On my seventh birthday, I made my first kill. It was a family tradition in my house. My siblings knew it. Noa knew it when he looked at me and forced a smile knowing he hated that my parents were making me go through with this. It was the confirmation ritual of an assassin, especially in my family. You learned to kill at such a young age that it seemed like second nature to you when you went out into the field. Pulling a trigger should be like breathing. Stabbing a knife should be like walking. Snapping a neck should be like stretching.

After my first kill, I was traumatized. I locked myself in my room. I didn't come out for the rest of Christmas break, since my birthday was on January 4th. My parents barely checked up on me while they were busy with new year contracts to complete. I was left mostly to myself until Noa came knocking after three days of not seeing me.

"Zay, can I come in?"

I didn't want to see anyone, not even my beloved older brother. How could my parents allow me to do that? Why hadn't any of my siblings warned me, especially Noa? I trusted him.

I took too long to respond. He jimmied the lock on the door. In a house full of assassins, locks were useless.

"Zay, how are you feeling?" He asked.

"Go away," I muttered hiding beneath my blankets.

Lucky for me, he didn't listen to me. He shut the door and walked over to my bed and sat on it. He chuckled. "You know, if you're trying to beat my record of days locked in your room after your first kill, you're going to have to stay here another month."

A month? I thought. He stayed locked in his room for a month, missing school and life. I couldn't imagine ever doing that. My parents would find a way to drag me out.

Perhaps they learned from their experience with Noa.

"The old mannequin trick," Noa muttered. "At least you hit your target. You graced him with a quick goodbye."

"I killed him!" I shouted while throwing off my covers. Then I launched a fury of punches on his back that was probably a massage compared to the tough training he was receiving lately. "You didn't warn me!"

Noa didn't say a word. He sat there as my punching bag, allowing me to release all of my fury. I couldn't see his face, but his head was down almost like he was mourning the loss of something important to him.

When I had tuckered out, I sat back in bed and crossed my arms in defiance. "All this time, our family were a bunch of killers and you didn't tell me. We're the bad guys."

Noa sighed without looking at me. "Yes, we are Zay. We're the bad guys."

I expected a speech to explain how what we do was good and fine. It's definitely what my father or mother would've done. But Noa, he was real, and by the sound of his voice, he wasn't really fond of our family either.

"I tried to shield you from this," Noa admitted. He turned to face me. "But mom and dad wouldn't have it. All of us are meant to take up the mantle of the assassin, at least until we're 18."

My parents were of the belief of offering us an out after so many years of killing. But I didn't think it was possible to escape from a reality you've known your entire life. One cannot simply go from murdering people to working at a corporate America office job eight hours a day without some heavy baggage attached.

My oldest brother Ka was the guinea pig. He opted to go full-time assassin. He didn't enter into university like Lay would end up doing while keeping her part-time job as a contract killer.

Deep down, I knew Noa tried his best to save me from this life. But his effort wasn't good enough; and I felt betrayed that he had failed. If I could go back in time, I would uncross my arms and hug him, thanking him for caring enough to try.

Still, I kept my pouty face and couldn't even afford to look at him.

"When mom and dad pulled the mannequin trick on me," Noa spoke, "well it was a bit of a disaster. Mom pointed at the head. I wasn't the marksman that I was now. Even so, I felt that aiming for the head, even on an inanimate object, was beastly. So...I shot the right side of the chest. Then the blood started oozing out. The silent breathing turned to wheezing as his lungs slowly filled with blood. The strike wasn't critical enough to kill him fast."

I glanced towards my brother who was rubbing his hands in a motion like he was forming dough to make dinner rolls. He always did that when he was nervous or embarrassed.

"Mom and dad took away the gun from me. Mom yelled at me for being incompetent. Dad shook his head in disappointment. Mom handcuffed me to a pipe along the wall. She pointed at the dying man. 'You won't leave here until he is dead. That'll teach you not to miss your shots.'

"Mom left the room. Dad followed behind her, but before leaving he explained, 'Noa, a wound that isn't instantly fatal allows the enemy to escape or recover and call for help. Remember that the next time you land a blow on a target.' He then left the room, and I stood stuck there for two hours listening to the man behind the bag wheeze until he finally stopped. But mom and dad didn't come back until eight hours later, where the body was on its way to decaying."

Noa stood up from his bed and wrapped his hand around the bedpost. "So yes Zay, you killed him, but at least you gave him a quick death."

He made his way towards the door, opened it up, and just before leaving he told me, "Mom and dad want me to take up your training from now on. We'll start whenever you feel up to leaving this room."

Then he closed the door and I was left wondering whether I would ever leave the room at all. I knew what awaited me once I stepped outside that door was the life of an assassin.

But after five days, I couldn't take being Rapunzel any longer.

***

Two years of training with Noa taught me to be a grade-A assassin. He was by far the best amongst us four siblings. He was fantastic with infiltration, subduing victims if they got rebellious, and ending lives with a stroke of a hand...at least that's as much as I saw in training with robots.

