The Runaway Assassin

Introduction

They say there are things death cannot touch. They say there are memories grief cannot corrupt.

They say that love is eternal as long as you remember. They say family lasts forever and more.

They say one is never truly alone

But is that really true?

The McHamons were a proud, humble and modest family. There weren’t many families in England that were as self-sufficient as these young, talented people. In a manor like no other in the country side of Oxford lived the very few McHamons. The business mastermind, Andrew Alan McHamon was the head of the family. His son, the charming and influential son Carlos Andrew McHamon lived here as well with his wife, the beautiful idol sensation Carla McHamon. But the most curious of the McHamons was Carlos and Carla’s little angel.

Shirley Sebastian McHamon was a beauty the world had not seen before. With the brilliant mind of her grandfather, the charms of her Father and the beauty of both her parents, she was truly a sight to see.

They were a small but an old family with a big name, as people would often say. The McHamons had made their name in every country of the world. May it be any industry, from software to entertainment, they ruled over it all. With properties all over the world, they indeed lived up to their name.

The English Royalties

Tonight, the family sat in Shirley’s room in the McHamon Manor. Carlos and Andrew told her a story while performing it out for her entertainment while the little nine-year-old laughed and giggled. Her Mother smiled at them from the table where she was packing her daughters school bag.

“Mother, is it true that faeries have ears like elves and that they are wingless? I, for one, do not believe that they cannot lie.”

“Your Father has a wild imagination, doesn’t he?”

Carlos laughed and tickled her daughter, “You know, mi hija, that faeries really despise it when little girls refuse to believe their Fathers”

“Too bad. Isn’t it?” Shirley replied wittily which made Andrew laugh. Shirley smiled at him as he ruffled her hair, “You’re going to Mexico again tomorrow?” she asked her Father

Carlos pressed his lips together and glanced at his wife once before saying, “I’m sorry, cariño, but it’s unavoidable.”

Shirley pouted slightly, “You say that every single time, Father”

“I know. And I mean it every single time when I say that I’m sorry that we leave. But we all have our duties, don’t we?”

Shirley nodded. Andrew looked at the time, “You should all rest now, it’s awfully late.”

“Yes Father” Carlos replied. Andrew kissed Shirley’s forehead once before exiting the room. Carlos brushed a hand against his daughter’s cheek. “I don’t have to if you don’t want us to go. I could cancel everything if you tell me to, my dear.”

Carlos never said no to his only daughter. No matter how much his wife or Father told him that he was horribly spoiling Shirley, he just couldn’t stop himself from not spoiling her. He loved her too much to see even a frown on her face much less a tear. Never in her life had Shirley ever cried over something except that she may have physically hurt herself. Which itself would be no more than a miracle when she was always with her bodyguard. Never had Carlos given her an opportunity to feel any sadness or anger in her life. He had raised her as if she was the most priceless diamond in the world but one which might break if he didn’t fulfil her every wish no matter how big or small.

But if Carlos was ready to sacrifice anything or everything for her, Shirley also never asked for anything that might be bothersome for her Father. She laughed once and held her Father’s hand to her cheek, “I don’t think your duty is to postpone important events, Father”

Carlos smiled and took her in her arms, “I don’t know what I’ll ever do without you, mi hija. I might be the luckiest father in the world to have a daughter like you. I love you so much. You know that, right? You know that I love you more than anyone can love someone, right?”

“I do.”

“Never doubt that, my angel.”

Like every night, Carlos and Carla sang Shirley to sleep and stayed beside her for many minutes to come. Carlos brushed his hand lightly in Shirley’s hair while Carla smiled at them, “I’ve always said that you spoil her way too much, mi amor”

“What can I do, Carla? I just don’t ever want to lose her. Not her too” he shook his head and bore his blue eyes into Carla’s hazel ones, “I don’t want any sadness or discomfort to ever corrupt her. I want nothing but happiness in her life. I want to give her all the happiness I can before it’s too late.”

Carla reached over to take her husband’s hand, “Don’t talk like that.”

“No one has seen tomorrow. You know better than anyone, love, that the life of a McHamon is short and often filled with resentment and guilt.” Carlos looked at his wife with promises in his electric blue eyes, “I want us to be an exception. I want Shirley to be an exception. I want to see how my little angel grows. What she grows up to be. I want see her be just like you, Carla, rather than becoming like me.”

