Chapter Text
“When you say you work for one of the richest companies in the world, it sounds really cool… which is why I never add on the fact that I work at Jaymart.”
When Suzy wrote that line, she didn’t exactly think it was the best way to open a school presentation, but it got a couple of laughs out of her classmates at least.
“However, working in retail teaches you a lot of things about life. First off, people are dumb, and I mean really dumb. You meet parents who probably should've stopped at ‘hello’, people who have no respect for the poor employee who has to organize their mess, people who act like you’re the customer, etcetera etcetera.”
The next slide showed the images of said types of people that she totally didn’t take from the security cameras crossed out in hand-drawn X’s, something Suzy was very satisfied with drawing.
“Second, nobody cares about how miserable your life could possibly be like. Not any of your co-workers, not any of the customers, and especially not your higher-ups. Which brings me to my next point.”
That’s when she showed off the childish drawing of demon horns on the uniform of a stick figure that she made as a form of stress relief.
“Your boss is evil . Hoarding all the money to themself while you’re just surviving off of minimum wage. In fact, they’re probably the reason why we live in such a grungy city with a new assassination every week.”
At the end of the presentation, Suzy tossed the remote out of the conveniently open classroom door, giving a stern look to her audience.
“What is the conclusion you should be taking away from this essay? That we live the most miserable lives out of anyone in the world and nobody wants to do anything about it!” She then tore her speaking notes in half screaming bloody murder in front of the entire class. Once she had gotten that out of her system, she looked toward a bunch of blank faces. Something told Suzy there should have been a bigger reaction, but she was at least happy to get her point across.
“Any questions?”
None were given, with her teacher nonchalantly telling her to take a seat, pulling out a piece of paper and mumbling, “Unprofessional language…”
Suzy walked back to her desk in defeat, mumbling, “Stupid teacher and stupid classmates not understanding my vision for a better society…”
The walk home from school was as boring as ever. Before she left the school, however, she saw a notification for an email on her phone.
YOU WON!
Dear Suzy Durand,
Congratulations! You have just been selected to beta test the upcoming-
“Go fuck yourself.” Suzy said as she instantly deleted the email. Probably just some spam anyway.
Only one other student was even on the same route as Suzy, that being a boy whose name she never bothered to remember. Theo? Thatcher? Something like that.
“Hey, Suzy. I heard about your presentation. It’s sure uh… making the rounds at school.”
“Good, that was the point.” She said without even looking at him.
The boy scratched the back of his neck. “Eh, it’s not in the way you probably wanted…”
“You know what they say about bad publicity.” Suzy shrugged. “How do you even know my name anyway?”
“Mr. Durand knows just about everyone. It’s kinda hard not to know you!”
Suzy just rolled her eyes. “Great! More societal expectations I gotta live up to! …What am I talking about? He’s a handyman, of course he knows everybody.”
“Yeah…” The boy was quiet for a few minutes before the two were about to split.” What exactly are you doing tonight anyway?”
Suzy blew a stray hair strand away from her eyes. “I’m probably just gonna blow off some steam hanging out alone in some random alleyway, because that’s where everyone goes to feel safe and totally not at risk of getting your head blown off.”
“Right…” The boy then raised an eyebrow at her, “Are you okay? Like, emotionally?”
“Oh, would you look at that?” Suzy interrupted, pointing at a driveway. “We made it to your house. So goodbye.”
“This isn’t where I live.”
“I don’t care.” When she ditched, running faster than normal, Suzy mumbled, “Hormones…”
All Suzy could hear on the final block home was that guy yelling, “Okay well you have fun with whatever you’re doing!”
Never before had a girl Suzy’s age eaten dinner as fast as she did. One batch of microwaved leftovers later, and she was ready to go to the middle of nowhere and vent about the lack of agency she had at her age.
…Speaking of which, the reason for that lack of agency just so happened to be right at the table next to the door.
Oh yeah, it was poker night. The day dad’s friends would do anything but let her sleep.
“Where are you heading off to, young lady?” He asked without missing a beat.
“Going to put something illegal in my mouth. I’ll see you after you go to bed.”
