Warning: rape scene in this chapter. I apologize, feel free to skip ahead, this is just a flashback.

4 years ago

No one would ever suspect two kids at a mall.

What's a nice girl like me going to do? And Viktor? Well, he's just some young eighteen year old stud taking some girl on a date.

I almost wish that was our reality, but no one would guess the truth.

Besides, Viktor hates my guts ever since the first time we met, when I beat him.

Since that day, Aramis often pairs us up as his two strongest proteges to take on minimal missions. I fear he is preparing us for bigger things by getting us to run these errands, and that always makes my stomach sink. I try not to think too much about what we are doing.

On today's agenda? Kidnapping.

I stare at Viktor from across the table, where we are sitting at the food court, waiting for our target to move again. He is intently watching the store for any sign of the girl while I examine the strong contours of his high cheekbones and the curve of his long, dark lashes.

"Why do guys always have pretty eyelashes?" I wonder out loud, talking around the straw of my strawberry milkshake.

"Hm?" he grunts, eyes staying in place.

"Nothing," I grumble.

The girl's head comes bobbing out of the store, her red hair shaking as she laughs with her friends, all dressed similarly in miniskirts and flipflops.

I look down at my black sweatpants and combat boots. I definitely look like one of those teenage girls; the ones who know suicide hotlines off the top of their heads rather than the numbers of her friends' cells.

"Let's go," Viktor says, already up on his feet.

"Fine," I sigh, taking one last sip of my milkshake before discarding it.

We follow after the trio.

"Gonna be hard getting her alone," I say.

"We need a plan."

I look at Viktor's strong back, inadvertently on display in his black t-shirt. A lightbulb goes off in my head.

"Hey," I say, pulling him to the side to whisper. "I know what we have to do."

He arches a dark brow at me. I never take the helm in our missions, but the truth is I'm just trying to stretch out time so that I don't have to go back home.

My mom is off with that Rumor girl somewhere in the world, but the asshole still comes around. Mom gave him a key, apparently. He told her he would look after me, or so he says everytime he undoes his belt.

Let's have some fun

"Sasha?" Viktor's voice storms into my thoughts. He is still waiting for me to explain.

I get it together. "So, what you have to do is flirt."

"Flirt?" he says, giving me a look.

"Yeah, flirt. Flex your muscles, make her feel pretty. She'll go off with you, she's a dumb preteen girl, and you're some hot, older guy at the mall."

Viktor's cheeks actually turn a faint shade of red, and this amuses me to the core. "That is the most ridiculous plan I have ever heard," he scoffs, crossing his arms defiantly.

"Do you have a better one?"

"...No."

I laugh, spinning him around. "Then go get 'er, Tiger!"

He gives me a death stare as he walks towards the girls, who are gushing over a purse at a boutique.

I am oddly intrigued. I want to see Viktor flirt. All I have ever seen from him is his very reserved, very stoic, demeanor.

And I'm blown away.

As he comes up sauvly to the girls, his features comes to life, the cheekbones lifting with his smile, the dark eyes lighting up. I think he even makes a fucking joke.

All three girls look at each other excitedly, giggling and flushed.

Viktor talks with them, paying special attention to the redhead-- our target.

I bite the inside of my cheek, watching them. I never knew Viktor could look like that. Does he look that way all the time and just is miserable when he's with me?

No, it's an act. The Company is not filled with smiling faces, at least not at the bottom, where we are. This is just an image of what Viktor could have been.

Still though... I find myself feeling a little irritated when redhead daringly touches his arm. Irritated that Viktor's smile is not directed at me, even a fake one.

Let's have some fun

The sickness suddenly lodges into my stomach, a chill of nausea coming over me. My windpipe starts to close, but I attempt to calm down.

"Mary had a little lamb..." I whisper into my hands, taking quick, shallow breaths between verses.

You don't want a guy's attention, Sasha. They hurt you, remember? He'll hurt you. Stop messing around.

By the time I've come down from the height of my panic attack, Viktor has somehow managed to talk the girl into going to the food court with him. She waves for her friends to go ahead without her. Instead of them looking worried, they are visibly jealous that they are not the chosen one.

As they walk by me, I hear one say to the other, "She's got no boobs, stuffs her bra, he won't stay interested."

I roll my eyes, rounding the corner to follow after Viktor and Alexa Hoskins.

I try not to feel bad for the girl, try not to think of what will happen to her after we have captured her.

Alexa's father is an Anomaly. He hired an Attendant from Aramis to help keep his affairs private and separate from his family life. Believing he has finally gotten his life in order, Mr. Hoskins broke his contract with The Company and now refuses to pay the amount initially agreed upon, as well as the severence fee.

This is his punishment. Alexa will be held for ransom. If he does not pay double what is owed, Alexa will be sold off to Thailand's sex trafficking ring, have her tongue cut out, and subsequently never heard from again.

Viktor and the girl talk for two hours straight. That is longer than he has spoken to me at a time in four years. Staring at his animated face, I wonder if he is enjoying pretending, if he wishes that this was real.

After buying her an ice cream and the purse she wanted, Viktor gains her trust. He convinces her that he will take her home, that he wants to get to know her more. She is nearly fainting with glee.

As soon as she enters the car, shopping bags and all, we have her.

******

Viktor and I arrive at my trailer. I stare at it, sitting in the dark like an awaiting predator, with dread.

"Good work today," Viktor says, surprising me.

I turn to him, concealing my fretting with a sly smile. "Hey, that was all you. I didn't know you were so charming."

He looks away from me, heat coming off of him in waves. "I'm not," he murmurs.

I giggle, forgetting my worries. "Whatever you say, Vik."

"It's Viktor."

"What was that, Vik?" I shout, exiting the car. "I can't hear you!" I shut the car door.

He shakes his head and does something I never saw before. He genuinely smiles.

My stomach bunches up, a weird mixture of emotions stirring in me. I wave quickly and turn away, running to the safety of my trailer.

Except it's not safe.

The moment I enter the small, decrepit trailer, I am wrenched by the arm and thrown against the wall.

"Who the fuck was that?" The Asshole shouts, the stench of whiskey assaulting my nostrils, twisting my gut up.

"No one." I try to move around him, but he shoves me against the wall again, pinning me there.

His bleary, stupid eyes look down at me, going in and out of focus. "You're like your whore mother. I never know where she is either." His hands slither up to my breasts, kneading at them.

As always, I enter a state of paralysis, where I exit all feeling and disengage from what is happening.

He takes me and throws me to the floor, my elbow hitting the hardwood roughly.

I see his silhouette standing over me in the dark, undoing his belt. "I gotta teach you how to be faithful. I gotta show you what you got with me. You're lucky, and so is your whore mother," he spits.

He climbs on top of me, wrenching my sweatpants down and my t-shirt up. I just lay there, staring at the white ceiling, transporting myself mentally anywhere but here.

I deserve this. I do. For all the Alexa's I have harmed, for everything I have done and will do.

Just before the old ritual begins, the door busts open. Startled, Asshole jumps off of, sputtering a nonsensical stream of words.

Viktor stands there, his face steely and fists clenched.

A tidal wave of feeling comes at me. I am mortified.

I scramble up, pulling at my clothes to cover myself. "D-don't look," I beg in a terribly weak voice.

Viktor's face, the calmness, breaks at these two words. I have never seen a rage like his in all my life.

The rest is fury and fists, blood and screams.

I stand there, dazed through it all.

And then, leaving the carnage behind, we disappear like ghosts in the night.