Mei didn't know what was going on. She couldn't think beyond the overwhelming sense of fear oozing out of her. She was sure even the intruder could hear her shivers and sobs of trepidation. He was her everything, her heart, her soul, her life. Everything she did she did for him, for them. Yet, it didn't take much for him to leave her. One bullet. One bullet was all it took. Mei supposed the blessing was that she didn't see it all happen what with her eyes glued shut.

She was scared, frightened, a child. Her black hair wrapped around her small soaked face as she hid under the bed frame too frozen in her own body to make a move.

They had been playing in the rain until "he" came back. Until he killed her brother. "Why couldn't it have been me." She thought helplessly as she choked on her own salt-encrusted tears.

"Live." He'd told her just as the stranger entered the room. Before he crawled out from our little haven. They'd rushed up the stairs when they saw his churning engine rolling down the street. Her brother had hustled her into the small crevasse, told her to hide, to keep quiet. They were supposed to leave today, but "he" came back early.

Her brother told her to cover herself in blankets and mismatched clothes. To hide, make sure no matter what she would not be found, to live. She didn't know what was going on only that "he" was a bad man and that her brother always knew what was best. Mei shouldn't have ever let her brother crawl off that day. She should have asked him to hide with her.

She was 3 her brother was 10. Her brother had told her about their parents. How they had been kind, and loving, and she thought she might have recalled some of those times, but not much. All she remembered was playing outside with her brother and some man coming towards them, telling them that their parents were dead now. Ever since then, her brother has been taking care of them. Making sure they were taken in together, if not they would both act out until they were. And it worked.

But the problem was when you have a bad record in the system you don't get to choose your opinions anymore. And anyone can pretend to be kind, can look kind. All you need is a good job and a loving spouse. It was unfortunate that their adoptive mother left two months after adopting them. She wasn't nice but at least she didn't beat them.

Things got bad when she left. "He" got drunk, their adoptive father. He beat them. Mei was 5 her brother was 12 when it all went down, when Mei was left alone, when "they" found Mei.

Mei wasn't sure if it was true or not but "he" wasn't a good man. Their adoptive mother was still probably buried in the yard. He was drunk that day when he beat her. He was really drunk, and he nearly passed out into the grave. Mei wished she'd pushed him back then. That way, her brother would have lived.

Bang!

She heard it go off at least five times before the empty click-click of the barrel echoed in the silent room. It was only when the footsteps retreated that Mei dared approach the lifeless body in front of her as she tried to get out of the covers her brother had wrapped around her, the confined space beneath the bed, the tight bundle she was in, made it impossible to move.

But she got to him, she helped close his eyes, and maybe it was that day that cemented her into the person she was today. or maybe it was then that she should have known who she truly was. A murderer, a killer, a psychopath, call it whatever you want. She felt nothing after that but the empty swirl of air in her stomach as she picked up the empty gun left on the carpet.

She knew where he kept them, his refills. Walking down the hall in a haze, She picked up the ammo, plucking out the old one and plugging in the new one. Making sure the safety was off she trudged down the stairs.

Mike always did love his chair, he passed out on it every time he was drunk. Mike, her adoptive father, the drunkard, the one who always got passed social services, not that they would ever care given where Mei and her brother lived.

She could still see it now, the blood slowly pooling against the grey carpeted floor, so much so the fibers weren't even soaking the liquid in. The walls were a monotone blue, her favorite color, but not anymore. There was red splattered all over the walls, her brother's blood. His body was sprawled against the ground at some odd angle, his head tilted facing the exit, his body twisted the opposite way. His ankles must have twisted too from his sudden drop. She trudged down the stairs. Funny, Mei don't think she made a sound despite her lack of feeling. She didn't want to do anything, She just wanted to go, but she needed this, she needed to do this for him, for herself.

She could see the holes where the bullets had entered her brother, one on his arm, another near his right shoulder, two through his right knee, and finally one through his forehead. She could see the flesh of his brain matter, the pink throbbing meat. God, the blood, the blood, the blood of her brother.

She had hoped "he" would shoot her too, hoped he'd look under the covers, but she supposed that's why her brother hid her under them. So even if he did look his alcohol intoxicated brain wouldn't think anything of it, "he" wouldn't find Mei.

She wanted him to send her to her brother, she wanted him to help her get to her brother. But he didn't, he never looked under the covers.

His legs were spread wide apart, relaxed, not feeling guilty at all. He smiled, his teeth pearly white against the moonlight as she entered the living room. It's sloppily decorated fireplace his glass table littered with beer bottles and white powder lining the edges. A jug by the end of the beige fabric sofa. Everything was dirty, a slump of all slumps.

Mei didn't know if he was scared when it happened when she lifted "his" gun to his head. But he smiled, too drunk to realize anything. She wanted him to know. So Mei walked closer. "I'm going to shoot you now. I'm going to end your life because I hate you, I hate that you killed him, I hate that couldn't be the father my brother wanted, I hate that you took us in. And finally that you couldn't find me. You should have looked under the bed, you should have taken me to him, then maybe, you would be alive." Mei finished but as the haze no doubt cleared from his mind, Mei pulled the trigger. First the arm.

The first sound sounded higher but not as high as the second one as it smacked through her brother's flesh. Mei replicated those sounds on "him", Mike. As she shot her next three rounds, two on his knees as he crawled, and finally one on his forehead as he nearly reached her. She lost my brother because Mei was nice. She told my brother they needed to leave, that they needed to kill this man, but Mei's brother didn't believe the same things.

Once when Theo, the boy she played with from the streets, and Mei stole from a local butcher because meat at home was green and tasted bad, Leon told them no, he slapped both of their little hands and told them never to do that again, that he would work harder for better food. But 12-year-olds couldn't work yet, not by law. Even Mei knew that. She was glad Theo wasn't staying over today. She didn't want him to go either. Theo was her friend, her other brother, not by blood, but he was a brother nonetheless. He lived on the streets, lucky him, he never had a "Mike" to deal with.

She turned just as the small tapping footsteps launched the door open. Theo and Mei always practiced throwing rocks to pass the time by the local creek nearby. It didn't take Mei long to skip more rocks than Theo. To make them go longer distances across the rippling waters. As the door banged open a frazzled Theo stared back at Mei's blood-soaked face. It was never locked, the door that is. "Mike" always loved to have his friends come by and Leon made sure Mei was never home, he was a good brother like that, and now he's gone. "Theo, who's going to slap our hands now?" She whimpered as she finally let the tears stream past her cheeks. Theo was 7 at the time as he pulled Mei into his arms despite the blood coating her body and clothes.

"It's ok, it's ok, I'll be here, I'll always be here." He promised, but that was a lie. Still, at the time, Mei took comfort in his tiny arms. Theo's parents had died when he was 4 or so he told them, but he knew of the foster system, so he left home, people thought he killed his parents and ran away but he never did.

And that's how "the Grey" found them. Two kids huddled in a wave of blood one soaked in red and another smeared in it. The lady smiled, a soft welcoming sight to Mei's weary dark brown eyes as the lady offered Mei her perfectly manicured hands. "My name is Anastasia, and I would love to take you and your friend in."

It was her or the sirens in the background as blue and red lights flashed.

The Grey, an organization of mercenaries, spies, and researchers the likes no one else has ever seen worked together here. To do what, anything, killing, saving, if you have the money, they'll happily take the job.

Mei moaned as she rolled over nuzzling her face into the crook of his neck. Nikolai, her boyfriend, looped his arms around her as Mei smiled wistfully breathing in his scent not ready for the day to begin.