His contract completion rate was phenomenal. Not once did he appear to botch up. Even I had botched up a couple of attempts that another sibling or even mom or dad had to take care of. I would get my ear pulled for such failure because a botched assassination attempt meant that the workload only got harder. Either the victim hired security, tried to go to the police (many of which were in my father's pocket anyway), or tried to flee the city.

Then I turned nine and I was handed my first contract. I was to take a road trip to St. Louis. Noa was to accompany me and make sure I made my first contracted kill, considering he was tasked with training me. He tried again to plead for a delay in taking on contracts until I was at least ten. Sadly, it was rejected.

Xavier drove us the way there. While going, I asked Noa for details about the contract.

Noa seemed lost as I spoke to him. He stared out the window of the car as we rolled down the highway. I had to repeat my request again to get a response out of him.

"Sometimes Zay, it's best not to dig too deep into the details. It'll only make the job much more difficult."

"But I need to know something," I said. "Like what did the person do wrong to warrant a contract?"

Noa started kneading his hands again. "He was about to come out about a 'mutually consensual relationship.' The client wants him silenced before it hits the media.'"

Then Noa reclined his seat back and shut his eyes. The only detail I had was that this person was a guy whose mouth was loud enough to piss off the wrong person. And I was supposed to silence him.

It was not a fun car ride thinking about what was going to go down.

Nightfall claimed the air when we arrived in a middle-class suburb just outside the city of St. Louis. My brother led the infiltration to the second story of a family home. He pried open the window with ease because it was the Evangelical suburbs and they thought that criminals didn't have cars or any form of transport to relocate crime to their protective bubbles outside the crime-infested city.

Noa signaled for me to be dead silent and offered me a hand into the room.

The minute I stepped in, I was about to break the order Noa gave me. I saw posters of Spider-Man on the wall next to famous baseball players and even a box full of toys. Sleeping in a race-car bed was a boy no older than me. I started to sweat and shake. I shook my head. I couldn't go through with this. This was insane. Killing that boy would be like killing myself.

Noa saw my hesitation and motioned for me to make it quick so we could leave. He pointed at the silenced gun holstered at my hip. I reached for the gun and took a step closer to the boy to get a point-blank view of his face.

The boy looked so peaceful in his sleep. He clutched onto a stuffed lion, his face looked like he was dreaming of cake and candy, and oh God I couldn't go through with this.

I took a step back and it was that one step that would make this the worst night of my life. My foot planted itself on a robot toy that activated a laser shooting sound.

The boy started to stir.

Noa was quick to get behind him. I froze in front of him. The boy rubbed his eyes. He saw me with a gun. His eyes inflated with fear. His mouth opened and released a cry that was short, and quickly stifled by my brother's hand. The boy started to squirm, but Noa easily held him down with his other hand.

"Do it," Noa whispered.

My hands started to shake. I dropped the gun to the ground.

"Zay!" Noa whispered harshly.

A light turned on in the hallway. Time was running out. Noa looked at my eyes and knew I couldn't go through with this. He looked down in shame. I closed my eyes to try and escape the scene. Then I heard a snap and the boy stopped struggling and fell back in his bed.

The door to the room exploded upon its hinges. Noa was exposed. The sound of a bang followed by a flutter of light erupted from besides me. Noa was sent flying towards the window, where his body erupted with blood from his gut. He slumped to the ground and life seemed to drain from his eyes.

I felt something shatter within my head, almost like Noa's slumping body knocked over something fragile in my brain—something that could never be fully repaired.

My hands sped to the gun I dropped on the floor. I unloaded on the father who had burst into the room to check up on his endangered son. I hit all his vital points. Head, heart, neck. He would join his son in the afterlife in an instant.

Then I heard a woman scream. She was hysterical as she saw her family collapse before her. She ran downstairs in a frantic mess, probably to call the police. I rushed towards Noa's side. He was sitting in a pool of his own blood. I dropped the pistol, and I pressed my hand against his wound, but it was just too much for me to stop. My hands came back red.

The voice of my mother filled my head, from the first time I saw blood spilling from a corpse. "Only fear the flow of blood if it spills from you or that of your family."

I let out a loud sob. I buried my head in Noa's chest.

"Monster!" I heard a tattered voice echo from behind me.

I turned back, covered in my brother's blood to see the woman holding a pistol in her hand.

"Who are you?"

Half of me wanted that woman to end me. The only person who was truly looking out for me in my family was now gone—and it was all my fault. If only I had pulled the trigger and ended the boy. If only I wasn't so afraid. If only I wasn't so weak, Noa would've been alive.

But Noa didn't die for me to join him. Noa wouldn't have liked that.

I wrapped my hand around my pistol again. I wasn't sure if Noa would've liked this either, but I made sure to leave no witnesses.