“Suzy?” She hadn’t moved yet. She could tell her dad was still looking at her. Multiple voices even greeted her all at once.
“Okay, okay. You caught me. I was going to…” Suzy thought of something on the spot upon noticing dad’s work friends. “Check out the construction site.”
Mr. Durand leaned forward in his seat, still holding his cards. “Why?”
Suzy flinched. “Because I… had a dream… that I was at the construction site. Doing…” Suzy shook her head. “Look, I don’t remember what I was doing, but maybe I’ll find out when I get there.”
She heard her father gasp. She knew that gasp. The king of gasp someone could only make if they had horrifically misunderstood a simple lie made to get out of an embarrassing situation.
“You had the construction site dream?”
“Oh no…”
Her father genuinely wiped a tear at the thought. “Your mother would be so proud of you had she not gotten a hit sent on her all those years ago…”
The worst part was that all of her dad’s friends were applauding her for it. The dumbest lie in the world and she was getting praised for it.
With no idea how to handle all the attention, Suzy walked out as quickly as she could. “Uh… thank you all I guess!”
She shut the door just as quickly, breathing heavily as she tried to forget about it.
When she finally got to her favorite spot to be alone, Suzy reclined against the wall of the alley like a chair. “Aah, this is the life! No awful dad to coddle me and pretend he actually loves me, no random students walking and asking why I’m so grumpy all the time, just me, my thoughts, and the potential of walking right into a major scandal! Doesn’t get any better than this…” Suzy looked around the area. It was oddly quieter than she was expecting. Shouldn’t there have been more sleazy people around here that wanted to take her money or hand her a baby to deal with?
It was clear that nobody came to clean these streets, especially since Suzy was digging her foot into a blood stain and a faded police outline that had likely been there for years. The cold breeze whooshed past her hat, and it was like all of her troubles blew away with it…
But looking in the direction of the wind, Suzy could hear footsteps approaching her. Pressing her back toward the wall, Suzy could only hope her clothes were dark enough to blend in with the night. The footsteps got closer, and she could now vaguely make out a head turning to notice her.
She saw the mysterious person holding something vaguely gun-shaped, and Suzy came out to take a fighting stance.
“I’m gonna warn you! I know karate and I’m not afraid to use it!… Okay, I watched Naruto once but that still counts!”
Without a word, the attacker pointed their weapon and shot it. Suzy put her arms up. She could hear a light shooting noise, but nothing actually hit her. Was it a blank? Whatever it was, she had to be on her guard. Luckily, there was a rusty old pipe next to her. She hoped no one here was using that water anyway. Breaking it off, she charged toward the stranger and immediately started wailing on him. Swing after swing, she screamed for dear life without letting up for a second.
“Alright alright alright! You can go! I give! White flag!” A young man’s voice squealed.
As Suzy stopped her onslaught, she heard him say, “By the way, I’ve never watched Naruto, but I don’t think that’s karate.”
So she gave him one more bop on the head with the pipe.
“Yeah, I deserve that.”
It was then when Suzy finally got a look at the person who attacked her. It wasn’t some stoic, cold-hearted man in a fancy suit like all the villains she saw on TV. No, this was just some tall blond teenager about her age with the most innocent-looking hazel eyes she’d ever seen.
He tilted his head in confusion when he got a good look at Suzy. “How come you’re not asleep?” Before Suzy could answer, the boy scrambled around in his pockets. “…Crap! Did I forget to reload the tranquilizer gun again?! Agh, I hate it when that happens…”
“What… were you trying to do exactly?”
The blond got up as if he hadn’t just been brutally assaulted by her. “Sorry about that. Nate Scrap; Professional Assassin at your service!” Nate took a bow, only to realize his hat flew off his head when he did so, and he crouched down to pick it back up, after which he held his hand out for a handshake.
“…Suzy.” She awkwardly took it. After which, Suzy turned away, only slightly glancing back at Nate to make sure he didn’t pull a fast one on her. “Yeah, I’m… gonna head home now and try to forget this ever happened.” Still a bit disoriented from the fight, she spotted an abandoned parking lot on the other side of the alley, with a single broken down car parked behind a cut fence. “There was a parking lot here? Where was it for?”
