She stared at Fredrick, watching the light fade from his eyes. It was something she had quickly gotten used to, the fade of life from her victims, the vacancy that came in to replace what used to be vitality. She felt the same thing she always felt whenever she watched this display: nothing.

Slowly, her eyes traveled upwards to the black sea that was slowly beginning to light blue as a cloud drifted from before the moon. The bomb had yet to go off but she was positive it would any minute now. She had to admit, Fredrick was a real smart guy. Setting a miniature bomb inside the briefcase just in case he didn't get out alive. If he didn't have it, no one did.

Clever dead guy. Her favourite.

The roar of the boat engine closed in. Her eyes shifted over to the white blob that was beginning to shape, coming up close to the dock. She watched as a man hopped out of the boat, tied the rope around a post and made his way down the dock, completely unaware of the bloodbath that had just occurred just ahead of him. She waited patiently, the darkness of the night cloaking her in invisibility, and she watched as the man stopped at the first dead body.

It was rather funny watching him realize that it was indeed a dead body. She couldn't quite see, given the darkness and all, but judging by the harsh expletive that rose up into the air and the man's frantic shuffle backwards, the realization that dawned on him was shocking to say the least.

"Surprised you, didn't it?" she called.

His head jerked upwards, whipping around to face her. "Who's there?"

Anna stepped forward, coming into a pool on moonlight so that the frightened man could see her better. "I don't think you could handle the answer," she replied honestly.

The man, still standing in the shadows, was shaking now, visible by the jerking of his silhouette. His feet were gingerly backing away, half frozen by fear. "W-what do you mean by that? What happened?"

"What do you think happened? These guys were killed."

"Oh God." Saying it out loud must have sunk the truth in. He fell to his butt, wide eyes staring at the dead body oozing blood. "Wh-who did this?"

She almost laughed. Did he really not know? Was he that slow that it hasn't dawned on him yet? Anna didn't say anything, only alerted him with a cough. When his eyes shot up to her, she smiled innocently at him, just a smile quirk of her lips. Just as she wanted, realization dawned on him like a cloud dispersing to reveal sunrays. This time, the man froze.

They stayed like that for a while. Neither moved. The predator watched the prey, eyes alight with humour and just a hint of excitement, waiting for the prey to run. And the prey didn't disappoint.

He scrambled to his feet and took off. This time Anna couldn't help the smile that graced her face. No matter how many times they do it, no matter how stupid it was, they always ran. And she always caught them.

For just a split second, Anna contemplated throwing one of her knives into the back of his shin, but she dashed the thought aside and decided to go the old fashion way. She sprinted off behind him. Her long legs ate up the distance between them, greatly advantaged by the man's trembling legs and his weird need to check behind him every two seconds. Each time he looked behind him – which totaled a good two times – his breath hitched and he sprinted even more, the adrenaline no doubt setting him on fire.

But he was no match and soon, she had him on the ground. He fought desperately but Anna was swift, pulling his arm behind him and whipping out her knife to press against his neck. That silence him immediately.

"P-please don't kill me," he begged. Sweat ran down his face, soaking into his dark brown shirt and sticking the material to his back. He was breathing hard, wheezing from the pressure she placed on his back. "Please!"

"Don't worry. I won't. That is, unless you don't have any valuable information for me."

"I-information?" He sounded confused.

"I'm sure you know what the word means. Let's see if you can answer my question, shall we? Why are you here?"

The man swallowed, a hard and complicated feat with her on top of him. "I-I got a call!"

"A call?"

"Some guy called me. I don't know who he was or what he his name was. He just t-told me the location and told me it was a pickup."

"A pickup meaning?"

"M-meaning I pick up whatever luggage they have and transfer it to wherever they want."

"So you're telling me you got a call from some unknown person, to take who knows what to who knows where no questions asked? You take me for some fool?"

She pressed the knife closer to his throat causing him to emit a weird half groan, half cry. A single tear escaped his eye and he swallowed again. "P-please! You have to believe me! That's my j-job! It pays well, especially when I don't ask questions since most of my customers are shady characters. I-I ask questions, I get killed! I just do what they want and get my money, that's it! I swear!"

Anna didn't answer and just stared at him. He was trembling underneath her, his eyes darting up every now and then to look at her in fear. She couldn't quite tell if he was telling the truth or not but, after a moment, she decided she didn't need to. She could just send him along to HQ and let them take care of the rest. That way, they get their mission somewhat completed and she can head on back to the school before anyone finds out she's missing. Anna sat on his arm to keep it immobile on his back and used her free arm to yank his other arm upwards, reading the watch he had wrapped around his wrist.

9:30.

Damn, she's needed to get back now.

Anna dropped his hand and pulled out her burner.

Roger answered on the first ring. "You done already? Damn, Anna. Are you some kind of sci-fi killing cyborg that we humans don't know about yet?"

"Shut up. How soon can you get here?"

"Why? This is an assassination job, Anna. A spy like me won't fit in there."

