Ariana's Blog Post

Shadows Aren't Seen in the Dark

Rain pelted against his heavy overcoat as he dipped in and out of alleys, across backroads, avoiding main streets at all costs. He had to go quickly. No one knew how much time they had. Unfortunately, his supernatural strength did not translate over to his speed. Hopefully, Mila could heal whatever was broken until he got there.

Jamie, a previous black market assassin, only known formerly by his anonymous name “Mr. J”, had never been called by name before his goddaughter called him and gave him the play by play for her escape. Abaddon and Jamie had both been Guards, loyal to the throne, but Abaddon had always resented Jamie’s giftedness as he had been left normal. 

Abaddon’s life had been normal, and he had always hated it. He was an ambitious young man, constantly wishing and hunting for a better life for himself. When Guards of the Throne started going dark, dropping like flies, and he was in a group assigned to investigate, he realized in himself that he related more with the Killers than with the Guard.

The Killers picked a random civilian from the Gifted healers and killed them ruthlessly, then left their Guard helmets next to the body. From them on, they were never heard from again. Only few were ever caught, and even fewer given the public execution they deserved.

The Kingdom was fronted by a man and a woman. Each had a committee behind them representing the people. Together, they collectively governed the country. Across the planet, there were a total of sixty four governments built in this way. The Guard was their way of protecting the people from themselves.

Now Kingdom’s Guards had so many corrupt officers overturning in so many different countries, going out and killing people unofficially, before turning dark, becoming a league of killers more cunning than the guards employed to hold them. By the end of the year, only twelve of the sixty four were safe from it. If Jamie was being honest, he knew it was only a matter of time before Abaddon joined them.

Mila Eve, Abaddon’s eight-year-old daughter, had spent her whole life dodging her father’s blows, ducking under and around his lies. When he found out that she was gifted, her mother, Mara, tried to shield her from his wrath, but it was too much. He was furious, knowing he could never control her. It got worse as he dipped farther in to the underground.

Mila had planned her moves carefully. Her gifts of healing and hearing made her wise beyond her years. She could anticipate her father’s moves. She called Jamie several times a week, securing the plan to get her and her mother out. She readied the transfer papers, switching custody from her father to Jamie.

Things had gone awry. Mara couldn’t hold him, Mila couldn’t heal her mother, Jamie couldn’t run fast enough. The last thing Jamie wanted was to kill his friend, but this had gone too far out of control.

Bursting into the apartment, it was all too evident that they had run out of time. Mara was unconscious on the ground and the apartment reeked of blood and death. Abaddon was nowhere to be seen but after a minute of searching, he found the child, Mila Eve, very well concealed in a corner. She was shaking in fear, and seeing this, something changed in his heart. A painful realization clutched his chest, realizing that Mara wasn’t just unconscious. 

“I tried to heal her. I tried but it didn't work. She’s gone.” Mila whimpered, barely able to move.

Mila was undoubtably a miracle child. He raked his mind for something to do when he heard Abaddon coming. Jamie moved the child on to the balcony, trying to keep her unseen. Enlightenment dawned on him. The fresh assassin tattoos and the new scars showed him that the child was right. The fresh blood on his arms proved him guilty of his wife’s murder. He had come back to finish off his daughter.

Jamie was gifted and talented, but Abaddon was cunning. Abaddon’s mind moved at the speed of light. When he jabbed, he ensured pain. All of the strategically placed punches directed at his head, neck and stomach were too painful. Abaddon had certainly lost his mind. His fresh killer tattoos screamed danger at him, he was going for the kill. In all of their years of friendship, Jamie would be lying if he said he didn’t see it coming.

“Don. What are you doing?”

Abaddon was panting, wheezing almost from the adrenaline pumping through his veins. “I can’t live with her. She isn’t my child.”

“Yes, you can. Remember, we did the test.”

He kept shaking his head as if trying to get rid of a bad memory. “No. NO. No child of mine can do that.” His voice jumped from a violent scream to a hiss, ending as he hurled something hard and metallic at the dead body of his wife, it making a loud clank against the wall. Jamie could almost see Mila flinch in the corner of his eye.

Jamie snatched Abbadon’s arm quickly, ripping it out of its socket, growling, “This madness ends now.” 

