at this hour Miss Y/n." Your heart rate increased, you didn't expect to be caught so easily, his arm made its way around your waist pulling you into his chest. "Cat got your tongue?" You gasped and held in your stomach, the same feeling of fear washed over you as it did when you thought he saw you last week. "I would normally leave things like this till the morning," he sighed in frustration, "however I don't think my master would like me keeping a stranger in the manor while he slept."

He let you go and started walking and put what appeared to be silverware, dinner knives specifically, into his tailcoat. You started walking after him sometimes running to catch up with his long strides. You looked out the windows as you walked behind him thinking you could probably escape through one of them.

"It would be fruitless to try to run away, I don't advise it," the glint of the knives he slowly started pulling out warned you not to make a break for it.

You scoffed, it was like he could read your mind. "Do you always greet people with cutlery?" He looked back with a closed eye smile, "Only uninvited guests. Wait here." He opened a door leading to an office-like room and let you in. You sat in an armchair waiting for his master which you knew was the boy from earlier, Earl Phantomhive was it? There were books on either side of the room, you got up to go inspect them. 'A Study in Scarlet' was the first book to catch your eye, you stroked the spine of the book when the door opened. The boy came in clearly annoyed that he was woken up for this, his blue eye pierced your flesh as he looked at you. "Is it your policy to interfere with other people's things after you invade their homes?"

You sniggered, "Only those who put me in their offices," he was not delighted with your answer as he angrily sat down behind his desk and had Sebastian bring you over to stand in front of him. "Now what brought you over here?"

"A more pertinent question is, why were you at a sex trafficking business, surely a small boy, no, a child like you has no need for a mistress just yet," his eyebrow twitched in anger. "You are in no position to be asking me such questions, you are breaking into my estate and I want to know why." Instead of saying to kill them which was your intention, you started to doubt that he was there for that reason. "To ask you what were you doing there, I have to know, I have to remember what happened,". He looked at you for a good minute or two, "As you already know they were sex trafficking women I was called in to simply dispose of them, how you came to know that I was there and what was going on should be my question." The earl was calmer now that you were, "I was one of the girls locked up there, I happened to see you after disposing of some of them myself and I thought you were a buyer- "

"And you came to dispose of me?" he looked bored now as if he were used to this. "Basically," you bit your lip because you started feeling shy again, the fact that you assumed wrong did not help. He sighed and looked at his butler, "Now we know what happened in the other room," he shook his head. "If you had asked the Undertaker I'm sure you could've figured this out without going to such lengths." Looking down you played with your fingers, "I'm not good with making people laugh." Clouds passed over dimming the room a little bit. "Well, I'm certain if you tell him this story the next time you visit him he'll give you what you want." he cracked his knuckles and stretched, yawning he called Sebastian to escort you out and put him back to bed.

"Young master if I may, maybe you could offer her a position, having a maid that could do something besides breaking things would be a relief." Sebastian came and stood behind you, the boy looked you up and down. "Maybe having another assassin as a maid would do well."

"Well Miss Y/n? Do you accept working here?" practically disregarding the butler's question you eyed the child sitting in front of you. "How in the hell did you know I was an assassin?" he smirked at the question as if it should've been obvious. "Do you really think that I wouldn't know about someone following me to my own home and that I wouldn't want to find information about them, remember you are not the only one who knows the Undertaker." Too shocked for words and simply because he was so clever, you wouldn't mind working for him. "Then I accept, though I don't know much about being a maid."

"No experience required. We will provide you wage for your services, and you will have days off and we will have to work on your elocution, you work for an Earl now. If you're anything like our other maid damages will come out of your pay," all the butler gave was a closed eye smile that irked you for some odd reason. "Well then that's settled, Sebastian show her to her room. Welcome to the Phantomhive Manor Miss Y/n."