A part of me wanted to forget the old life I used to live and bury it deep in my cranium. Choosing to let time erase the horrid images of my past, too young and weak to face them.

Born with nothing, yet somehow lost everything. Living in filth, a father who would see to it to break me down at any given chance, deceased mother and sibling. Horrid memories that plagued my nightmares for years until I finally embraced my current circumstances.

I had my reasons to want to neglect my old life. Although the life I live now is on a thread, only a bullet to the wrong organ away from death, yet despite that nothing hinders me most at this moment. This feeling in my chest, the warm wave that flushes through me every time I blinked and saw her eyes. It feels so good, it feels so calm. The same emotion I felt when I first looked at her face all those years ago.

Could that have been when I first noticed it, the feeling of a crush? It always hung at the back of my mind, a burdening question I couldn't escape.

I'm scrambled all over again, staring straight ahead into nothing distantly, absent minded until slender ivory fingers snap within my vision, I'm pulled than from my daydream looking up to Charlotte sitting before me and Ray standing in the background arms crossed.

"Focus." she says, the hint of annoyance in her eyes as if this wasn't the first time she had to bring me back to reality.

Shaking my head from the remaining thoughts, scrambling her face from my vision as I come in tune with actuality. All three of us in my room, we were in the middle of discussing something before I got distracted. My hand runs through my hair in slight aggravation, "Uh, what were we saying?"

Charlotte sighs, "The plan Nasir, please focus we put years of thoughts behind this."

"That's right", I breathed exhaling a hot breath. "So, what have we got so far."

Ray steps in closer, pulling a chair so he is sat in the middle. An evident look of defeat in his eyes and Charlotte and I adjust our backs, preparing for the answer we feared.

"The organization grew." He breaks the Ice, and I stiffen as he adds on, "There are new leaders of the cults, a mammoth of kidnappings over the years, the decline of death rates for elders have decreased significantly, obviously skyrocketing the total of missing children."

My chest rams, but the blood in my streams Icen's to the news. "Who are the new leaders," I croaked, lips snarling from the anger.

"There were many names being thrown around, but none of these men have actually stepped foot out in the public."

... "And her father?"

"No word that he has participated over the last few years, in fact there isn't even a fresh trace of him anywhere, it's almost like he disappeared. Last seen was at the castle and since than he has vanished with no sign, but get this -"

Charlotte furrows her brows, but I remain stoic expecting the worse.

Ray digs into his pocket, a crinkling sound of paper folded in his hand. "One of the organizations was somehow found and exposed but when the team was dispatched to capture the leader -" fear clouding around his eyes, the back of his hand coated with goosebumps as he extended it, placing the paper on a desk in the middle of us.

Suspense building as we try and identify what we were seeing until Charlotte gasps looking at the image, "Oh my Gosh." she whispers.

A man lying on the grass, skin black and blue with a swollen tongue and white pupils.

Stoically I stare at the gruesome image, strange gashes and holes poked on the skin. "Were these snake bites?"

Ray shrugs, "We're insure, a snake bite would have clogged the blood stream, and seeing how it leaks from his eyes and nose it would seem to be a poisonous reaction."

I stare up to charlotte, drinking in her reactions. It didn't sit right with me how disturbed she was considering this is one of her tricks, a similar technique. But there were still pros and cons to my suspicions, the dots just weren't connecting, Charlotte is careful enough to leave the victims alive. The tactics she uses is to slow down her opponent thus making them beg for their lives, eventually all victims wouldn't necessarily die by her hands, only when she wields the sniper.

The information I try to process was beginning to overflow with questions.

In the course of the years since we have devised this plan to take down this organization everything was going smoothly, keeping track on all of our targets until we were close enough to strike. Anger surges through me, now I fear there is another.

This wasn't necessarily guided to the individual itself, in fact I owe much gratitude for taking this matter off our plates, but now I fear they have sounded off an alarm. Warning the rest to cover their tracks.

"This could mean -" Rays voice trails, looking into my eyes intensely. "It's too early to tell but if they are targeting the cult leaders then this will lead back to ... the castle."

***

The wind blew from the east as I stood at my balcony, looking out beyond the green horizon with the end of the cigarette bud in between my lips. Mindset disturbed, anxious and confused.

Ray's words linger in my mind like a broken record, an endless repeat. She could be next. This shouldn't be affecting me as much as it should.

