"I can't believe this."
The words escaped Kira's lips. She stood motionless at her bedroom window, her fingertips pressed against the cool glass. The curtains hung half-drawn, creating a mix of shadow and light that painted across her face.
Three days. Three agonizing days since the amusement park incident, and still her hands trembled whenever she closed her eyes.
Until now, she could hear the echo of gunshots reverberating through her dreams, feel the weight of that ridiculous bunny costume clinging to her skin even though she had long since abandoned it.
It was not always like this. She had never felt all this trauma during the event, nor immediately after. It was only when she returned home that day that the true brutality of the entire event dawned on her.
Along with the hunch she felt that it was only the beginning. No, especially the hunch she felt that it was only the beginning.
"Kira, dear."
A woman's voice, aged like fine wine, cut through her reverie.
Kira's mother sat perched on the edge of the unmade bed. Her skin, weathered slightly, was clear evidence that she was in her fifties.
"You still haven't told us what's going on," she continued, her voice carrying that particular blend of gentleness and worry. "And don't you dare say it's nothing again. I've been watching you for three days, sweetheart.
"You jump at every sound, you barely eat, and you haven't left this room except to use the bathroom."
Kira felt her throat tighten, the weight of her mother's concern settling on her mind. How could she possibly explain? How could she tell this woman—who still believed her daughter's biggest worry was whether the circus would earn enough to pay rent—that she'd been used as human bait in an assassin's deadly game?
That she'd watched a man die mere inches from her face? That somewhere out there, a killer named Vexis knew every detail about their family, their address, their vulnerabilities?
"It's nothing, Mom," she whispered, lying through her teeth. "Everything is okay now."
But even as the words left her mouth, Kira knew they rang hollow. Her mother's expression told her that the deception had failed spectacularly.
"Oh, Kira." Her mother's voice cracked slightly, the way it always did when her heart was breaking for one of her children.
She rose from the bed, approaching Kira in the small room in three steps. Her weathered hands gently held Kira's trembling arms.
"If everything is okay, then why are you worried sick? Why do you look like you haven't slept in weeks? And don't tell me your trembling hands are due to my imagination." Her mother's thumb traced gentle circles on Kira's forearm.
"Don't keep things hidden from me, sweetheart. I'm still your mother, and I'm here to help. Whatever it is, we'll face it together."
The kindness in her voice nearly shattered Kira's walls. For a moment, she nearly couldn't hold herself back from confessing, imagining the relief that would come from finally sharing the burden.
But then again, using her rational mind, she knew telling her mom would only cause unnecessary worry. All of it was over already; she only needed to handle her trauma and that was all.
"Trust me, Mom," she managed, forcing her lips into what she hoped resembled a reassuring smile. "There's nothing to worry about. I'm just... I'm still recovering from the trauma of a really recent event. All I need is time, believe me."
She pulled away from her mother's embrace—not because she wanted to, but because the warmth was making her want to crumble, and she couldn't afford to crumble.
"I will be back to peak condition." The words felt foreign in her mouth. She reached out and gently pinched her mother's cheek, a gesture that had always made the older woman smile. "All I need is time, and I believe this hunch will be gone."
But the moment the word 'hunch' left her mouth, Kira knew she'd made a massive error.
"Did you just say a hunch?" Her mother's voice rose an octave, disbelief coloring every word. Her eyes widened with clear terror. "Did I hear you correctly? A hunch?"
'Oh, shit.' Kira's internal monologue kicked into overdrive as she realized what she had allowed to slip out of her tongue.
Of all the words she could have chosen, why did it have to be that one? Kira's hunches were legendary—and legendarily accurate.
She'd had a hunch the morning her father left for what would be his final business trip. She'd had a hunch the day before her grandmother's heart attack. She'd had a hunch about the apartment fire that had made them homeless for three months when she was twelve.
Her mother was aware of her hunch's high chance of occurring.
"A good or bad hunch?" Her mother pressed, stepping closer. "Which is it, Kira? Because you know as well as I do that your feelings about these things are never wrong."
There was no backing down now. Kira could see the fear creeping into her mother's expression, the way her hands had begun to twist the fabric of her worn apron.
"Bad hunch, obviously!" she replied, injecting as much casual dismissal into her voice as possible.
She stood up from the bed with deliberately exaggerated movements, stretching her arms above her head and letting out a yawn. "But it's not a big deal, really."
But even as she tried to minimize it, she could see her mother's face growing paler. The older woman took an instinctive step backward, one hand rising to clutch at her chest.
"But Kira," her mother whispered, the words tumbling out of her mouth, "you know your hunches are always right! Always!"
"You see, Mother?" Kira interrupted, moving toward her dresser with what she hoped looked like nonchalant confidence. "This is exactly the reason why I told you everything is alright. You overreact to everything and make even the most insignificant things seem like some sort of big deal."
