I stood up from my chair and indicated that Mary should move to the other side of the room, where my bed was. She walked slowly with her hands in the air as a form of surrender. I had always found that to be a stupid gesture, but then again, I was taught not to beg for my life. I sat back down at my desk and crossed my legs, allowing the gun to hang in my left hand.

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you.” I said to her. I might have seemed calm on the outside but I was dying on the inside.

“A-aren’t we friends, Nelu?” Mary had tears running down her face. Her normally pale doll-like face finally had some life to it. I knew that if I kept this up too long I might break and let her live.

“Is that a good enough reason?”

“I won’t tell anybody about this. I swear.” She had started begging for her life. I wasn’t sure if this was breaking me or annoying me.

“I wasn’t sent here to become friends with you Mary. I was sent here to kill you.” The look of confusion on her face nearly killed me. “So whether you promise to take this to the grave with you or not doesn’t matter. You’re dead either way.”

“Why? Who would what me dead?”

“That’s not my problem, Mary. I’m just an assassin who gets paid to get rid of people. And you are next.”

“Does Nelly know about this?”

“Nelly’s my twin brother, so what do you think?” The cry that escaped her mouth drove me over the edge. She fell to her knees and started crying even harder.

“He said he loved me though. Was it all a lie? Were you just pretending to hang out with me just because you were getting paid? I trusted you Nelu.” The last part of her statement was laced with disgust.

“How do you think I feel?” This caused another look of confusion to cross her face. “I normally just do my job and leave, but then they give me this one and tell me I have to be some high school girl’s friend before I kill her. Then my brother goes ahead and fucking falls for her. He falls for the target.”

“So he does love me?” Her voice was soft and almost broken.

“You are the cause of so many problems. If I don’t kill you then they kill me. This is my last chance to redeem myself.”

“Redeem yourself? What about my life? How would Nelly feel if you killed me?”

“Well then he has to choose who lives.”

“Are you fucking joking? Why would you ask your brother to choose between us? Don’t you want his happiness?” Mary’s face changed from one mixed with fear to one filled with hate and disgust. She had a point. Why should Nelly have to choose and what makes me think that he would choose me.

“I wasn’t going to kill you anyway.” I said after a while.

“Why?”

“They taught me that I should never beg for my life. So I won’t beg for it. I will accept what is to come. Nelly wouldn’t choose me anyway. He never did choose me.” I gave her a sad smile.

“Doesn’t your brother love you?”

“Nelly and I are science experiments. He was programmed to protect me and that is what he will do, but lately his human emotions have been overriding his programmed emotions. So if push comes to shove he will end up choosing you. This wouldn’t be the first time he chose something else over me.”

“The first time you guys were separated.” Mary said, thinking back to the time when I first met her.

“He chose to go to England without me. While I was shipped off to Mexico to go and live with a lady who couldn’t care less about me. I was raped and beaten close to death, but I still completed her mission. I killed a man she was meant to kill.

I walked into that warehouse after taking out his guards with my sniper rifle. I walked up to him gun in hand and shot his two body guards in the head. Then I looked him in the eye and shot him too. That’s when we become killers. My mission is always to kill, and Nelly to protect.” I looked at the gun in my hand. “Not that I need protection.”

“Why would they make you kill people?”

“That’s not my problem Mary. I just do what I’m told. Well I used to do what I was told to.” I pointed the gun at Mary. “There are two bullets in this gun, Mary. I do apologise, but I have to do this. To set me free from all this.”

“But why would you still kill me?”

“To clear my conscience. The only thing I ever regret doing was putting a bullet in that lady’s head and not leaving her to painfully die.” I gave her my sad smile, the only smile I seemed to be good at giving, and pulled the trigger.

***

Nelly’s POV

I was finally done with the cleaning of the pool. My back was all sweaty and I probably smelt horrible. I pulled out my phone and saw that I had two messages one from the institution and the other from my service provider. I opened the message from the institution. It read:

Nelly,

Please wrap up your mission and return to base. There will be a plane waiting to take you to Maui for your next mission. Nelu will join you if he manages to complete his task successfully or else he will be disposed of from the institution. This does not mean death but does mean that he will go back into testing. We are very sad to inform you that your brother’s time is very limited and he has a week to complete this mission before we come and forcefully remove him.

Kind regards,

SS Institute Admin.