“I dunno.” Nate chuckled. “Great place to chill out though. Come on, I’ll show you! I can’t just leave you without offering my hospitality!”
At first, Suzy second guessed herself, figuring he was faking innocence in order to kill her. But on the third guess, she realized he was probably too stupid to even consider that. “Eh, screw it. Why not?”
“Nice! You’re gonna love it here, I promise!” On his way to the car, Nate accidentally tripped over a trash can, then had to wrestle with a raccoon in order to get his hat back.
“Yup… definitely too stupid to be a trap.”
“Welcome to my humble abode!” Nate greeted Suzy as he sat in the back of the car. “Mi casa es su casa! What’s mine is yours and…” He looked at the cupholder to see an apple juice box. After shaking it around, he took a sip from it. “Huh, there’s still some left in here. What do ya know?”
Trying to figure out what exactly to do in this situation, Suzy remembered that if Nate truly was an assassin (though she wouldn’t be surprised if he just wanted to imitate them), then chances were, he had connections. Any information Suzy got from this boy would probably be valuable, so she asked, “Did you come here alone, or…?”
“Nah, I got two others with me who were out doing other stuff while I was here dealing with you. They’re great people!
“Huh, good to know.” Suzy nodded, jotting it all down on her phone. “What are they like?”
“Well first there’s Valerie. She’s the sweetest girl with a knife you’ll ever meet.” Nate started blushing as he continued. “I even tried asking her out right after a mission one time, but that’s beside the point.
“Uhuh…” Suzy noted. “So who’s the other one?”
“Oh, that would be our leader, Jessica! She often tells me I’m lucky there’s a policy against killing a fellow assassin. She’s so nice to me!” He smiled so genuinely, like he didn’t know the obvious truth.
“Got it.” Suzy also took note of the dashboard, examining its complete exposition, both literally and figuratively. “Hey, tell you what. If we can patch this rustbucket up, maybe tinker with it a little, we can get out of this garbage dump of a city and go wherever we want! We can be whoever we want!”
Nate laughed at the thought. “Why would I ever wanna do that? I like being an assassin!”
“I dunno, why did you want to become an assassin in the first place?”
Nate pondered the thought for a moment. “Well, other than the cash reward bigger than any job I could actually get with my current skillset, it’s just how I was raised.” He reclined in his seat, legs uncomfortably going toward the front seats to avoid kicking Suzy. “I was born into this life. I haven’t really known anything else.”
That was when a light bulb went off in Suzy’s head. “Maybe I could show you. Have you ever wanted to know what it’s like to live a normal life? See how normal people live? Away from all the smoke, fighting, and drama?”
There was a beat, and Suzy saw Nate’s eyes light up. Was she getting through to him? Was someone finally listening to her for once?
“But that would be against the rules!”
Maybe not.
Nate heard his phone buzzing, asking Suzy to hold for a moment. “Oh, it’s Jessica! I was wondering when she would remember my existence again! Hey, Jess!… Um, yeah. It was definitely a struggle, but I… I’m in the parking lot like I always do after missions, you know that. It’s dark, secluded, and nobody goes there… Oh… okay, yeah I’ll do that. Hey, Suzy, can you move over so I can uh…”
But during his call, Suzy had already escaped.
Why did she stick around for so long? Why did she legitimately think she could convince a trained assassin to join her? …Okay, maybe ‘trained’ was an overstatement, but he was still clearly dangerous!
Once she made it out of the alley, however, she heard someone giggle, and she flinched in her tracks.
“Aww, what’s wrong, sweetie? Afraid you’re going to lose an intestine or two? Man, what took him so long?”
That sweet-sounding voice wanting to tear her organs out? That was probably that Valerie girl Nate was talking about earlier.
“I think Mr. Crybaby With A Gun got so focused on making friends, he forgot he was talking to the target.”
Which meant that much more intentionally-menacing sounding voice was Jessica. She then heard the sound of someone slapping somebody in the face, with Jessica saying, “Hey, Stormtrooper Aim, up and at ‘em.”
