I saw why I was forced to make a huge pot of stew that could feed multiple people.

It was really meant to feed the same person multiple times after she throws up the first couple of servings.

By the time I couldn't vomit anymore, the garbage was leaking with the stuff. I know it was gross but imagine how I felt knowing I was responsible for half of the trash. Ash was such a good comrade vomiting in solidarity with me. He didn't offer to help eat the stew, which I found interesting since he was willing to take a beating and have his lung punctured but refused to touch that stew.

I couldn't blame him. It took me eight tries, but finally, when I ran out of acid to throw up, I managed to keep the rank stuff down. Then I buried my head in my arms on the table, gave the thumbs up, and cried myself into a nap. If I wasn't a monster before, I was definitely one now.

I heard Auntie take the bowl aware and huff as if she was disappointed I couldn't fill another trash bag with my vomit. "You passed stage six." I felt a napkin thrown at my head. "Now clean yourself up."

The stew didn't go in right and it didn't come out right. That's all I'll say on the matter.

After three days of sleeping on the toilet, I decided to move onto stage seven. Ash thought I was crazy. Not only was I missing a ton of stuff at school, like finding the area of a parallelogram or reading Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry, but midterms were coming up soon. If I didn't sit in on them, I'd definitely be too far behind to catch up and pass onto the 8th grade.

However, when your life consists of murdering people for money, school kind of takes a back seat. Especially when my new task wasn't getting good grades but restructuring the gang my father owned so that less people died needless deaths. I think that trumps going to school right now.

Ash disagreed. After much arguing, I promised him that I would wait until after the midterms to start stage seven. That was two weeks. It also meant being fielded a lot of questions about my absence and rumors spreading about God knows what. The soccer team had most likely kicked me off the team, before I even played a single game with them, which was an embarrassment.

Yet, the thing I dreaded most was returning home. I knew my father would want an update. And I wasn't wrong when I waved goodbye to Ash after he came with me to my house to drop me off.

The minute I punched in the code to deactivate the security alarm long enough for me to enter the mansion, my father was waiting for me. No doubt one of the guards at the entrance of the estate called in saying I had arrived.

My father motioned for me to follow him into his office. Once inside he closed the door and took a seat at his desk offering for me to take the chair in front of him.

"Our fabulous mayor has just signed a property tax bill that will drain my bank accounts," my father said while he twirled a pair of scissors around his index finger. "More importantly, he targeted grand estates, which the council was happy to approve. I might have to lay off staff, increase the number of contracts we take in, and possibly look to expand Reaper operations."

My father stopped twirling the scissors and gripped the blade in his hand. "Or, we can send the Mayor a little message."

My hands were fidgeting as my father built up to what I knew he was hinting at. I asked for this. I wanted this after what he did to Ash.

But this was before I talked with Momma Emma. As much as I hated the Mayor, I wondered if he was really one of the evil ones.

Images of Ash's condition crossed my mind. Ash sobbing while I was in bed saying he had lost his father. That man, Mayor Dayton, was not the father-figure Ash once looked up to.

Either way, I would be a horrible friend if I killed my best friend's father.

"You said you wanted the contract," my father said. "You wanted to be the one to end the Mayor. The question is," he stood up and turned his body towards the window. "Do you think you have what it takes to kill your best friend's father?"

I didn't answer right away. My father saw my hesitation.

"Dwell upon it," my father said, turning his back towards me. "The contract hasn't come through yet, but I suspect it will soon. The ultra-successful in the city will not like this new law. And when the contract does come through, it will be a rather difficult project to carry out, even for me."

Even for me? The guy killed people like they were roaches—with no remorse. He infiltrated the White House and threatened the president like it was breaking into a bouncy house in a public park. How would this contract be difficult for him? The Mayor was only a local official.

"However, the Reaper Core can't back away from any contract, not if it's within our capabilities and best interests," my father sat back down. "Now, tell me, what have you uncovered from the Locusts?"