The message made me sick to my stomach, but I knew this was going to happen sooner or later.

“Hey Nell, are you going to see the Mary chick now?” One of the guys asked me. The thought of Nelu and the message were completely erased from my mind as I thought about how I was going to ask Mary out.

“Yeah. Let me just put the net away then I’ll be leaving.” I shoved the net in some corner and ran to catch a lift from that guy. He dropped me off outside my house and I quickly ran to Mary’s door. I knocked and her nice maid answered the door.

“Mary went over to your house, Nelly.” She said before I could even speak. I thanked her and ran back to my house. The minute I entered the house I heard a gunshot, then a long pause before a second gunshot. Then there was complete silence as my mind flashed to the message and my blood turned cold. If Nelu had shot Mary then he would have only needed one bullet. So who was the second bullet for? I raced up the stairs and prayed that Nelu hadn’t shot himself. The mere thought of it was almost crippling and I had to do everything in my power to keep going and not crumple to the floor and cry.

When I reached his door I didn’t bother to knock and just threw it open. I stood there in shock at what I was looking at.

Mary’s POV

“But why would you still kill me?” I was staring down the barrel of a gun held by my second best friend. My whole body was shaking with fear as I thought about my impending death.

“To clear my conscience. The only thing I ever regret doing was putting a bullet in that lady’s head and not leaving her to painfully die.” Those words made my blood run cold as I looked into the eyes of my would-be killer. His eyes were soft and filled with pain not hatred; they were more sad than evil, innocent even. His smile was a sad one as if it was the only apology he could have given me.

Nelu then pulled the trigger and the shot rang loud. I had closed my eyes, expecting death, but found myself still alive. I looked up at Nelu. He still had the gun pointed at me and I almost started begging him again before he started to tilt the gun up wards.

Before I knew what I was doing, I had got to my feet and was busy wrestling the gun out of Nelu’s hands. I remembered that there was only one bullet left so I fought him until it was aimed at the wall before pulling the trigger, twice just to make sure. When he realised that there were no more bullets he stopped fighting. I sat up but Nelu laid on the floor crying. I pulled him into my arms and for the first time I actually saw the vulnerability in my friend. The door flew open and Nelly stood there with fear on his face. When he saw that we were both alive and well, relief flooded his features and he sank to his knees in the doorway of Nelu’s room.

***

Nelu’s POV

We were all seated in the hidden weapons room, Nelly, Mary, Grace, Jake and I. Five teens who, just yesterday were very great friends. We had dragged two of the game room couches in to the room and closed the door behind us. Peter was going to be out for the next few days and was only coming back to finish up things when my week was over.

Mary and Nelly sat with their hands linked while Grace was still wiping tears from her eyes. She looked like she was coming to terms with the fact that Nelly and I were contracted to kill Mary. Too bad we never got directly paid for our work.

Jake sat on the couch next to me. He seemed to be on high alert, as if ready to stop me from grabbing the nearest gun and shooting myself. Not that I was going to. I had a one shot policy that said if I miss it once I don’t try again. I lifted my feet on to the couch and put my head in his lap. He stroked my hair lightly as if he was afraid of hurting me. I was the first to speak up.

“So what so we do now?” I asked the question that was on everybody’s mind.

“We could run away?” Nelly suggested.

“Where could we hide from the Institution?” I asked him.

“They can only find us if we let them. We could get fake passports and leave the country. With cash as digital money trails are easy to trace.”

“Then we would need very realistically forged passports.”

“And makeovers.” Jake added in. “If they are good as you say they are then we would need to make you disappear.”

“He’s right. We would all need the most perfectly done makeover just to pass under their radar.” Mary added. Nelly looked at her, shocked.

“We would all?” He asked.

“Well you didn’t think that you guys were running away without us, did you?” Grace crossed her arms. “If you leave they might just come and kill us anyway.”

“What about your family?”

“I live with my cousins. They wouldn’t mind if I moved out permanently. Mary’s parents aren’t even in the country. Nor do they see themselves as parents.”

“And my mother is dead and my dad wouldn’t mind if I left. He would welcome it actually.” Jake added. “So we are going with you. And you would need more people to help you pull this off.”

“Fine, Nelu seems to have no objection to this.” At Nelly’s words they all looked at me, probably seeing my vulnerable side.

“Let’s get planning then.” Jake said clapping his hands together.