“Right, the target…” Nate had sighed. “You know what? I think I mixed up my wallet and ammo again! Silly Ol’ me, lemme go grab it!”
“I got a spare.” Was the last thing she heard Jessica before her voice faded too far. “I figured you would forget something again…”
Suzy felt something barely graze the back of her neck right before she got to the door, but she didn’t have time to dwell on that when there were people out to kill her.
At least poker night was going well for her dad.
Suzy managed to lock herself in her room. Trying anything to get the horrific experience out of her head. She had been feeling incredibly tired after all the hyperventilating. Maybe it was the adrenaline wearing off after how fast she ran. Whatever it was, Suzy decided the best course of action was to sleep it off, clutching the broken pipe in her hands like a lifeline and desperately hoping a nightmare wouldn’t bite her in the back that night…
Suzy woke up to the sounds of screaming coming from downstairs. She almost would have screamed for her father, but covered her mouth before she could do so. She held the pipe tighter than ever before, slowly inching her way out of her room, and once she got to the stairway…
Another possibility was that she would’ve alerted those assassins by vomiting had she gotten there sooner, as two blonde girls in suits were just in the process of disposing the bodies.
“He got away… But congratulations, Nate. You finally did something useful for once!”
So those were the girls belonging to the voices she heard earlier. The one with the pigtails and skirt being Jessica, and the other girl next to her with short hair and a headband was Valerie.
“Leading the target’s daughter right to everyone. Why didn’t I think of that?” Valerie sarcastically grinned as she left the house.
“Well, you know me!” Nate gave a whistle, putting his arms behind his neck. “Always coming up with new strategies!”
“Damn it! I lead them right to my house!” Suzy yelled internally. “I got everyone killed!”
Jessica proceeded to pat Nate on the back. “Seriously though, nice going. We are gonna get a huge payout today!”
“Yeah… a lotta money…” Nate looked away from Jessica.
“Is something wrong?” Jessica asked. “I figured you’d be ecstatic to hear about that.”
Nate flinched, innocently twiddling his thumbs. “It’s nothing about you, I promise! It’s just that, after this mission, I was maybe sorta kinda thinking about… quitting?”
Jessica shot him a look. “Quitting?”
“Yeah! I’ve been doing a lotta thinking about my life beyond being an assassin, you know? Maybe there’s more to life than just committing senseless violence for money? I’ve been thinking about seeing the world lately. Move to a new place! Baby bird’s gotta leave the nest eventually, right?”
Nate’s fake smile, however, didn’t deter Jessica. In fact, she slugged him in the back of the head, pinning him to the ground with her foot. “You know what they say, Nate. Once an assassin, always an assassin. You never had a choice. When we finish this job… you might just be our next target.
Nate struggled to breathe, but Jessica eventually let him go. “The pigs should be here any minute now if they’re not already dealing with Valerie. I’ve been waiting to use you as a sacrifice, you know. I just needed the perfect excuse.” She cocked her gun, strutting out the door and leaving Nate on the floor. “This is goodbye, Nate. Forever.” With that, she slammed the door.
As far as Suzy knew, Nate wasn’t on their side anymore. Groaning, she threw the pipe down and tried to help Nate back up. “You really couldn’t have betrayed them any earlier?!”
“I had to take it in!” Nate responded once Suzy stood him still.
Though Suzy let go shortly after, covering her mouth. “Wait…” Suzy gasped. “Did you kill my dad?!”
“Nah, I let him get away on purpose. Those girls didn’t suspect a thing!… He was the guy with the mustache, right? Mr. Durand?”
“Yeah.” Suzy let out the biggest sigh of relief in her life as she slid down the wall. “Oh thank god…”
“Tell him I’m sorry for ruining poker night by the way. He looked like he was having fun.” Nate added on.
Suzy just rolled her eyes. “I guess I should be apologizing for getting you fired in a sense. But you did also get all of my dad’s friends killed. Lucky for you, my moral compass is a roulette wheel, and I didn’t really know them that well in the first place. They can rot in hell for all I know.”
