Most kids my age hated school. Some loved it for the knowledge or the escape from the family.

I was in the middle.

Heading back to school on Mondays was always a drag after a weekend of "projects." Usually I was dead with fatigue from staying up late to finish them. But school was the only normal thing I did that didn't make me feel like a total outcast.

And yet, at school, I had zero friends and was still a pariah. Things started to look up after meeting Ash. Some kids even said hi to me when I walked into school on Monday. A girl named Ashley reminded me about the offer to join the soccer team to replace the injured Lucy. They had practice after school that day and she asked me to come try out. I never considered myself a soccer player, but you'd be surprised how transferable the skills of an assassin were. I remember in one training session, my father had us try to take out a target with our hands tied behind our backs. Our feet really came in handy. Soccer was just murdering a ball into a net with one's feet.

I accepted the invitation just before the school bell called us into homeroom. Attendance was taken, last minute homework was completed hurriedly, and gossip was exchanged for the seven short minutes we had before the school day began.

As our homeroom teacher went through the list of names, he reached Ash's name, "Dayton..." When no one answered, he looked up and scanned the room before muttering something about him being absent and marking him as such. I was starting to hate Ash even more. The boy probably went and changed schools just because he finally saw what he already knew I was.

The gossip was worse. Flickers of accusations spread across the room. "Perhaps Zay had him killed." "I bet Zay had him kidnapped and sold into a Siberian labor camp." "Maybe she ate him. I heard her family are a bunch of cannibals."

Yeah, that's the type of rumors that went around in my school. Not who has a crush on who, but who wanted to crush human meat between their teeth. Rich private academy for the win.

Normally I would let the rumors just slide. Who cares what a bunch of snot-nosed seventh graders thought. Their opinions were worth as much as expired milk. No one wanted them.

But I didn't want this rumor to stick. For one, I would never harm Ash willingly. And for them to make such accusations...it just had to stop.

"I didn't do anything," I said a bit loudly.

The noise level in the class died down a bit, while the teacher continued with roll call. "Ashly Evington..."

"Here."

"I didn't hurt him so stop spreading those lies about me."

Now the class was pretty quiet, and the teacher heard it too. "No one is accusing you of hurting anyone Zaslay."

He was about to return to rollcall when I interrupted. "You all think you're strong because you can band together and isolate me. You think that makes you safe. If my family and I were really what you say we are, do you think your daddies and mommies can protect you? Do you think your money can shield you from a knife, a sword, or a gun? Do you think your home security alarms will ring when someone who truly wants you gone surges into your bedroom? Do you think your rumors will coat you in a film of alertness that will save your lives?"

"Zaslay," the teacher gulped. "That's enough. Quiet please while I finish the attendance."

"And you," I pointed at the teacher. It didn't matter who the teacher was. They were a part of the rumors too. They saw me isolated and without friends. Not a single one came to help me. A teacher's job wasn't only to educate, but to make sure their students felt safe and valued. "You saw all of this happening. Teachers aren't stupid. They know when bullying or isolation attempts are going on. But you couldn't care because "they don't pay you enough" to do so. How much money does it cost to validate a person's worth?"

"Ms. Mata, that's enough," the teacher put his smart tablet down. "Or I'll send you to the principal's office."

I stood up and slammed my hands on the table hard enough for the legs to crumble beneath the pressure and collapsed onto the floor. The class gasped, whimpered, and the teacher took a step behind and plastered his back to the wall.

"You all sit there thinking you and your families are clean. But I can tell that many of your parents have paid a lot of money to invalidate a person's worth."

The bell signaling the end of homeroom rang. The class looked at me like a hungry mama bear protecting her cub that had been set loose in the classroom. The teacher stood silent. Typical. In private schools much like public schools, teachers were scared of their students. In public schools, teachers feared being assaulted by the students. In private schools, teachers feared having their careers destroyed by the parents.

I picked up my bag and left the room to head to the next class. For such a rich prestigious school they sure do have cheap desks.

***

My invitation for the soccer tryout was gently withdrawn by Ashley's boyfriend, whom she probably forced to be a messenger in order to save herself from being collapsed onto the ground like my desk in homeroom. Granted, I wouldn't waste a breath on her, I found it amusing how much she feared me. The school kept me isolated before because they thought my family was dangerous. Now they realized that I was dangerous. I was the monster Ash had proclaimed me to be. And I just had to accept it.

But wouldn't a monster beat up Ashley's boyfriend and then go and toss her in a pool with her clothes on? As much as that sounded fun, I decided I was a different kind of monster. I wasn't a monster who bullied people for laughs. I was an enlightened monster who ended people for cash.

We were at recess, where I stood by myself besides the fenced area of the property. Teachers stood at the gate laughing and chatting probably about their crazy students like me. I was listening to music on my phone. I was a big Eminem fan. Whenever I was frustrated, I listened to his songs, especially his album Recovery. 25 to Life was a powerful song for me whenever I was angry at someone. I would just substitute the words "Hip-Hop" in the final lines of the last verse to the name of a person I wanted to strangle. Ash's name would be the substitution for today. He did this on purpose. He left the school to make me pay for doing my job. He gave me hope, hope that I could have friends, possibly even join a sports club, and have afternoons where we could hang out. Then he just ripped it all away from me.

Now I knew what it felt like for one of my targets to choose option three.

Before the end of the song could play, before I had the chance to fill in Ash's name for all the trouble he had caused me in the past week, the music was interrupted with a heartbeat vibration from my phone. I checked the caller ID and the number said "Unknown."

It could be my father, calling from his untraceable phone to alert me to an important meeting or contract that would be sent my way. I slid up to answer the call.

"Hello."

"You have 2 hours to get to the coordinates texted to you or your friend will die." The voice was clearly distorted using a cheap program. Probably my older brother pulling a long-distance prank. Sometimes when he comes back home from long absences, he would be too extra trying to announce his return. One time he had me kidnapped and brought to a warehouse where a party was thrown to celebrate his return from his first year at college. The guy was slightly insane.

"Alright Ka," I said because pronouncing his full name was like reciting a tongue-twister. "I'm not falling for your prank again. I got school right now."

"You have 1 hour and 58 minutes to get to the coordinates texted to you, or your friend Ash dies."

I felt a wave of heat blast throughout my body like I was coming down with a fever. Ash was in trouble. My family kidnapped him. He was my friend and they still did it to rip him away from me.

"You now have 1 hour and 57 minutes. I sure do hope you arrive before he bleeds to death."

Then the line clicked. My body started to shake. This couldn't be real. This was a prank. No one would be stupid enough to kidnap the Mayor's son. Even so, they wouldn't call me, they would call the Mayor. He was the one they should blackmail.

I checked the coordinates and zeroed the location down to a yacht hangar on the border between Illinois and Wisconsin. This was a trick. That lady I killed over the weekend had powerful friends that wanted to get revenge and was using Ash's name to do so. I shouldn't just rush towards some yacht club in the middle of...

A second message appeared as an attachment to download. It was an image. When I opened it up it showed Ash chained to a wall, his shirt torn, his face looking worse than when my father punched Noa in my dream. The room he was in was dark and he looked unconscious as he slumped against the wall with only his hand suspended in the air like a broken puppet.

The caption beneath the photo read: "1 hour and 55 minutes."