Ebun was still for a moment.

She remained on the same spot, balling her fingers into tight fists. Although it was difficult for her to move since the person was pulling her backward, Ebun managed to roll her eyes nonetheless and looked down at the object pressed against her jugular.

It was a knife.

Ebun laughed. And it was not because of the kind of weapon her attacker had chosen to use.

"If you move an inch..." the person threatened. "I'll slit your throat off immediately!"

"Oh, come on," Ebun yanked her arm off the person's grip. Then in a swift, half of a three hundred and sixty-degree move, Ebun rolled away, freeing her neck from the pressure of the knife, and turned towards her attacker.

In a fluid motion, she grabbed the hand holding the knife and twisted her wrist in a backward flex, making the lined part of her palm come outward. The knife fell to the ground with a clang.

"Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!" the lady groaned as Ebun relentlessly twisted her arm, keeping her grip firm and excruciatingly painful on the lady by each second.

"Are you kidding me, young lady?" Ebun let out a sigh and shook her head. "You tell me not to move an inch. Yet all along, you were the one who couldn't even keep your grip steady and firm. Both on the knife and me. Is that how you were taught to fight your enemies? Who are you? Where did you come from?"

As Ebun asked the last two questions, she realized how curious she was and how important it was for her to get answers to those questions. This petite lady in a coiffed wig with dark circles beneath her eyes, who was fidgeting beneath her hold, was someone she'd never seen before.

Who, really, was she?

Certainly, she was not one of the students who smuggled weapons on the first day of the excursion, neither was she among the girls who chattered endlessly beneath the sycamore tree. Sean seemed aghast, too because Ebun could hardly feel his presence in the forest. He hadn't made a single move to protect her.

"Who are you?" Ebun narrowed her eyes as she asked in an icy tone, emphasizing the who. Then she moved closer to the lady while still twisting her arm.

Deep down, Ebun was scared. She feared that her unknowing and inaccessibility of the lady's identity would give the lady an edge over her. When fighting a war, there was always power wedged in the ignorance of one's opponent. But she couldn't let her fear show. Otherwise, it would be her doom. Sean hadn't trained her for this little while to have her chicken out in the presence of her foe.

The lady's eyes were the glassiest at that moment as she tried to stare right back at Ebun. All of a sudden, tears fell down her eyes.

Ebun slackened at the sight of the lady crying. Her tears weren't a cry for help. Neither were they a signal of surrender. They were tears of grief. It seemed like the lady had lost someone, and she was out to avenge the death of her beloved one.

Ebun wondered who it was. Was it someone she'd killed in the past? For a swift second, her heart raced when a wild thought ran through her mind that she had, by chance, murdered an innocent person. Then she remembered that she'd only killed two people so far: The postgraduate man and Mr. Kojo. And those two were definitely not righteous.

Although Ebun felt a slight pity in her heart for this young lady, she began to think that this woman was perhaps mistaken about the identity of her beloved one's murderer.

But the woman wasn't.

"It's you guys!" the woman yelled. Splatters of the woman's saliva landed on Ebun's chin. "It's you guys that murdered my boyfriend, Kojo! Why did you guys kill him? Huh?! HOW DARE YOU?!" her eyes glittered with resentment and rage.

The shock that came from learning that it was for Mr. Kojo's sake that this strange woman had put on a show wrapped around Ebun like a cloak. The surprise was so overwhelming that she didn't know when she let go of the lady's wrist.

Mr. Kojo had a girlfriend. And it was this woman with dark circles beneath her eyes. How could someone willingly choose to be with a beast like Mr. Kojo? How did she not know that he was taking advantage of and raping young girls? Was Mr. Kojo's 'kindness' that bewitching and blinding, or the lady had just chosen to be blind to the signs?

Ebun also wondered how the news of Mr. Kojo's death got to the lady. She was very sure that this woman wasn't the person who'd witnessed the murder. Otherwise, it wouldn't have taken her this long to show up.

"Your boyfriend was a fucking rapist," Ebun scoffed in doubt, not believing that she had to tell this woman something that she was supposed to know about her lover.

"Only God knows for how long he's been buying sweets and candies for young girls in exchange for raping them. But of course, your doom is inevitable no matter how long you try to run or hide from it. Your boyfriend raped a four-year-old daughter of a lecturer a couple of days ago, and that was the act that took him to his grave. With us being the agents."

Ebun smirked and turned in Sean's direction to get his support to her inclusion of him in the 'us.' But she was confused when she saw Sean standing afar off in the bush, seemingly very busy.

What is he busy with at a time like this? Ebun wondered in disappointment.

Just trust Sean. Her subconscious answered confidently.

For the first time, Ebun agreed with her subconscious and focused on the woman. She still had to deal with this troublesome lady.