Carla shook her head and cupped Carlos’s cheek. She still remembered her husband’s darker days. Like the day she had met him at the bridge, looking like the sad ending of a ballad with eyes screaming of heartbreak and face void of emotion. Carla remembered, always will. But right then, she focused in those blue eyes that were so alike her daughter. The bright blue with tinges of silver. A dance of electricity with the hottest blue fire,

“There is nothing wrong with you, mi amor,” She assured as he brushed her fingertips on the front of his sleek black hair.

Carlos smiled for her sake, leaning into her fingers, but deep inside he was still eaten up by his past guilt. His past mistakes and there were little he wouldn’t do to just get one last chance to fix everything. To make everything right again.

“Everything will be alright,” Carla assured.

Carlos wished he believed that as well.

The following morning the McHamons went to the McHamon hanger to bid the Carlos and Carla good bye. Little Shirley pulled on her best brave smile for the sake of her parents even though she felt sad inside that her parents were leaving. The Cessna which was supposed to take the couple to Mexico City was being fueled while the family said their farewells.

“Have everything you need?” Andrew asked worriedly

Carlos smiled and embraced his Father, “You don’t need to worry, Father. We’ll be back as soon as we can”

Andrew nodded and patted Carla’s hand, “Take care of each other, both of you. Give Vladimir my regards as well”

“We will, Father” Carla assured with a gentle smile.

The two of them looked at their little daughter. They both knew she was trying hard not to cry for their sakes and went over to take her in their arms. She hugged them back and blinked out a single tear but that tear cut a knife straight to Carlos’s heart.

“You’ll be alright” He asked her worriedly and she gave him a nod while wiping at her eye, “Are you sure?” he asked again and this time Shirley smiled.

“Do your duty, Father, and I’ll do mine. Deal?”

Carlos smiled. When had his little angel grown up to be so supportive, understanding and clever, he had no idea. But what he did know was that his daughter was destined for great things. Things that he had failed to accomplish. She would accomplish them all for him.

And Carlos only prayed that he would be there to witness it all.

Carla was telling Shirley to not make trouble for Andrew, to go to bed early, to not eat too many chocolates and other motherly concerns. Carlos watched both of them affectionately and he felt as if his life was full.

Though it never would when a piece of his soul was missing.

“Promise me, Shirley, to never run away from your duty. To never give up a fight when you’ve started it. To keep fighting till the very end. Not for I, not for your name, but for yourself” Carlos cupped his daughter’s cheek as she smiled.

“Promise, Father,”

Carlos and Carla hugged their family one last time before boarding on the plane. Andrew places his arm around his granddaughter and they both waved their beloveds good bye with bright smile as the plane disappeared into the clouds.

In the jet, Carlos looked out the window with a strange melancholy in his yes. He thought about the letter he had given to his best man Xavier Alexander to give to Shirley when she was thirteen if something was to happen to him. He hadn’t told anyone of the letter. Not his Father. Not even his wife.

But he desperately wished Alex would never have to hand the letter to Shirley. That he would take it back like he had taken away all the others letters he ever left to him for Shirley.

Two days later was their last night in the Sebastian Hacienda. It was wasn’t much of a hacienda but more of a castle. A very old, very sacred property of the McHamons. One they took great pride in owning. Carlos was very glad as he sat in his room looking at his email while Carla brushed her hair. He had survived the meeting. He could finally return to his daughter. He hoped she would like the doll set he had bought for her.

He was very optimistic.

Until the window, which was supposed to be unbreakable, broke. In swung a boy. The boy couldn’t be more than sixteen. He was handsome in a cruel way. In ways only forbidden objects would. His hair was disheveled over his light brown eyes which glared at Carlos with a sort of dirty malice in them as if he had spent years hating Carlos. They spoke of battles and wars. Of expectations and sin. The brown eyes were lidded by long, almost feminine eyelashes, as alert as a predator. His smile was no less of hate incarnate, not a fleck of humor or humanity visible in the cruel demeanor.

Carlos could recognize such eyes anywhere.

“Hands in the air, McHamon,” the boy ordered in a voice Carlos had heard all too many times before. The voice so similar to his enemies, “Thomas,” Carlos hissed.

“Armando Valeria Thomas, actually,” Armando replied, “You see, hotshot, I just broke out of Juvie and am kinda pissed at the moment because I used my last anti-bulletproof bullets and they cost a fortune,”

“What do you want?”

“Straight to the point, eh? I like that. Well let’s see….” he took out a gun from behind his back and pointed it at him, “There isn’t honestly much that I want, old man. Your life would be plenty. Ever heard this? An eye for an eye? Know what that means?” his smile completely disappeared, “It means revenge. It means to kill when someone else kills those you love. You killed my brothers, didn’t you?”