She grabbed her towel from where it hung on the back of her single armchair.
"I'm already an adult, Mom," she continued, the words carrying a slight edge of frustration that she didn't entirely have to fake. "Do I still need to remind you of this every day, like I've been doing for the past two years? The hunch will fade away soon. Believe me."
But her mother wasn't buying it. If anything, the dismissal seemed to fuel her worry rather than quell it. She followed Kira across the small room.
"Except I'm not finding any reason to believe you," she said sharply, her voice taking on that no-nonsense tone that had terrified Kira as a teenager. "This hunch has been pestering you for three days now, Kira. Three days! And it started the same day as that incident at the amusement park."
"The same day there were gunshots and people were hurt and—oh God—you were working there that day, weren't you? Do you know something that we don't? Don't you think it's only reasonable if you share?"
The question hung in the air between them. Kira could feel her mother's gaze boring into her as she halted just after entering the bathroom.
"I am not a kid, Mom!" The words exploded from Kira's mouth with more force than she'd intended.
She spun around inside the bathroom, her movements sharp and angry. "I can handle my own problems!"
The slam of the bathroom door reverberated through the small apartment like a gunshot, and Kira immediately winced just after doing so. Just for a moment there, she was reminded of the gunshot from that day at the amusement park.
She pressed her back against the door and slid down until she was sitting on the cold tile floor, her face buried in her hands.
Her bath stretched on far longer than usual, the hot water doing little to wash away the invisible stains that seemed to cling to her skin. Steam fogged the mirror, obscuring her reflection—a good thing, since she wasn't sure she could bear to look at herself right now.
'What if Vexis was lying? What if this wasn't over? What if those other assassins he'd killed had friends, colleagues, people who would come looking for answers? What if—'
"Stop it," she whispered to herself, pressing her forehead against the cool shower wall. "Stop it, stop it, stop it."
But her mind wouldn't obey. It kept returning to those terrifying moments when she'd been surrounded by armed killers, when children had clung to her legs while red laser sights painted bull's-eyes across her body.
The memory of Vexis's cold smile as he deflected that bullet haunted her—not because he'd saved her life, but because of how effortless it had seemed for him. Like some casual routine.
How many times had he done something like that before? How many people had he killed with those same casual, precise movements?
Eventually, the water began to run cold, forcing her back to reality. She went through her morning routine with monotone precision—brushing her teeth like a robot, combing her hair until it lay flat and lifeless against her skull, staring at her reflection in the now-clear mirror and seeing a stranger looking back.
She looked like someone who was slowly drowning while everyone around her remained unaware.
She felt like remaining in her bed for eternity, however, routine was routine, and Kira had always found comfort in her daily exercises, which finally gave her a reason to get back to her feet.
Being a member of a still-growing circus troupe meant maintaining peak physical condition was not just a hobby, but a necessity.
She dropped to the floor and began her usual exercises: fifty sit-ups, followed by fifty push-ups, then a series of stretches that would have impressed even a top gymnast.
Her circus colleagues were used to seeing her work out—in their line of work, everyone was expected to maintain a certain level of fitness.
They were quite confident that if she ever tried to compete on a worldwide scale in athletic competitions, she would definitely leave a lasting impression on everyone.
But being confident in her abilities and actually getting the opportunity to showcase them were two entirely different things.
Life, it seemed, had a sense of humor that wasn't so good when it came to Kira's dreams.
She'd tried to apply to colleges for athletes on several occasions, carefully writing applications that would showcase her specialty and uniqueness.
Rejection letters had arrived for every single one, so fast that they barely took hours when it should have taken weeks or more.
She'd attempted to join official athletic organizations, attending tryouts and showcases while hoping that someone would recognize her potential. Unfortunately for her, it had always been as if the world was blind.
Things hardly ever went her way.
Among all the attempts she'd made to progress in life, only the circus had welcomed her with open arms. But even that victory felt insignificant most days.
The circus itself wasn't much to be proud of—they were more of a collection of misfits and dreamers who mostly performed for scanty crowds and barely earned enough.
They were what could be described as an entire troupe built on failures.
Their main source of income came from amusement park performances, exactly like the one that had gone so horribly wrong three days ago.
Sometimes Kira would dress up in animal or superhero costumes, performing tricks and stunts to impress innocent children and hopefully encourage their parents to drop a coin into the collection hat.
On good days, she might come away with enough profit to sustain the entire squad for a whole week.
The other members of her circus were just like a different version of her or even worse, which was both quite a letdown, but oddly comforting. At least she wasn't alone in her struggles. At least she was surrounded by people who understood what it meant to chase dreams that always seemed so far away and remained out of reach.
"I can't keep living like this," she muttered to herself, glancing at her wristwatch as she wiped off the sweat on her forehead from her workout. "But I don't have a choice."
