Every time is the last time. That's how it goes. One last job and I'm done. That's what I tell myself, that's what I tell him. I've done my time, I've repaid my debt, given back what I got and more. It's time for me to move on, it's time for me to let go.

It's never the last job and I think he knows that. But it's a game we play as I leave the house I paid for with blood, and sweat, and tears. I make promises he knows I'm not going to keep and he pretends to believe them.

We spend the night before I leave reminiscing about the apartment we lived in before our fortunes turned. Before I made our fortunes turn. It was a dump, objectively, but we were so desperate to keep it we were willing to do anything. I did do anything. That apartment has long since become a memory, but sometimes he wonders out loud whether we should have stayed. We couldn't have stayed, and he knows it. We were going to be evicted before I got the job, and after, well it wasn't safe anymore.

I'm looking my best when I leave for my flight. It's my job to look my best. He kisses me goodbye in front of photographers. They shout about a better angle for our goodbye. We ignore them. It's all make believe but we're not. He's not.

The flight is long, and the anticipation might prevent sleep in someone else. But it bothers me less than it should. It bothers me less than he would like, I think. I sleep soundly.

Arrival is more photographers, more questions, more answers. I never give the right answers. They never ask the right questions. I always wonder if anyone will ever ask the right one, and what I would do if they did. I think I might answer them just to end it all. I think he'd like that.

I have to work before I work. Two jobs, both equally important, both equally terrifying in their own ways. So separate, so connected. I wouldn't have one without the other. I'm not sure I'd want to, although I'd never tell him that.

Taking the stage is like a battle. Standing under a spotlight in front of a crowd that could turn at any moment. The audience is more dangerous, more unpredictable than anything else I've faced. Then anything I could face.

It's not real, but it feels real. I'm not the girl I am on the stage, but I'm not the girl I am after either. It's all a game and I'm the best.

The lights go down, the crowd disperses happy, an SUV leaves under the guise that it's carrying me although I'm nowhere to be seen. It's surprisingly easy to disappear when everyone's looking for someone I could really never be. I have the face of one of the most recognisable women in the world and I am invisible.

All cities look the same at night. They look like life, and they hide death. It's only the sounds of Spanish rather than English that reminds me I'm not at home. At home where he is, alone in that big house, missing our old apartment, waiting for me to come home, wondering if this will be the time I don't.

Security are not looking for me, they only see themselves as a threat. I am not them. The cameras are out and they're scrambling for an explanation that doesn't involve death. They don't want to see me so I slip past easily.

She looks peaceful in her sleep, but they all do. They all look peaceful until their body registers pain and then there's no peace. No peace until they're at peace. Another person dead in my arms, another pay check earned.

It's the last one I remind myself as the familiar exhilaration hits. It's euphoric. The power, the run, the case, the escape. It's better than anything he could offer me, although I'll never tell him that.

I didn't spill any but I still wash the blood from my hands. It takes a while to get clean. I'll never be clean, not really. But I still shower before I call him, every time, as though it will protect him from being tainted.

At home I curl into his arms and promise him it's the last time. He pretends to believe me and I let him.