But then, Witch-Hazel holds onto me tighter.

‘I’m not alone. And I have a job to do.’

A few miles into the road, I pull over and stop, parking the bike behind one of the trees. I ready the weapon, loading the cylinder into the barrel. Witch-Hazel lifts her visor.

“These trees are gorgeous! They at least have to be at least a thousand years old.” She exclaims.

“Yeah, probably.” I shrug. “Wouldn’t really know.”

“What are we doing here?”

“I’m here to kill someone. His death will help me figure out who tried to kill me.” I check the sight on the weapon. It’ll suffice. “Sorry, I didn’t drag you out here for an impromptu nature hike.”

“Hollyhock, have you considered the possibility I don’t need something from you to keep me interested; that I simply enjoy spending time with you?”

I think on that for a second.

“No. I hadn’t.”

“Well, you might want to give it some thought.” She gets up and takes off her helmet, shaking her long hair free. “When’s your target supposed to show up?”

“Not for a while, but we’ll hear him coming.” I check my phone and it amazingly has a signal all the way out here. “This is the worst part of the job: the waiting.”

“I’d figured, if anything, it’d be the fact you could be killed,” the witch retorts. I disagree with the wave of my hand and a scoff.

“You can get killed doing any job. And most don’t even offer health insurance.”

“You keep saying ‘health insurance’ like that’s a real thing but I don’t believe you. I’m honestly expected to believe that people willingly refuse medical attention because they can’t afford it?”

“For the thousandth time, yes. Needing a doctor costs a lot of money in this world.”

“That’s fucking insane, how do people live that way?”

“One day at a time I suppose. I don’t want to talk about the nightmare that is the American healthcare system. Talk to me about anything else.”

It’s strange, having a casual conversation while I wait for a man to show up so I can kill him. Even on the few occasions that I worked with others on a job we never talked like this. I can’t help but wonder how much of my life Witch-Hazel is going to change.

As we talk, she tells me about a magical creature called a guilti. A unique creature that goes through a rapid evolutionary process, starting its life in the water. It sees creatures on land and decides it wants to do that too. The fish crawls up on land and forces its body to breathe air and walk. After this, it sees the creatures of the air and wishes to fly as well. It changes its body and takes to the air. They live the rest of their days flying high in the air, never coming down until they die. Guiltis always die in mid-flight and land back in the same body of water they started in.

“Do they do that on purpose?” I ask Witch-Hazel. She shrugs.

“Some druids say it’s just in their nature. That they always end up where they belong.”

The phone rings and I answer immediately.

“Target is two minutes out from the road,” the gruff voice of Digitalis says.

“Okay.” I hang up. “He’s about to be here so step back.” The witch gets back on the bike and holds onto me.

“Just drive. I promise I won’t slow you down.”

I open my mouth to protest but I can tell this is another thing she won’t back down on. I rev the engine to life and wait. I hear a powerful motorcycle rushing in our direction. I peek out the side. At the speed he’s going at, he’ll reach and pass us in no time.

“Hold on tight!” Witch-Hazel has a death grip around me as I twist the throttle and the engine beneath us screams its power. We take off like a bullet and I pull us alongside the target.

With a number one painted on the side and the same leather jacket with the arrow pin he was wearing in the picture, that’s all the confirmation I need to know this is the right man.

At first, he doesn’t notice us, his attention is on the long road ahead of us. He does a double-take when he finally looks over.

I don’t need to see his face to know he’s deciding between flight or fight. But these few moments are all I need. My eyes go to his front wheel and I watch the spokes cycle as the world slows down around me. I ignore everything that isn’t relevant. The sensation of speed, the wind pushing against me, the feel of the handlebars in my hands, the pressure of the woman holding onto me. All that matters is the speed of his wheel and my distance to it.

‘With Witch-Hazel on the bike, if he decides to speed up, I won’t be able to catch him. If he takes out his gun, things will get complicated quickly.’

But I’m not one of Tamara’s deadliest assassins for no reason.

Before the neurons in his brain can fire off a signal to his muscles to grab his gun, I've already drawn mine and aimed it at his front wheel. If I miss this shot, this all goes to hell.

So I don’t miss.

I pull the trigger on the air gun and the tungsten cylinder flies out. It goes halfway through his wheel before a spoke catches it. The spoke carries it to the fork and from there: his death is finalized. I swerve away to avoid getting caught.

The clank of metal against metal is drowned out by the engines going but soon it’s only one.

