Coveted (The Last Assassin Series Book 1) Read online

  Coveted

  by

  Jack Alden

  ©Copyright 2017 – Jack Alden

  Original Source – by Jack Alden

  Kindle Edition – Build 9/20/2017

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the copyright owner, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine, or journal.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, brands, names, and events portrayed, referenced, or mentioned here are products of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously.

  Dedication

  To my wife, for your unwavering belief in me every time I doubted myself, and to my sister, for reading endless drafts with boundless enthusiasm and zero complaint.

  1

  The moon wakes me. It always does. Still high in the sky, gleaming in through the window. I stretch as far as my legs and arms will allow, curling my toes down so they pop. A quick glance around tells me everything is in its usual place.

  Beckham is a tiny human ball. His bed, more a pile of blankets than anything, is shoved into the corner, just across the room from mine. He smiles in his sleep, lopsided and coated in drool. He’s always been a happy kid. Only nine years old, he bears the physical trauma of a past he hardly remembers—an air raid when he was only two—but all that hurt never seemed to work its way down to his soul. The rest of us weren’t so lucky.

  It happened on a particularly sunny morning, warmer than usual so we had the windows open. The government-mandated alarm in the hallway had never gone off before. It screamed so violently my eyes watered, so violently Beck’s ears bled. Seconds later, all I could see was smoke. Dust. Suddenly, I wasn’t standing anymore. The windows were no longer open. They were gone.

  That was the day I learned what a Dobbitt bomb was. It hit just behind our house, made rubble and ruin of the back half, and left us reeling. My father and younger brother Juden were sifting through the mess when it exploded a second time. That was the genius of its design—double impact, the second of which cost us a father and a brother. And most of Beck’s hearing.

  Maybe he was too young to hold on to any of it the way I do. He plays and teases and laughs and doesn’t know the world is ugly. He doesn’t understand all the ways it has taken from us, all the ways it has bled us dry. He doesn’t remember the devastation. Maybe it’s better that way.

  The moon dips, the light a soft white-yellow, so I know it’s early; the sun only a couple hours from rising. The faint tinkering sounds from the kitchen confirm it. Mom always does her best tinkering when everyone else is sleeping—cleaning, cooking, and trying to fix things she doesn’t know how to fix.

  It’s warm in the kitchen, and the smell of bread makes my stomach growl. I see it toasting over the fire and all I can think about is getting my hands on it. I’m barely three steps over when Mom pops up from scrubbing the floor and starts in on me.

  “Prudence Dagger Leary, if you and your brother don’t start cleaning up after yourselves, I swear ….”

  This could go on for a while. My mother’s only source of distraction from all the things she wishes she could forget is to obsessively clean our already pristine shack of a home and pick at us about filth only she can see.

  “ …and just look at this trail of muddy boot tracks! I swear!”

  She never actually tells us what it is she’ll do, just swears she’ll do it and hopes the open-ended promise will scare the hair off our heads and the mud off our boots.

  “Sorry, Mom,” I say, and she softens a bit. She blows dark hair from her eyes and smooths her hands down the front of an apron she’s had longer than I’ve been alive. It’s a dingy off-white with a smiling chicken on the front. It’s so old, the chicken is half-worn and looks more demented than happy.

  I pour myself a cup of milk, close to souring. Mom probably bartered for it in the Market this morning before anyone other than the Slums were awake; probably traded one of her knitted scarves or hats for it. There’s always a mother or two stalking the Market alley with a few jugs, her children shivering and nearly frostbitten beside her. Stolen goods, undoubtedly, and always sold or traded for less than their actual worth. That’s the way it has to be down here. No one could afford anything otherwise, and milk is a precious commodity. Most of the livestock don’t survive the winters, which keeps the number of available milk sources at a bare minimum. Those that do survive belong to the few Gutter-rich who can afford heated stables and plenty of feed.

  Gutter-rich is a poor man’s wealthy, and it’s practically nonexistent compared to the city dwellers and government employees. The Gutter-rich don’t seem to know this. They strut around with their noses tipped up, asking for prices no one can afford, and call the Gutter the “Valley Sector” like they don’t actually live here at all; like the houses next door aren’t leaning into the ground.

  Just as I finish the last few drops of milk, I feel a familiar smack on the back of my head. Before I can even react, my older brother Tempest has me in a loose chokehold with one massive bicep and is using his other arm to tickle me into submission. I writhe and wriggle as he tackles me to the floor, but it’s no use. He’s taller than me, which makes him a giant, given I stand at nearly six feet myself, and he’s easily 220 pounds of pure muscle. I cave, and he rolls off of me, holding his stomach and laughing in his deep, echoing voice that so reminds me of our father’s.

  “You been working out, Dagger? S’all I could do to keep you pinned to that floor!”

  My brothers call me by my middle name, Dagger; the name my father chose for me. He said he chose it because the first minute he saw me, it was like a dagger to the heart. His knees went weak and he was hooked.

  My first name is Prudence. It was my grandmother’s name, my mom’s mom, and she was a handful. She despised my dad and basically everyone else too, but Mom was her pride and joy. When Grandma Pru died, it broke Mom’s heart, and she’s refused to call me anything but Prudence since.

