I sat in the rafters staring down at the large gathering. The crystal ware softly clinking together and the constant talk a low thrum. My slit green eyes constantly moving till they fell upon my target. He's an old man with silvery white hair and a handlebar mustache of the same color. His glasses sliding down his large Nordic nose. His face heavily creased with wrinkles and the eyes seeming to have dulled with age. I looked at my ratty leather watch, 9:48pm. I can still make it if I hurry.

I quickly slid down, silent as a spider. Once I was on the ground I dashed into the kitchen door and asked for a tray of wine since I was disguised as one of the servers. Once they handed me the tray filled with five crystalline glasses of the crimson liquid, I hurried back out and headed straight for Mr. Lyman's table. As I approached I saw him chug the last of his wine. I walked right up to his table. "More wine sir?" I inquired with a broad smile.

"Why yes m'boy, I would love more wine," he smiled back at me. I nodded and took one of the glasses off with my right hand, after secretly unscrewing the small vial of venom under my sleeve, letting it drip in. I gently set it in front of him and turned away. Walking back towards the kitchen, I handed the remaining glasses to other attendees, while making sure the contents of the vial had not spilled into other ones. Once in the kitchen I set the tray down and strolled over to the door, hearing a clamor in the other room and having others rush by me. I could only assume the venom had worked its way into his system, and would in a matter of moments cease his heart.

As I walked out the back door, I threw off my server costume and tossed it in the disposal bin. Then I slid my leg over my motorcycle I had parked in this alley and revved my engine. I pulled the vial out from under my sleeve and looked to see droplets still remaining. I threw it at the wall, shattering it into a million pieces, and let out a groan. Though this job pays well, I wish there was another way.

I zoomed past buildings and cars, not paying heed to traffic laws as the wind buffeted me. As I left the glittering lights of the upper classes I came into the slums. The graphitized walls, the broken windows, and the rugged streets that made travel slow even for a motorcycle. I kept driving until I came to the meeting point, which was an abandoned parking building that was three floors tall. I went in and drove to the second floor, where I was greeted by bright headlights.

"Vic, that you?" came a husky voice from behind the lights.

"Antoine, do we really need the lights so bright?" I growled out, which was then quickly followed by the lights going off, with the only light coming from my motorcycle.

"Did you get it done?" Antoine asked, his hands clenched together and his muscles tense.

"It'll be on the news by the morning," I stated hopping off my ride.

"Good, good," he sighed out, his nerves making me anxious.

"Antoine..." I stopped myself, making him look up at me. "What's wrong?"

"Ludovico, I'm sorry, they didn't leave me a choice" he started mumbling under his.

"What did you do?" I snarled at him, and when he wouldn't respond I threw a punch at his face, making him stumble back and look up with shock and tears. "Padre, what did you do?!" I yelled again, my anger showing as I threw another punch with a loud crack, making him fall on his back.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." he kept on pleading as he placed his hands over his face. I stood over him, my chest heaving from exertion by holding back. My rage was encasing me in its webs again.

"What did you do Antoine?" I growled out as I bent and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt.

"Your daughter," was all he could rasp out before I nailed him right in the nose, making blood spurt onto my clothes. I dropped him and hopped onto my ride, kicking up the stand. I quickly turned around and sped as fast as I could to my beloved child.

"Lord hear my prayer, deliver my child from the evil I bare, for she is innocent of my filthy hands," I said under my breath as I raced against time. If only I hadn't been so stupid, now I can't help but think back to the start...

The hospital lights were bright, reflecting off the linoleum. I watched in horrid silence behind the glass, the tears streaming down my face as I saw my baby girl on the hospital bed, an IV drip on her left wrist and a machine helping her breath. I could barely breathe myself. When I looked down at the paper in my hands, at the potential hospital bill, it was beyond anything I could afford. I turned to the doctor.

"Doc. Is there anyway besides this kind of surgery to save her? Anything? Please?" I pleaded with him.

"I'm sorry sir, but the only way we can save her is with that procedure, and even then it isn't guaranteed she will survive it. There is so much damage to her lungs from the wreck, she's on a very tight time table as it is. I'm sorry," he sighed and walked away. I stared at the paper, then my little angel. I pulled out my phone and searched through the contact list. When I found who I was looking for I hit the call button.

"Hello," came a gruff voice. "Who is this?"

"It's Arreola. How much is it worth?" I quickly said into it.

"We'll be rolling in the dough for months. Why the sudden interest when you turned us down?"

"It's my girl. It's bad."

"You do know you won't be able to see her for a while if we do this?"

"Yeah," I sigh out, looking at my daughter through the window. She needs this surgery. "I'm in."

"Meet up at the old hangout," he said, followed by click and static.

The street lights were flashing by as I rushed to my parents' house, hoping they hadn't gotten home yet. I quickly turned and pulled up in front of the apartment building. A ten story broken down housing site, it was all we could afford after the surgery.

I hopped off my bike and ran straight through the doors, too impatient to even bother with the elevator. I raced up the stair until I reached the fourth floor. I dashed through the corridor, glancing at the numbers as I went by. 126, 128, 130... When I reached 132, I saw that the door had been forced open. I deftly slid my blade out of its hidden sheath under my shirt, and switched to an underhand stance, so that if I swung a punch if would nail the target as my arm went past. I walked in the door to see the dim lights of my parents' eyes on the floor, laying in a pool of their own blood. You couldn't tell where my mother's ended and my father's began.

As I walked in, movement in the kitchen caught my eye. I moved with the stealth my training had given me, as if like a spider racing across the floor. I then slid the kitchen door open to see my baby girl sitting on a stool, surrounded by goons and a man from my past behind her with a gun at the base of her neck.

"Let her go," I snarled, "she has nothing to do with this."

"Oh, but on the contrary, she has everything to do with this." The man smirked, his lips gnarled by an explosion's shrapnel. His one good ocean blue eye trained on me. His entire left side looked as if it had been stapled together, never tended to by a professional doctor.

"Please," I stated, lowering my arm with the knife.

"Beg me, just like I begged you all that time ago. Beg me to let your 'angel' go." He laughed out, shivers running up and down my spine. I turned to face sideways at him and pointed my knife's tip in his direction.

"I will not ask again. Let my girl go!" I yelled at him, ready to lash out, which just made him laugh more boisterously.

"I'm sorry, but you are in no..." He paused and grabbed hold of my daughter's left arm with his off-hand. "No condition to make demands." As he finished, he swiftly jerked her arm behind her back, resounding in a loud crack, followed by my darling's shrill squeal of pain. Her eyes flooded with tears.

"What do you want?" I ask while maintaining eye contact with him, noticing the goons moving in my direction out of the corners of my eyes.

"You screwed me over, and I think it's time we fixed that!" He snarled. That's when a goon launched himself at me like a rabid dog, but being the man I am, I swiftly dodged and cut his arm with my blade.

"You missed," the goon said, but started to stagger. He went to strike at me again, but I simply side stepped and he ran into the wall. The man with the scarred face seemed to be steaming with anger.

"I see you've applied your trademark to that blade..." he glowered.

"Good guess," I say followed by throwing the blade with expert precision, nailing him in the shoulder on the right. I then faced the other four goons in hand to hand combat. I slammed One's face on the counter, Number Two I kicked through the window, hearing his screams of terror ring through the night. The others I simply beat till my fists were bloody and they had stopped squirming. After I had finished them I rushed to my daughter and put her on my back. I looked back at the man, his gaze hazy and his breathing haggard. "Never mess with the Longlegs' daughter, or you get his venom," I snarl at him, then quickly rush out the door before the police arrive.