I walked over to the front door, flipping the open sign around. The clock read 9pm. A noise erupted behind me, I turned. My eyes adjusted but didn't notice anything off. I walked calmly to the back of the store.
Gunshots whizzed past me as I passed the cash register. I immediately dropped to the ground. I snuck to the backdoor where the electrical panel sat on the back wall; I cut the lights, everything disappeared, his footsteps approached me.
I maneuvered myself behind him and kicked the back of his calf. I grabbed hold of his gun as he was off-balance. He spun around throwing an elbow at my head. I ducked, taking his pistol with me before fading back into the darkness.
His footsteps went quiet. My breath went silent; I crouched by the front door hiding the pistol in a bookshelf. I was curious if he had another pistol or not. Assassins are only told to bring one, but every seasoned assassin knows you have to bring another pistol just in case.
A shot rang out — I dove behind cover. The silence returned. I silently moved to another position. He approached my old position and shot several rounds into it. I charged him and shoved him into a bookshelf. He toppled over with the books as I snuck back into the shadows.
"Fuck," he said.
I crouched over to a new position. The sound of a blade being unsheathed filled the silence. I crouched near the bookshelf I threw him into, picked up his second pistol, then went back to the electrical panel and turned the lights back on.
I slowly approached him before he lunged at me with his knife aiming for my heart. I kept my distance, fixing the pistol on him.
He looked feral — jagged teeth — but underneath it was just a kid, maybe a couple years younger than me.
We stared at each other. I waited until his breathing steadied to speak.
"So, you're an assassin?" I asked to test the waters.
His expression turned to a sad one.
"If you're gonna kill me, just do it then," he said.
"What's your name?"
He sheathed his knife.
"Lucas."
"Lucas, you know you rely too much on these stupid things," I said before dropping the pistol onto the ground.
He watched it drop. Then he looked back up at my face.
"I…you're really not going to kill me?"
"Naw, I'm kind of sick of it," I said. "What do you want out of this life, Lucas?"
His eyes fell to the floor.
"I've always wanted…a father," he said.
I smiled at him as the words pierced my soul.
"Now, how is being an assassin going to help that goal?"
His eyes looked back up at mine.
"It isn't, I try to find it in every teacher I have…but…"
"But the teachers in the assassin's guild suck ass, right?"
A smile broke through and then a laugh. I laughed with him.
"Look," I said. "I want a family…and I want to be a father…so I will try and be a father figure for you…or like a brother I don't know," I said.
Tears started to dwell in his eyes. His head raised and he stared deep into my soul.
"Can…I hug you," he said.
I laughed.
"What the fuck. No dude…you just tried to kill me, and you still have a knife on you. I'm a nice guy but I'm not stupid," I said before kicking the pistol to a corner of the bookstore.
He threw his knife near the pistol and approached me. I stuck out my arm between us.
"You don't have any other weapons on you, right?"
He shook his head; I hugged him as he buried his head into my chest.
"Now, you're going to help me clean up this store, got it?"
"Yes, I'm so sorry I tried to kill you."
"It was a good try."
We both laughed and separated. We talked about our time in the assassin's guild as we picked the store up. The only thing we couldn't fix was the bullet holes in the wall, and the one in the bookshelf. I took the gun from the bookshelf and ended the night with a friend.