Instead of a clean ending, like with his other victims, Abaddon was bound to put up a fight. The two grunted and grappled. Three quick jabs broke one of Jamie’s ribs, then he tasted the copper tang of blood mingling with hot salty sweat in his mouth. He shoved Don’s injured shoulder back, hearing the crunch of it giving out. Both men slumped on the floor, breathing heavily, but only for a second before Don was up again, lunging at Jamie, teeth bared. Jamie felt his energy draining from him, but looking up at Mila shaking in the corner, he knew that letting Mila die was not an option. So he got back up again. 

Abaddon thrust Jamie towards the stove, and pushed his hands towards the burners. In a fluid motion, Jamie flipped Don onto his back and turned on the fire. Don’s unearthly scream chilled Jamie to his core. That same scream would haunt Mila for years to come. Abaddon rilled off the burners, mortally wounded, and Jamie mustered the strength to rise from his knees, which gave him enough height to smash his fist into Don’s jaw. His neck cracked, injured but not dead, leaving him in a crumpled heap on the floor.

Jamie won, but barely, in an act of rage and wildness. He hated letting his gift take over, but letting Mila die was not an option for him. 

There wasn’t much time, but Jamie was strategic and still going on his adrenaline rush. He scooped up Mila, grabbed her one suitcase, grabbed the papers that he needed to gain custody of her. He forgot that he had left the stove on.

The apartment exploded, catching him on the stairs and pushing him through the glass doors. The heat of it caught up to him all at once. He blacked out and tumbled down the stairs. He should have died. But Mila.

She was quick this time, having a better idea of what she was doing. It exhausted her, draining her body some as she restored the health in his.

As she restored his body, fixing everything from the broken bones to the burn scars on his back, she fell out, exhausted, in exchange for Jamie sitting up completely rejuvenated. After a few moments of bewilderment, he staggered to scoop her up. He pushed past the concerned bystanders, barely even noticing that they were there. He wondered at her power, knowing that she would always be stronger than him. 

Fifteen minutes later, Abaddon woke up to find his house on fire, clouded with smoke, his wife’s body missing, Jamie and his daughter gone. He jumped out of a window, and was collected later by his new brothers in the Killdom.

As for Mila and Jamie, they ran. Hopping worldwide from Japan, Costa Rica,

Brazil, Morocco, Italy, and Russia. Everywhere they went, oppression followed. But everywhere they went, Mila grew stronger.

The guard report told everyone that Abaddon had escaped from the fire only to OD on steroids mixed with alcohol. They said that his system had shut down. This meant everything. It meant that Abaddon had officially joined the Killers. 

Jamie was not exactly prepared to raise a child in the least, but they got along fine. He had been working a normal day job, working as a personal trainer in a popular gymnasium. In the beginning, there were uneasy dips between them being angry or annoyed at each other, to being best friends. They would purposefully ignore the fact that they were always on the run, for years. 

Jamie became a Guard, applying himself wholly to his work, and quickly rising through the ranks, he became a travel Guard. They would stay in no one country for more than a year. They always lived remotely, Jamie filtered Mila’s contact with those they didn’t know. 

Mila learned from online classes and books, exercised regularly and trained constantly. She learned to guide her power and heal others.

Years later, Mila, now an eighteen year old young woman, woke up, dripping in sweat from a nightmare. Jamie was at her side before her vision cleared.

“Another bad dream?” 

Mila nodded groggily, but wide awake. “I don’t wanna talk about it.”

Jamie nodded, understanding this recurring nightmare that had haunted her for years. “Wanna go train?”

In the years that Mila had been adopted by Jamie, she had learned to cultivate her healing abilities and her hearing. With Jamie, they discovered that Mila also had a knack for languages.

She saw him in her dreams, her nightmares. She fought harder thinking of him. She healed more things that the assassins had damaged. Their lives moved on, Mila growing into a beautiful young woman, but the day was coming soon, when they could no longer run. They waited patiently for it to come.

Somehow, she knew he was there even before she could hear him. Jamie was out, patrolling for the night. The problem with the assassins was that they never got caught. The few who were caught received hushed punishments. If Jamie could catch them, then maybe something could happen. Life could change.

Somehow, she knew he was weak before she even saw him. The pieces fell together. At the Romanian cabin, he had staggered. Abaddon’s muscles were defined, but looking back, he was skinny. His face was hidden then, his motions were jerky and too fast. They assumed that they had seen his destruction in the way his inconsistent holes punctured the walls, everything in the house trashed and destroyed. The landlady had never forgiven them for that, even after she threw soup at them and sent her dog to chase them. 