"Shut up. The targets are dead but the files got compromised. I got a guy who may have some answers down here though but I have to get back to the school. How soon can you get here?"

"Five – no, wait – ten minutes."

"Make it three." She hung up.

The quivering man beneath her found his voice again. "Are you going to kill me?"

"If you keep talking, maybe I will."

That shut him up and the delved back into silence. It was weird how much a knife to the neck and a face as dead as hers could wield that much power. Even as the thought ran through her head, the briefcase finally exploded, a geyser of water shooting up in the air, small droplets catching the moonlight and showering the two in its wet beauty.

҉

After sneaking past a slacking guard, she managed to make it back inside the dorm rooms before checkup. She gave herself a quick once over, making sure she didn't have any blood on her – or obvious blood that is – before slipping into the room.

Mina pounced on her immediately. "Where have you been?!" she screeched, clinging to her arm and so skillfully pulling her to her bed that Anna was minutely impressed by it.

She feigned confusion. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about you disappearing during chores! After I finished mine, I went to the yard to check on you but when I got there, I saw Dan and he told me you disappeared on him and haven't come back yet!"

"Oh that, I went to get a new rake and ended up getting lost."

"You got lost?" Mina frowned. "We've been all over the place looking for you. Didn't you hear us?"

Anna got to her feet and waved off the concern. "For some reason, I ended up around the back. It took me a while to find my way back to the dorm in the darkness."

"Really? I'm so glad you're okay! I was so worried that something horrible happened to you. I thought that you got taken away or that you tripped and broke your leg and you were out there all alone in the cold. Or worse! Rats!"

Anna couldn't help the short laugh at her roommate's wild imaginations. "None of that is likely to happen," she assured. After a moment she added, "Is Dan upset I left him to do the work?"

Mina shook her head. "No, he was more worried than upset. You should probably tell him what happened in the morning. But hey, look on the bright side! Dan and I got some more alone time together."

Anna stripped off her sweater and tossed into the dirty clothes basket. While she spoke, she tugged off her jeans, "Oh really? How was it?"

"It was awesome! We spoke, then we called you, then spoke again, then called you. I think we spent more time trying to find you than actually talking to each other but it's progress and that's what I'm here for."

"I'm happy for you."

"You should be! Now that I've finally gotten Step One out of the way, the rest should be a breeze."

Anna frowned at that. She pulled her sleepwear and sat on the bed, facing Mina and all her excitement. After a quick glance at the digital clock by the bed, she saw she had five minutes before the called for checkup. "Step One?" she pushed, intending to pass time listening to her roommate talk.

"Yep! I kind of had this plan to get Dan to fall in love with me and the first step was to get him to know I exist. I kind of had this plan for a while now; actually to be more specific I've had it since I first saw that blond haired piece of meat but I never really got around to starting it since Step One is the hardest."

"Getting him to know you exist is the hardest step? I would assume that would be getting him to fall in love with you."

"The whole plan is to get him to fall in love with me, remember? But I've always been too scared to say 'A' to him. You saw how I just froze up when he came up to you. If you hadn't pushed me to say something I never would have. I think fear of looking like a complete idiot was more of a push factor than him not knowing I exist."

"Glad I could help."

She grinned widely, obviously over the moon in happiness. Anna merely quirked a brow at her. "Soon Dan Slater will be mine! No, wait! Soon, you'll be calling me Mina Slater."

Anna resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "You're only seventeen."

"Juliet was only thirteen when she fell in love."

"Juliet is dumb and her death proves that."

Mina gasped, eyes wide. "You're calling the most romantic story of all time dumb?"

"Yes."

"Well ... you're dumb!"

"Wow, good comeback." Anna smiled and got up when the sound of a whistle blowing sounded near their door.

That was, in one word, her thoughts on love: dumb. Falling in love was dumb. Doing anything you can for that one person is especially dumb. Anything and everything that you could think of that related to the word 'love' always falls back on one thing in her mind. That that was the dumbest thing she's ever heard.

Falling in love dulls your brain. It makes you do things you don't normally do. It makes you say things and believe in things you never normally believed in. It changes you and Anna was not a sucker for change.

Falling in love will, and can, get you killed. Especially in her line of work where she always has to have her head in the game, focused solely on ending the life on whoever she was tasked to kill. Love only complicates her work. She doesn't want to worry about someone else's safety, or about pissing of the wrong people which might make it dangerous for the person she loved. She preferred taking care of herself alone and that was how it was going to be until she's dead.

The only exception to that rule now would be Jessi but that was only because she had a mission to fulfill. Outside the mission, she couldn't care less what happened to him.

Checkup only lasted a solid ten minutes and when it was done, Mina sent her a cheery goodnight to snuggle under her pink covers, wrapped in pink floral patterned pyjamas. Anna murmured a soft goodnight to her roommate and fell asleep, the day's happenings sinking her further into a sleep so deep, it would have been hell to get her out.