  “Tempest Leary!”

  My mother’s half-cry sounds exhausted as she fusses over the rumpled kitchen rug. She barely gets another word out before Tempest is on his feet, wrapping her up in his arms. He plants big smacking kisses on her forehead as her feet dangle and dance off the floor. It distracts her long enough for me to dart upstairs and change into my gear.

  I hop from side to side as I wrestle into tight, black pants, then pull on my black, long-sleeved thermal shirt. Then, my weapons vest. It doesn’t provide much protection but an abundance of pockets is all I need. Finally, I yank on my boots—knee-high black leather, worn down but perfectly broken in and ridged for better traction. I pull my hair into a low ponytail, just behind my left ear, then head back down.

  My brother plops one last kiss to my mom’s cheek as he sets her down, and though she wears a small smile, she doesn’t look at either of us. She rarely makes eye contact with Tempest. Reminds her too much of Dad, I think. It must be painful to look into the face of a ghost each day, especially a ghost you haven’t been able to let go of for seven years.

  Tempest is ready to go the minute he sees I’m dressed. His gear is identical to mine, only quite a bit larger and made to carry and conceal different weapons. It isn’t in the best condition, but it’s all we could afford, and we had to barter a few pieces of Grandma Pru’s old valuables in order to pay for what we got. We felt bad about it, but our gear, as shabby and rudimentary as it is, is a must. We let Mom fuss over us for a minute before grabbing some toast and heading out the front door.

  ***<
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  Outside, Tempest and I ease around the house and into the back alley, keeping silent and staying in the shadows. It’s routine now. Alley by alley until we hit the valley edge and can slip away. Once outside the Gutter, we take off at a hard sprint toward the ridge. It’s about a mile, a little less, and we run the entire way, constantly trying to keep ahead of one another. Everything with Tempest and me is a competition.

  Tempest wears his signature crooked half-smile, a smile that always had someone close to fainting when we were still in school, not that he needed it. He’s never had any trouble attracting anyone. Six feet, five inches and packed with muscle from top to bottom. His long black hair falls in smooth waves around his hard-angled face, ending just past his shoulders. He’s always been considered a knockout, and he’s got the charm to match.

  Me, on the other hand? Eh. Charming would not be an accurate description.

  No one has ever had to wonder if we were related. Six-foot-tall with the same dark hair, the same charcoal eyes, the same high cheekbones, and the same brown skin; Tempest and I could pass for twins. And it’s not just the way we look. It’s the way we are. Similar facial expressions and reactions. The same dry sense of humor. Since we were kids, we could practically read each other’s minds, but Tempest has always had a way with people that has never come naturally to me. He’s lovable in a way that makes him feel solid and steady, the go-to guy in a crisis. Everyone in the Gutter loves him. I tend to fade more into the background.

  The ridge is still encased in shadow when we reach it, the first incline leading up to an old road that our people spent years carving into the side of the mountain. Grayish brown, rocky, and rough, it’s the road that used to connect the seven different sectors on the North Side. Now, it’s covered by debris and fallen rocks. Unsafe and unstable. No one ever comes out here anymore, and we’ve got new roads for travel, not that anyone’s ever coming or going down here. To the rest of the mountain, the Gutter is no man’s land.

  It’s not too bad of a climb, the ridge. Tempest and I have every rock and nook memorized, so we scale it with ease. I shoot past my brother, and he starts to laugh. He doesn’t hold a candle to me in speed. My body is flexible and lean, which makes me nimbler than him. He doesn’t even try to keep up.

  At the top, we make our way around the first rock ledge. It’s a narrow path and slick with loose rocks and dirt clods, so we stay close to the mountain wall as we inch around it. We keep our hands stretched wide from our sides, my right hand clasping Tempest’s left. It’s an agreement we made seven years ago when we started coming here without our father. If I were to slip and fall off the ledge, Tempest would already have my hand and be able to pull me back up to safety. If Tempest were the one to fall, we both know I could never lift his weight, but he insists he could help me pull him back onto the ledge as long as I don’t let go. I think it’s mostly for my protection, but Tempest knows I’m too proud to be some sort of damsel in distress who never contributes anything to a situation except the actual distress.

  Just at the end of the rock ledge is the jagged crack opening of the cave, made wider over the years by my father who hacked away at it so he could get equipment through. Once inside, the path augments, hollowed out through the years by rainwater erosion and the various artificial streams sculpted into the mountain. Each stream links to one of the massive aqueducts at the base of the mountain that carry water from sector to sector.

  Our steps echo in taps and splashes as we make our way along the damp cave floor to the pit. It’s the name my father gave to the center of the cave, the place where he collected training equipment he bartered for in the Market or salvaged from Central. Piece by piece. Deconstructed, snuck away in bits, then reconstructed in the pit where he trained us in secret. It’s against the law to train outside of Central.