Suzy then proceeded to pull out her phone, with Nate looking over her shoulder. “Ooh, who are you texting?”
“Just telling my dad I’m alive and that I’m staying with a friend.”
Nate’s eyes widened. “You see me as a friend?”
“Cool it, Goldilocks.” Suzy said as she put a hand to his face. “It’s a lie to get him off my trail. The guy barely cares about me anyway, so I’m sure he won’t ask any further questions.”
Luckily for them, he didn’t.
“Now you got me into this mess, so the least you can do is fix it. Do you know where those two are headed after this?”
“Well they’re probably off to find your dad and finish the job… and take care of some pigs?” Nate thought about the phrasing. “But what do swines have to do with the mission…”
Suzy facepalmed. “How you ever got as far as you did as an assassin is a mystery to everyone… but maybe you can start playing the hero for once.”
Nate spun his gun around in his hand. “I’m totally down for that.”
It wasn’t difficult to find out where the girls were, what with all the police cars surrounding them. Suzy’s dad was standing behind them, but they were already making quick work of both the unhelpful swines in question and any nearby witnesses.
Valerie had her knife right up to a passerby’s neck, just about to make some blood shed when she was suddenly hit in the back of the head by… “A Jaymart-branded separator?”
Har captive had gotten away after that, and Valerie could only look in confusion at a girl with dark hair and the tips dyed purple, wearing a black hat and hoodie, and holding a metal pipe in her hand, and right next to her, a familiar face.
“Hey! You’ve just made your last kills!”
“Hi Valerie! Hi Jessica! I’m with her now!” Nate waved to them.
“So you say?” Jessica taunted. “I just remembered. I finally get to kill you now.”
“You take Valerie. I’ve got Jessica.” Suzy told Nate.
“Wait, can I get Jessica?” Nate whispered.
“Nope.” Suzy has already tossed a metal rod like a javelin at Jessica, who had only barely been able to dodge out of the way. She charged at her with her pipe, using it to block the gunfire Jessica was putting out. Once she was close enough, she swung once at her head, and then a kick to her sides.
Nate had been a little hesitant to fight Valerie on the other hand, merely ducking away from her shots and keeping at a distance. Digging into his pocket, he pulled something out and threw it at Valerie… only for it to end up being a Valentine’s Day card.
“…I swear I can explain.” But before he could do so, he was met with a grenade he just barely got out of the blast radius of.
Jessica was able to pick up the rod Suzy had thrown. Tossing it as a distraction, she activated a flashbang to blind Suzy, giving her the perfect opportunity to knock her down.
Nate had been in the middle of his duel with Valerie when he noticed the attack against Suzy. He called out her name in fear. He knew he had to help her, so with some quick thinking, he told Valerie, “I’m not gonna like this any more than you…” and he licked her hand as a distraction. “Worth it!” He yelled before kicking her away onto the concrete.
Moments before Jessica could land a shot, Suzy managed to find a broken shard of glass, and stabbed it into her leg.
“Ah! You little-”
Suzy’s arm almost hurt from how hard she swung, knocking Jessica out. She looked out at all the carnage the fight had caused, only barely making out her dad’s silhouette coming out of the rubble.
“…Dad?”
But before he could notice her, Nate picked her back up, holding an unconscious Valerie that he tied up with a plastic seal he got from Suzy’s supplies.
“Suzy, come on. I got Valerie. Let’s get out of here.”
“Right…”
She didn’t want to look back at him after everything he’d done anyway…
Suzy didn’t know how long that fight had taken. Once she’d gotten back to the old car that Nate now called home, she had seen the sun just about to rise.
“I think we both learned something from this.” Nate coughed, still worn out from the battle. “…Just me?” He tossed Valerie in the trunk for now, slamming it shut.
Suzy started to laugh. “That was exhilarating! Now, I have a plan. If we’re going to stop these assassins, we gotta take ‘em out at the source. Hope their boss enjoys life while it lasts, because we’re about to make that organization’s life a living hell!”
She began cackling, and Nate joined in, only to ask…
“…What are we laughing at, exactly?”