To be honest, nothing much, but I couldn't tell my father that. "They're feeling the strain of Operation Tartarus. The Royden Hive has been receiving an influx of new recruits spilling over from the nearby neighborhoods where we struck their recruitment centers. They feel the Royden Hive is the safest and most protected Hive."

My father smiled and even chuckled a bit. "This is fantastic news. And when their precious Queen falls to our blade, their sense of security will be hopelessly shattered, and the Locust members will dwindle and fall. Then, we'll pick off the scraps."

My father pulled out a cigar from his drawer and lit it. He only used them for celebrations. "And where do you stand on the initiation process?"

"I'm on stage seven of eight. Stages five and six were Hell."

"I can tell," my father inhaled a large puff of smoke. "Your mother was worried. Even I was contemplating infiltrating the hive to find you. But something told me to trust your strength. You possess something none of your siblings have."

"And what is that?" I asked, thinking to myself that my skills usually boiled down to an ability to look at a person and think of how many ways I could kill them. That wasn't a great ability.

"Drive," he said. "You're persistent. You never give up. When you set your mind on something, you go for it, even if you stumble along the way."

He allowed bits of ash to fall into his ashtray. "When your brother died, I felt like I failed as a father. They say a parent should never bury their child. But you, you give me hope. You have the assassin skills of Noa but lack the weakness of constant doubt."

He took another puff from his cigar. "Doubt that got him killed."

I looked up at the painting of the farm on the wall to distract myself from the night he died. I was sure it wasn't his doubt that got him killed that night. It was mine.

Knowing that the painting I was staring at was painted by Momma Emma, something my father never told me, and that it showed her farm not his...I looked at it in a new light.

My father saw me staring at the painting and followed my line of sight. "Let me let you in on a little secret. That painting was painted by none other than Momma Emma herself."

"Oh really?" I said a bit too sarcastically. Hey, I never said I was an actress.

My father thought I didn't believe him. "Oh, but it's true. And this painting isn't of my farm, but of Momma Emma's farm. The farm my family owned paled in comparison to this. It was small, ravaged by pests, and the livestock were hunted by coyotes and wolves. I fired my first gun when I was six and struck a coyote right in the eye. It was so close, I couldn't miss."

He emptied out more ash in his tray. My father never talked about his childhood other than to say he came from nothing and achieved everything, all by himself.

"My parents were too busy escaping their poverty with the needle while I had to defend the failing farm with my own two hands." He stared at the picture silently for a second before putting out his cigar. "All I had was a single mate from school to confide my troubles in. But we went our separate ways after high school. He thought the way to fix our problems was through the system. I told him he was a fool. The only way to fix our problems was to offer an alternative to it."

My father touched the frame of the painting while looking outside. The setting sun on the horizon cast an orange reflection on the ground in the background that seemed to almost shimmer...

The same way the sunlight did on Lake Michigan when I sat with Ash in the hot tub.

It was then that I realized that Momma Emma's farm wasn't gone. My father brought up the spot it used to be at and built an estate on it. He repurposed Momma Emma's dream, starting by changing her base of operation.

"Dad," I said. "What do you know about Momma Emma?"

My father took his hands away from the frame and stepped back. "I know she was a wonderful woman, although flawed with a child's dream. She believed in protecting the weakest amongst us because they had the potential to be strong. But I corrected her mistaken dream. We shouldn't be protecting weakness. We should be eliminating it. We shouldn't foster dependency. We should nurture strength. Because there is a stark difference between the weak and the fallen."

My father turned towards me and walked towards the door of his study. "The weak stay down and die. The fallen survive to stand up and thrive."

He motioned for me to follow him out the door. "We all fall down Za-Za, but only the weak stay down. We shouldn't be helping those who don't wish to stand. That's why I left my small farm. That's why I left my parents to die. They were weak. I was fallen. Now," he wrapped his arm around my shoulder, "let us get you fed with good food. You look starved."