“Because they were stealing from us”

“Bullshit. Thomases do not steal”

“You Thomases have always stolen. Always shown what sort of monsters you are. Stealing and killing to get what you can’t achieve through civilized manner,”

“I’d watch my tongue if I were you,” Armando growled.

Carlos smirked, “It’s always the truth that hits hardest, Armando Valeria Thomas.”

Armando slithered around Carlos. Too fast for him to stop him. Within the second, he had his arm locked around Carla’s neck, a pistol pointed at her temple and he faced Carlos, “Scream, and she dies. Call for help, she dies.”

Carlos let out a hiss which was barely human, “I’ve always said that Thomases are bunch of cowards,”

“And I’ve always said that McHamons are a bunch of losers.” Armando set those sinful eyes on Carlos’s wife and his blood began to boil. He pressed the pistol harder in Carla’s temple.

Carlos’s winced, “Armando, she has nothing to do with any of this. Please. Please just let her go and I’ll do anything you’ll ask. I promise.”

“Resorting to begging, are we McHamon?” Armando scowled, “I was only seven, you know. Younger than your oh-so-precious daughter. And I watched you slaughter my brothers like a sack of meat. And you still have the audacity to ask for mercy? Aren’t you pathetic?” he gave out a harsh laugh, “Besides, killing the people your enemies love is the best way to make them weak. My brother taught me that.”

“Please, I’m begging you,” Carlos cried. He felt his voice break and hate choke his throat, bubble up like an acid, “I swear I’ll do anything.”

“Oh yeah?” Armando raised a delicate eyebrow, “Bring back my brothers,” he ordered and Carlos couldn’t reply.

“Please,” Carlos whispered.

Armando hummed in satisfaction, the sound grazed Carlos like a caress given by a knife, “Begging is nice. I like it when people beg. It adds to the fun,”

“Honey, run” Carla pleaded, “Go back to her. Go back to her, mi amor. She will need you. She needs you.”

“She needs you as much as she would need me!” Carlos snapped back. Carlos, the man who could make people cower with a single glare, went on his knees in front of the teenager, “Please. I beg you. Let her go. Take me instead, Armando. Take me!”

The boy laughed a laugh which should not have belonged to a sixteen-year-old, “Impatient aren’t you?” he sneered as he traced a dagger across Carla’s forehead and blood seeped through the straight line

“Please, stop it,” Carlos whispered, “I beg of you, Thomas. Let her be. Let her go and you can take me,”

“That’s exactly what I wanted to hear.”

With that Armando pulled the trigger

Carlos couldn’t even scream as he watched the bullet crash into his wife’s head and spill her blood. He felt his body give out and his will and strength abandon. He knew he had to run. He knew he should get back to the daughter he loved so much. To go and fulfil her every wish. Give her gifts.

But all he felt was numbness and death.

“Ah, I made a mess,” Armando smirked and pointed the gun which had killed his wife at Carlos, “Die, McHamon”

Armando deliberately did not shoot any vital part of Carlos so that he would die slowly. Painfully. But Carlos felt no pain at all as if all of it had been directed to his heart where he felt an ache he had never felt before. Tears flooded his eyes and he couldn’t even move to wipe them. He thought of everything he had missed. Left behind now that he was dying. His daughter. Her graduation. Her happiness. Her wedding. He had left her with nothing.

Blood seeped out from everywhere but Carlos barely registered it. He wanted to get up and call for help but he couldn’t move. So lay there silently sobbing at his fate. At the punishment he was getting for not fulfilling his duty.

He smiled. The irony. He probably deserved this. He prayed that Shirley would be happy. That she would find the happiness he had snatched from her at such a tender age. That she could grow up and find a man to look after her.

That she would live long and be happy

He was barely aware of the man with wet green eyes looking at him, holding him and crying, his sandy hair touching Carlos’s forehead.

“A-Alex?” he croaked

Alex was crying, a sight Carlos had not seen often, “I’m sorry, C-Carlos. I’m sorry I’m late. I’m so sorry, my friend, I-I’ve-”

“Listen to me, Alex” Carlos whispered, “You have to- have to promise me that- that you will look after- after my angel. That you will- keep her safe. Keep her- happy.”

“Carlos……”

“Promise me, Alex” he said fiercely, “that you will keep her alive as long as you can. That you will not inflict her with her responsibility until she is thirteen. That-that she might never feel the absence of her Father’s love. The one who loved her- so very much”

Alex took his best friend’s hand, “I promise, Carlos. I promise.”

Carlos let out a sigh. Not because he was relieved but because he had lost and had accepted that there was nothing he could do. No matter how much he didn’t want to, he was going.