  He started bringing Tempest here just after his eighth birthday, then me, then Juden, who turned eight just a few months before he died. After the raid, Tempest and I had to come alone. We haven’t been able to convince ourselves to bring Beck with us yet, even though he’s a year older than we were when we started. We had hoped by the time he was eight, we wouldn’t need the pit anymore. Wouldn’t need to train. We were wrong.

  “Just as we left it.”

  Tempest’s voice snaps me back to reality. I always tend to get lost in thought making the trek to the cave, usually thoughts of my father. Memories of him come and go now, some hazy to the point where I wonder if they really happened or if my mind invented them to fill up the empty spaces where real memories should be; lost somewhere in the years it took me to let go of what happened.

  Tempest remembers him the most. He was already thirteen when the bomb hit. Three years older than me. Three years of training in the pit before any of his siblings joined him, just him and Dad. He never talks about those years. I think he likes keeping them to himself, something that was only his and Dad’s.

  “Grab the rotator and bring it here.”

  The rotator was my dad’s gift to me, a large machine only Tempest is strong enough to actually lift. It had taken months for them to get every last, little piece up to the cave and reconstructed, but it was worth the wait. He started salvaging parts for it shortly after my ninth birthday when he realized just how fitting my name actually was.

  I have to slam my entire weight into the machine to push it across the floor and onto a figure-eight chalk outline. My father rigged an entire electrical system through the cave using an old generator he took from Central’s dumpster, so it only takes the flip of a switch to get the rotator going. A whirring sound fills the cave as the large circular panels painted with red targets start to rotate in figure-eight patterns, steadily gaining momentum.

  My heart kicks up, starts to pound.

  Tempest slings me a heavy pouch and says, “Strap up, Soldier!”

  Ten daggers of varying sizes and shapes. I quickly load each one into its corresponding pocket in my weapons vest and wait for Tempest to give the command. My mouth goes dry. I always get nervous right before the first throw but there’s nothing like this in the world. This is my element. This is my game, and I never lose.

  My brother reaches under the neckline of his thermal and pulls out a small inch-long pipe whistle that once belonged to my father. He keeps it tied to a chain around his neck, even when sleeping. Tempest places the tip of the whistle between his lips. I close my eyes as he holds up three fingers, signifying the countdown. I take a breath, center myself, and open my eyes again.

  Two fingers.

  One.

  The whistle screams in a high-pitched echo that pings around the cave. Before Tempest even parts his lips to take a breath, three small Kishi daggers are all point-deep in the center of the smallest rotating target. Small, smooth-cut daggers, made to appear blunt but sharper than most throwing knives. Bent and ridged at the handle for better grip. The best thing about Kishi daggers, though? Solid black, butt to tip. Difficult, if not impossible, to see in the dark. The only thing that gives away the speeding approach of a Kishi is the faint high-pitched squeal it makes as it cuts through the air, but an untrained ear would never notice.

  Knife-throwing is a dead art. Because it requires a solid inner focus, keen senses, patience, and a particularly steady hand, the Elders believed and still believe it to be a genetic skill, something passed down among generations. There hasn’t been a trainee on either side of the mountain who has shown a certain affinity for the art of blades in decades, and as such, both sides have ceased training in both the combat as well as the defense of the art, which means untrained ears everywhere.

  The last great team of throwers known to any of us exists only in our history books. They called them POINT, a team of highly skilled, highly secretive assassins who specialized in the art of blades during the End War, a decades-long war that ultimately decimated over ninety-five percent of the world’s population. What made them legends? A rare genetic mutation that gave them enhanced abilities, and specialized dagge
rs, known as Vipers, that were designed by an underground team of scientists and assigned to each assassin. No one knows how, but it’s said that POINT assassins could link psychically with their Vipers, and that no one but they or someone in their bloodline with the same genetic mutation could use them. It made them damn-near indestructible.

  Most people talk about them now as if they’re a myth, even our teachers. Just some story someone made up a long time ago to make us ooh and awe over an invaluable genetic code that doesn’t exist and never did. But my dad believed it. He swore by it, because most of the members of POINT died in the war. Two, however, survived. One of them was our ancestor, Deling Leary.

  “Kishis. Why am I not surprised?” Tempest nods. “S’not bad.”

  “Not bad?”

  Tempest shakes his head. “Let’s not blow your ego up just yet. Ready for some heat?”

  A mischievous grin, and not two seconds later, his enormous fist slings out from behind his back sending two medium-sized hunting knives soaring straight in my direction. Before I even have time to think, my body reacts.

  I sprint to the left and leap. My feet connect hard with the cave wall. With a few quick steps and a push, I scale the wall just enough to jolt myself off in a backflip. Mid-air, I thrust my hands below my head and catch the butts of the knives in each hand with a thump. I hear my brother already laughing and applauding as my feet hit the ground. Whipping my body around. My arms, at full extension from my sides, spiral through the air, and mid-spin, I give my wrists a hard, familiar flick. Both knives rip through the air, landing each one in the two outermost targets on the rotator.

  “Hot damn, little sister!” Tempest walks over and stands next to me, taking in my handiwork as I catch my breath. “Only seventeen and already passed up your big brother. Central would be hurting for you if they knew what you could do. No doubt about it.”