Quarter past twelve. She needed to get out of the apartment, needed to move, needed to do something—anything—to stop her mind from overthinking.
"I better go blow off some steam outside," she decided, reaching for her sneakers. She was already dressed in workout attire, having lived in exercise clothes most of the time since the incident.
For the first time in three days, or rather, for the first time since that nightmarish day at the amusement park—she was venturing outside.
The thought should have been comforting since it meant improvement, but instead it filled her with anxiety that made her palms sweat as she laced up her sneakers.
She'd kept her mouth shut about everything that had happened, knowing that silence was not just the best course of action—it was the only course of action.
There was no one who had seen her face during the incident except for the children, and she'd managed to convince them that it had all been a performance to be shown on TV.
The authorities wouldn't be questioning children about what they thought was a staged show, and the media coverage had focused on the mysterious gunfight and the mysterious part of the event rather than identifying any civilians who might have been involved.
She should be safe. She should be anonymous. She should be able to resume her normal life and pretend that none of it had ever happened.
She knew all of this, so why did she feel like she was being watched?
Taking a deep breath, she assumed her usual pre-jog stance outside the apartment building, stretching her left leg backwards.
Then, she set out at a moderate pace, her breathing quickly falling into the steady pattern.
The neighborhood around her family's apartment was where people minded their own business and asked few questions. Perfect for someone who needed to blend into the background.
*Huff.*
'I told the children we were simply acting in a movie,' she thought just moments after she began jogging.
*Huff.*
"I promised them they'd get to watch the whole thing on TV."
*Huff.*
"I can't believe I pulled off such nonsense."
Despite everything, a small chuckle escaped her lips as she continued her internal monologue. The lie she told those kids had been absurd, spoken out of desperation to save them, but somehow it had worked.
Children were willing to believe in magic with their pure, kind hearts.
"Bet they wouldn't have expected to see me on the news," she murmured to herself, knowing that all the children would have seen were unknown, unnamed victims in a crime report on the exact amusement park.
She approached a busy junction then slowed her pace as she prepared to wait for the pedestrian signal.
The street was alive with the usual urban atmosphere: car engines, distant sirens, the chatter of other people going about their daily lives.
Normal sounds.
Safe sounds.
Sounds that had nothing to do with gunfire or death or cold-blooded assassins.
"Kira!"
The voice cut through the noise like a knife, freezing her blood in her veins. It came from behind her, male and familiar in a way that made every fiber in her body scream warnings.
She knew that voice. She knew it with the same bone-chilling clarity that she knew her own name, even though she'd only heard it for a single day of her life.
"The assassin," she whispered, the words barely audible even to herself.
Her head whipped around, eyes wide and scanning the crowd behind her for that figure she'd hoped never to see again. But in her panic, she didn't realize when she began to back away.
Her foot caught on an uneven piece of rock that shouldn't have been on the ground, sending her stumbling forward just as the pedestrian light changed and traffic began moving.
"No no no." The words tumbled from her lips as she realized that she was about to stumble directly into the path of moving vehicles.
A delivery truck was heading straight for her, its driver's eyes widening in horror as he realized there was no way to stop in time, given the speed he had already started moving with.
This was it. This was how it ended—not at the hands of some assassin in a dramatic showdown, but in a stupid accident caused by her own fear and clumsiness.
She was going to die because she'd panicked at the sound of a voice that probably belonged to some random stranger who just happened to know her name or something along those lines.
"Watch out!"
Strong hands grabbed her around the waist, yanking her backward with enough force to lift her feet completely off the ground. She felt herself being pulled back to the sidewalk just as the delivery truck roared past, close enough that she could feel the displacement of air against her face.
Her rescuer's momentum carried them both several steps back on the sidewalk for utmost safety before stopping.
"Are you nuts? What were you thinking?" The voice spoke again, but now she could hear it more clearly, without panic distorting her perception.
It wasn't the emotionless tone of the assassin who had controlled her like a puppet three days ago. This voice carried genuine concern, familiar warmth, and a tone that she'd known for months.
It was Zach's voice. Her colleague from the circus.
Relief flooded through her so suddenly that her knees nearly buckled, almost causing her to fall to the ground. She pulled back to look at him, taking in his concerned brown eyes and his messy dark hair.
"I'm... I'm sorry," she stammered, her voice shaking with embarrassment and relief. "It's just... a little trauma, believe me. I thought you were someone else for a second there."
"Hey, it's okay," he said gently, keeping one steadying hand on her arm as if he was afraid she might fall again. "We've all been on edge since what happened at the park the other day. That was some seriously scary stuff."
"Oh, and by the way," Zach continued, his tone shifting back to something more businesslike. "Actually, there's a reason why I came looking for you. Marcus called a meeting—wants all of us to get together today in about two hours.
I came to let you know since you haven't been answering your phone."
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