"That's a lie!" The woman said bravely. She'd picked up the knife while Ebun lost her guard, and she was now holding the handle and pointing its blade towards Ebun's face. "My boyfriend is the sweetest guy! He would never hurt a fly. He would never do something as despicable as that!"

Ebun cracked her knuckles, moved her neck this way and that. The movement produced snapping sounds. Then she let out a frustrated sigh. Ebun could not bear to hear this lady defend a bastard like Mr. Kojo.

"Gosh. I was going easy on you because you are a lady. Just like I am. But you see, asides rapists, another category of people I hate are people who defend them. We've been wasting time.

Pointing your knife at me won't yield any results because I can easily bring out my revolver and shoot you. You don't even seem to know how to use a knife well. So let's have a fair fight of fists instead. You punch me. I punch you. How about that?" Ebun smiled.

The woman accepted Ebun's offer. She dropped the knife, lunged towards Ebun and pushed her to the ground, the grasses prickling her back. Then the lady began to throw punch after punch across Ebun's face, swaying it this way and that as swollen red bruises appeared instantly around her cheeks.

Ebun let the lady have her moment, receiving each punch she threw with calculated patience, but she was equally surprised that the woman could even fight with her fists.

Then when the woman began to feel like she'd won, she reached for the knife she'd dropped to the ground to stab Ebun to wrap the whole fight up; Ebun jerked her leg and propelled her knee forward, kicking the woman in the region between her thighs.

The lady who was once atop Ebun now fell to the ground with a groan.

Hmm. So the vagina is also a woman's weak point. Noted. Ebun smirked.

Quickly, Ebun picked herself up and descended on the lady. Ebun spread her legs apart and pressed her knees against the lady's wrists, leaving her completely defenseless. Ebun began to fire punches with disastrous rage. Again, like that afternoon where she first met Sean at the boxing ring, she imagined this lady to be one of her molesters. It took no effort to visualize the woman in that way since she had a relationship with one.

The anger that came from the imagination was fresh and unfamiliar, and it overtook Ebun's senses, propelling her to throw even deadlier punches. The left side of the woman's eye had taken a severe shade of red, and there were deep cuts on her eyebrows, blood dripping out of them. As Ebun continued hitting the lady, a tooth flew out and blood started to pour out of her mouth.

"I said we should have a fair fistfight, but you tried to use your knife on me. That's not fair, is it?" Ebun raised a brow, examining her victim's face, which was now brutally decorated with red fluids and deep bruises.

All Ebun could see while she punched the woman was red but now that the unfamiliar rage had dissipated, her vision was clear now, and her fists were starting to hurt from overly exerting them. Ebun brought out her revolver and loaded the barrel with a few more bullets. Then she pointed the gun directly in the lady's face.

"But I can make it fair," Ebun continued.

While she instilled great fear in the lady and made the woman believe she would shoot her, Sean meddled for the first time since their attacker had shown up in the forest.

Ebun was shocked when Sean pulled out the revolver from her hand and dragged her away from the lady. Before she realized what he'd done, it was too late for her to fight back and question his actions. So she simply watched him.

Sean pulled out the syringe that he'd loaded with a lethal substance. He used his index finger and thumb to smack the syringe, producing a thwack sound before he stooped low and inserted the needle into the lady's arm. He injected her before she could even try to get up and fight back.

In a few seconds, the liquid from the syringe took a full effect on her body. The substance had stopped her heart. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head, and she stopped moving ultimately, her dead body laying on the grasses.

Ebun was stunned to see that the woman was no longer alive. It felt like she'd been pulled into a ridiculous nightmare.

"W...why did you kill her?"

"Are you kidding me? You were going to kill her with the rate at which you were punching her anyway, so why does my method seem like a huge shock to you?"

Ebun tried to come back to her senses. She was marveled by her hypocrisy and sudden display of emotions. How could she be surprised by the lady's death? The lady was bound to die anyway. There was no way someone like her, who could implicate them, would be spared.

Still, Ebun could not deny the pity she now began to feel for the lady as she stared at her corpse. Ebun had been furious with her minutes ago and had dangerously punched her in brutal ways. She was enraged because she felt the lady had been lying all along as she defended a rapist.

But maybe the lady honestly didn't know the kind of person her lover was. She probably never saw the signs. Her defense of him was, perhaps, genuine. Ebun felt bad this lady had to die because of a scumbag like Mr. Kojo. Her fate was saddening to watch.

"Let's get out of here before the tasks are over and Mr. Joel comes looking for us. We need to dump this body!"

***

Ebun was amused as she watched Sean row the boat across the river to the shore. She was even more baffled to see that the river had led to the same bawdy house where they'd spent a couple of nights together before coming back to the Omsk camp. Sean knew his way around the whole of Russia.