I've strayed and ridded her from my memory, yet somehow, I found myself entrapped in her spell once more. Those eyes again. The little dough eyes full of life, memories crash down onto the old times. I remember joking to myself years ago how looking at her is what gives me breath hence why I wanted to dedicate the rest of my life ensuring she lives safely.

But time passed and I grew to a man, beauty she is indeed but I can now see the evil that lurked inside, Buoyant I should be knowing she lived on. The face I used to look at with joy is nothing now but a snake.

She knew, all along.

She always knew, the evidence was always around her neck like a souvenir. The answer was right in my face, I chose to look away.

My lips snarl blowing out the steam of the tobacco, vapors fly out of nose stinging the back of my throat in the process. Bitter taste of ashes on my tongue were like burnt sand, reminding me of the dirt I would swallow from having my face punched to the ground when I was younger.

The sound of the door glides opens just as I gulped the Jim whiskey in an attempt to wash away the residue of smoke from my tongue, a presence is out here with me, I make no attempt for my gun hearing the clicks of heels in my left ear as the figure approached closer.

"You're back to smoking again." Charlotte breathed; disappointment evident in her breath as she stands aside me staring beyond.

I don't respond, filling my lungs with another vapor, sparing no glance to her as I passed her the bud.

"Quit long ago" she replies pushing away at my arm.

I shrug blowing out the smoke, only the breeze and whistle of the wind granting white noise in the background.

"How are you feeling?" She finally asks me, crossing her arms above her breasts.

I chuckle out a thick laugh, it has been a while since my wellbeing was of importance to someone, "No one has ever asked me that before."

"Well, I'm asking you now." Her body turns to me, sitting on the edge of the stoned railing. "How do you feel about all of this?"

The fire of the cigarette burns out as press it to the ground with my foot, stuffing my hands in my pockets I sit on the edge aside charlotte, my back to the wind feeling it blow at my strands.

"How am I supposed to feel? Haven't felt any emotion for a long time." I breathed; remaining smoke fly out of my mouth.

Coyly I smirk at the blue eyes staring deep into me unconvincingly, "Ray could be wrong and -"

"It doesn't matter whether he is or not, if the castle is next then so be it,
It was only a matter of time before karma comes back to claim its puppets."

"You don't mean that."

"There is a lot you don't know Charlotte."

"I know this is effecting you deeply, otherwise why would you be out here alone on your birthday?"

"Many of my birthdays have been spent alone, this would be nothing new."

"Why have you shut her out?" The ice breaking question she was pandering towards.

For years I have kept quiet, refusing to speak of the trauma that burns in my memory. Forced to choose; her and Ray or Tiana. A day that forever haunts me, even now. Yet I dare to never mention, instead stray from the topic in general, "It was for the best." I merely shrug in a dismissive manner.

It still panders, her disappointment obvious. "So, then what? you think you can control your feelings? you think you can suppress them long enough?"

"My life now is solely to protect the heir, at least long enough until I can gut him myself. The princess is no longer of concern to me." My mouth spewing words my body didn't want to believe, even at the expense of getting Charlotte to stop pestering me.

Despite it all, was it a decision I regretted? saving my two best friends in turn letting go of a woman I will have no engagement with and yet she has always played a very big part of my life, a strange reason to my existence. A void that is filled just by the thought of her. So dear to me, permanently embedded. I could fool myself and say this was just a lost piece of my childhood self that wasn't fulfilled.

But this was more now, it has changed looking at her picture alone. And now she is all I can see every time I blinked.

My first ever choice and I was still unsatisfied, a gush of heat flaring on my right pinky, and I grit my teeth, this tattoo is symbolic. My very first tattoo, but it was our promise I could only think about.

A heavy sigh escapes her throat, the release of her breathe reminds me of her presence. Slender shoulders slouch in defeat. "Then be careful." she warns.

I chuckle thickly, reminiscing the old times she would act like a mom to Ray and I. Some things don't change.

"What?" she gushes, faint red flushing through her face.

"I-"

Just at the moment I am ready to respond, the doors of my patio glides open in a frantic, Ray standing on the opposite side. A look of fright succumbs him as his eyes protrude from his sockets, breaths staggered. My smile falls looking at him and the light of the phone in his hands.

"Th-the king is arriving Nasir."