In the apartment in Costa Rica, Mila got a call from the neighbor below her, worried because she heard someone climbing up the walls. Fear told her that it was him, but logic. Each time there were always a pair of assassins. He was never with the same accomplice, but it explained what she was seeing now.

The figure standing before her was no more than a bunch of pale, translucent skin hanging loosely from a skeleton. His muscle practically melted, dripping disgustingly off his body. He wheezed, blood and saliva sliding down his cheeks and chin. A syringe still hung from his arm. His pale skin and dark, sagged eyes, scratches and tattoos marked his whole body. He was bad off. Whatever drugs he had taken had done a number on him.

This shriveled shell of a man could not do anything to her even if he wanted to. He barely croaked before doubling over in a fit of coughs. 

Half torn, she guided him into a seat. She then proceeded to call Jamie. Half an hour later, the two were standing in front of the shriveled being that was formerly a man.

“What do we do with him?” Mila gulped.

Jamie crossed his arms and sighed. “It’s your choice, hon. This is no longer my fight.”

Abaddon coughed. “Although it is none of my business, it would be nice to catch up with my oldest friend. And I thought you would want to know, I did not come here to kill you. Nothing of the like.”

Mila snorted. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

“It is no secret that my body is damaged beyond repair.” Jamie visibly gagged as he pulled the syringe out of Abaddon’s arm and wrapped it up to throw it away.

“I have lived my life all wrong. Destroyed the good purpose, practically joined a cult, lost my daughter, killed my wife! I can’t even believe some of the things I’ve done.”

Mila scoffed, choking down the press of hurt and tears stinging the back of her eyes. “You know what, Don?” She started hotly. “I’ve spent my whole life wrong. Do you have any idea why I would feel this way?”

Jamie hung his head, letting his back press against the wall behind him.

“I have spent my whole life running, hiding and training like I’m preparing for war. With you! For years. Look at what you’ve turned yourself into. You are hideous and weak. I can’t believe I spent my life running away from you!  I could have gone through life like a normal kid.” She shouted, crystal clear teardrops beginning to form in the corners of her eyes. “And the things you did to Jamie? And Mom?!” Her voice cracked. The tears, only a sharp sting before, began to fall, like traitors. Her heartbeat quickened. Her breath sucked in and out like an air pump. She unexpectedly crumpled to the ground like a wilted flower, crushed by the cold unforgiving hand of fear.

Jamie removed Abaddon from the room, but waited to call it in knowing what needed to be said. 

“I’m not strong enough.” The steady chant flowed from Mila’s lips, her eyes hollow and tired from crying. He was completely caught off guard, seeing her grovel like this. 

“Mila Eve, look at me. You need to remember how strong you are. You are able to do anything you set your mind to, including how to deal with your father.”

Mila wiped her tears and looked up at him with her big green eyes. “He might be my father, but I think you’re my dad.” 

She hugged him, burying her face in his shoulder. His shoulder that had always been there for her. 

She stood, pulling herself together to face her father with her dad faithfully behind her.

Abaddon was smiling devilishly when she entered. His smile meant that something was wrong. “I never finished. I told you I’m not here to kill you. I’m just the diversion.” 

Mila recoiled as the disgusting creature stood, bonds gone, only for his body to jerk violently. Mila screamed, shocked as she watched his lifeless body hit the ground hard. The world came crashing in around her. All of her training kicked in when the room imploded, as seven assassins jumped through the windows.

Her limbs moved in a blur, delivering strikers that were meant to maim, not paralyze. All meant to hurt, not kill. Within seconds it was over. Jamie was breathing heavily, his forearms shaking, slowing down from the momentum that took over him when he used his strength. A look passed between them. He turned to make a call. The arrest of so many assassins. But the question now, what would happen now that Abbadon was dead?

They took the time to talk about it at a lake, far away from society’s many calls, the guard, the assassins, the gifted. 

“What do you want to do with your life now? Go to college? Travel? You don’t need me to worry about you anymore, so I’ll probably go deeper undercover for the guard.”

Mila thought for a minute before answering. Before she had been opposed to becoming a guard, as she saw that there had to be something wrong with it if her father turned so violently away from it. But now she observed life with new vision. “I wanna build a house, and become a guard.”

Jamie smiled. “You should have fun with that.”

“Of course we will. There’s no way I’m going through the world without you. Besides, who is going to watch my back if you leave. Also, I wanna go back to Milan.”

Jamie smiled, resting his back on a strong oak, and staying happy in the fact that he would keep his daughter close to his heart.