Carlos looked at his best friend, his best man, one last time. Tears flowing still from his electric blue eyes as he smiles brightly and it froze. With the ghost of his last smile still etched on his pale face, Carlos Andrew Sebastian McHamon took his last breath

Alexander, the head of Wasp agency leaked out the news that Carlos and Carla McHamon had died in a plane crash. To make the news believable, he even made the plane to fly in the air, controlled from outside, and blasted it.

When the doorbell had rung that day, little Shirley had giggled while she ran up to the doors and pushed them open with her little hands, hoping to see her Father kneel down to her and pick her up, swing her around before taking her in his arms while her Mother kissed her forehead and she would laugh, feeling like a little Princess.

“Mother! Father……….”

But in the door stood a man she had never seen before. The man had eyes of secret-green with vines of suspicion-brown, summoning walls over them to keep away anyone who tried to pry out his secrets. His hair were the color of a summertime beach, brushed neatly from the middle with fringes curtaining those intriguing eyes that Shirley was having an urge to touch, just to see if they were as cold as they looked.

“And how may I help you?” Shirley asked of the man as she slightly hid behind the door, not liking the man’s intense gaze as if he had waited years to just stand there in front of her. His eyes softened by the minutest fraction as he bowed his head.

“Is your grandfather at home?” I nodded.

The man nodded back and showed himself inside as if he had been in the house many times before. Shirley watched with a growing unease as the man made his way up the stairs and towards Abuelo’s office. Not having to help herself, she followed up after a few minutes. She stood in front of the great burgundy sliding doors from behind she could hear her grandfather’s loud voice. Something she had never witnessed before.

“You’re telling me my….. My son….. My only son….. Is dead? Is that what you’re saying, Alexander!” Abuelo yelled and Shirley’s whole body went rigid.

“I’m sorry, Andrews,”

Alex opened the door to find the little girl looking up at him like a scared kitten. Rooted at place, eyes streaming with silent tears, her mouth parted as if she had forgotten how to speak. Her eyes, the eyes of her Father, burned with so much agony that it was a miracle Alex hadn’t crumbled under them. He couldn’t even stop her as she ran away.

Shirley was told her parents died in a plane crash. But of course, Andrew didn’t believe him for a second. Alex had no choice but to tell the grieving Father the truth and it almost failed the old man’s heart. His son, his beautiful son was dead, how was he supposed to live with that? And Shirley? The girl who had never even imagined to ever live without her parents, how was she going to look after the grieving old man whose pain she might never be able to take away?

For days her sobs echoed in the now morose halls of the manor as the whole household mourned their masters. The ghost of grief hasn’t left it even now, dancing morosely in the halls, crying out a heart wrenching lament, and even though little Shirley hated crying, she couldn’t keep in her tears any longer. Absolutely nothing comforted her.

But she did not cry at the funeral. Not because she couldn’t but because she couldn’t afford to show weakness. Her Father would not have wanted his sole heir to look weak in front of all his colleagues. Instead, Shirley put on a brave face. An accepting face while her heart was still in denial, curling around itself as if that might numb the pain.

It didn’t.

She addressed each one of her Father’s clients confidently and without hesitation, listening patiently to their futile condolences, wondering if they were even sad that the greatest man she ever knew was dead.

“It’s okay to cry, angel” she was barely aware of her grandfather’s arms and his tender voice as she watched the diggers put dirt on her parents’ grave, “You can cry all you want but remember to never give a reason to those who envy you to harm you or manipulate you. Never show them weakness. You’ll have to be stronger than you have ever been, mi querida. But you can always cry in my arms, mi hija, and I will hold you until you feel better.”

Andrew watched his granddaughter with a sense of unease and concern. He loved her more than his own children. He wouldn’t bear watching her look so brave and confident when he knew how broken, vulnerable and empty she really felt. Little Shirley was beyond grief, Andrew knew that well. He vowed that the least he could do for his son was prepare his daughter for her destiny. To never let her feel weak ever again. He took it upon himself to train her to succeed and to survive.

The McHamons didn’t believe in weakness but they knew grief like a friend. For them, grief consumed all and death corrupted all. They held their hands tightly to keep themselves on their toes. To never indulge in mundane things as trust. Love was a menace and families were short. But this was how the sober rituals of grief descended on the two McHamons who were now coping to live alone in a world they never wanted to witness.

This was the beginning of Shirley’s new life. The telltale of how her life became from a palette of bright colors to a shade of monochrome. How the mighty fell and made way for something she didn’t recognize.

Rage. Fury.

Revenge.