Carrying the bluish, bleeding, cold and swollen body of Miss Zinaida (whose name Ebun had gotten to know via the ID card that was found in the lady's jean pocket) across to the boat was beyond a Herculean's task. Ebun wondered why dead bodies had to be so weighty.

The bawdy house was situated on the outskirts of a remote village that mainly consisted of milk houses, barns, and factories. People could barely be seen along the road as Ebun and Sean walked past, carrying the trunk that contained Miss Zinaida's body.

Inside the house, a lampstand in which a fire burned ferociously stood by the doorpost and illuminated the brick walls. Ebun could perceive a very familiar chemical smell. One that could be likened to the vat of acid that had been used to dissolve the body of the postgraduate.

When she looked further, she saw a container that took the form of a bathtub in the corner of the house. Inside the container was a puddle of a dark-green substance that often produced bubbles. They were going to dip Miss. Zinaida's body in a vat of acid.

Sean walked towards the vat. He placed the trunk on the ground and opened it. Then he brought out Miss. Zenaida's corpse and dropped it carefully to the floor.

"Undress her," Sean instructed Ebun.

"W-what?" Ebun replied, flustered.

The idea of undressing Miss Zinaida in Sean's presence suddenly became unsettling to Ebun, and she didn't understand why. She hadn't felt this way when they were dissolving the postgraduate's body. But Miss. Zinaida was a female, and Ebun felt the need to protect Miss. Zinaida's dignity even in her death.

"Undress her! Why are you looking at me as though I'm speaking a language that you don't understand?"

"Clothes can disappear in acid. It's unnecessary to undress her."

"I know that. Still, we've been undressing the other bodies before dissolving them."

"I've always found it to be irrelevant but never complained because I find joy in watching the clothes of rapists burn."

"So don't you want to—"

"No. She's different. She's not a rapist. So let's just throw her into the vat," Ebun said in a cold tone that surprised her.

Sean looked utterly disappointed. He shook his head. Sean's first impulse was to hurl an insult at Ebun for being such a fool, but he didn't want any unnecessary friction occurring between them. So he took a deep breath and explained:

"How is she any different? She came with a knife and was going to kill you! How can you feel pity for your enemy? Do you even know the forces that are backing her up? Her death would be a message to her league of Mr. Kojo's supporters that you and I should not be toyed with. I would have even suggested that we send the clothes as a message to her people, but that would be too risky."

Again, Ebun realized that she was being unreasonably emotional. And she didn't understand why. An hour ago, she was being a badass. Now, she was harboring baseless pitiful feelings. For a brief moment, Ebun second-guessed her ability to be a ruthless and emotionless murderer like Sean. She didn't like how she felt in her gut, as though something wasn't right.

"Why are you still staring? Do it!" he commanded.

Then he realized that Ebun was probably not obeying him because of a reason that now came to his mind. So he said:

"Alright, I won't look."

He turned his back.

"Oh no. That's not it. I—"

The rest of Ebun's words got suspended when a ringtone rang out loudly. It was Sean's phone.

"It's Mrs. Yekaterina calling," he said to Ebun without turning to face her. Then he put the call on loudspeaker.

"Hello, ma'am?"

"Sean! Ebun!"  Mrs. Yekaterina yelled frantically.

At the sound of her panicked voice, Ebun's heart picked up a fast pace.

"What is it, ma'am?"

"Tyere eez trouble! Serious trouble!" She chanted. "Vyere are you right now?"

"I'm at the bawdy house, which is a boat's ride away from the Omsk camp. Ebun and I came to get rid of the corpse of a woman who tried to attack us. She was Mr. Kojo's girlfriend."

"Mr. Kojo's geerlfriend, you say? Now zat explains eet!"

"Explains what?" Sean's hands balled into a fist. Ebun could barely keep up with the suspense as she listened. She wanted to strangle the words out of Mrs. Yekaterina's throat.

"E young women reported you guys to ze poleece. She said she witnessed ze murder of Mr. Kojo and vas disheartened to see her fryend's boyfriend being keeled in cold blood."

"Shit." Ebun and Sean whispered almost at the same time.

Miss. Zinaida was a friend to the witness, which explained how she got to know about her lover's demise. The witness had taken her time to do some confirmation and investigation before planning Sean and Ebun's crushing defeat. There was trouble indeed.

The following words that Mrs. Yekaterina said were the straw that broke the camel's back for Ebun. She then finally understood why she'd been feeling strangely sentimental all along. It became clear to her why she'd doubted her ability to be an emotionless killer; why she hadn't felt so great to see Miss. Zinaida die. All of those gut feelings had been because of her  waterloo that was fast approaching.

"Zat explains vhy ze poleece are efter you guys right now! Zey are ahlready on tyeir vay to Omsk to ahrrest you guys!"