With his front wheel stopped, his bike goes up, him along with it. Jeremiah meets the pavement first before his bike meets his body in a disastrous manner. Though it is brief, the sound of bones snapping is unmistakable. The cacophony of a human skidding across asphalt is nothing compared to that of a motorcycle crashing. It skids in defiance, wanting to speed along effortlessly but its velocity dies. The bike stops.

I carefully slow down so that I don’t leave any skidmarks. Maneuvering the slowing bike back around, I pass the destroyed one and stare at the destroyed man.

“Stay here,” I order. Dismounting the motorcycle, I approach Jeremiah in his dying moments. His left arm and both his legs broke on impact, the bones pierce the skin, exposing them to the open air.

He’d be screaming in agony if it weren’t for the wet coughs. A sign of blood filling his lungs. No doubt punctured on a broken rib. His helmet has broken open, revealing his bloodied face as he looks up at me.

Jeremiah tries to focus through the pain to give me his best angry look. A pathetic attempt to spit at me ends with blood dripping down his chin. But that’s just to distract from what his right arm is doing. Miraculously, his gun has landed within arm’s reach.

His fingers are swelling up in the body's misguided attempt to protect itself. I’m not big on giving false hope. Or taking chances. I put my boot on the gun and slide it out of his reach.

“Fuc- fuc….” his last insult drowns in his mouth. I watch the light fade from his eyes, his body grows stiller, and the man dies. After seeing a sight like this so many times, I don’t feel anything about it.

I pick up the gun, remove a messenger bag the corpse was carrying, and call Tamara.

She answers immediately.

“Target had a bag, what should I do with it?”

“What’s inside?” I check the contents,

“Bags of heroin that have burst open and some money,” I answer.

“Get rid of it,” she commands. “No need for that shit to get out there.”

“Got it.” I hang up and walk away from a job well done.

✨🌳✨

I’m trying very hard to keep composed after watching this series of events unfold. Perhaps I was in denial this whole time. Hollyhock said what she was, what she does, but some small part of me didn’t believe it.

It’s not the death itself that disturbs me necessarily, or even that she directly caused it but the way he died. Choking on his own blood, I could hear it from here. The sound makes my skin crawl and brings to mind a memory I want more than anything to forget.

But this is reality washing away the fantasy I made in my head about life without magic. In my world, there are creatures that can only exist on the periphery; that due to their nature cannot live in the majority. Predators, beasts, monsters, whatever they’re called they serve a purpose.

Hollyhock and the Bay Leaves may live this world, but their entire existence is reserved for the places out of sight, for the shadows. And knowing what I know about her, Hollyhock didn’t have much other choice but to live this way.

She may know her world, but she’s on the outside looking in. This is where she truly lives. On the outskirts. On a long lonely road without much room for anything else. This is what she does to survive.

I suppose it was absurd to think I could enter this world in any normal capacity. If I want to be here, I’ll have to live on the edges as well.

I look up at Hollyhock as she watches a man die.

‘If she can live her whole life this way, I can survive a month or two.’

The assassin recovers the black cylinder she shot into the wheel. It doesn’t seem to have any damage.

“What’s with the bag?” I ask to distract myself from the dread settling in my stomach. I can only hope that my voice came out steady.

Hollyhock is unfazed by the life she snuffed out, or the gore she caused.

“Gotta get rid of it. Thinkin’ about burning it but then I need a mask for the fumes and that’s a whole thing. Maybe I’ll just-”

I take the bag from her hands and concentrate.

‘Anything to take my mind off… Concentrate Hazel.’

I throw the bag up as high as I can. Before it begins its descent I send a ball of fire from my hand; the heat can be felt even as it flies away. The bag is incinerated, not even a fiber is left.

“Will that do?” Hollyhock is still looking at where the bag was.

“Uhhh yeah. That’ll do.” Her gaze comes back to earth. “Sometimes I forget you have magic, then you do something like that.” She tucks the stolen gun into her jacket pocket. “You okay?” Genuine concern is in her voice.

She’s the same Hollyhock as before, it’s me that had to fully realize what she is.

The assassin. The woman who cares about kids. Who gave me a place to stay. Who shared her tragic story with me. Who’s put up with my ridiculous requests.

I nod. The dread I feel is slowly dispelling.

“The way he died just reminded me of something.”

‘Something. Is that all Floribunda is to me now? Just a memory?’

The assassin solemnly nods. Death may no longer bother her, but she knows it can bother others.

“Ain’t a good way to go.” She looks back at him. “But the drugs he smuggled hurt a lot of people. And the people he worked for have hurt even more.”

She gets on the motorcycle and drives us to where we were waiting before. Hollyhock brushes the dirt the bike disturbed to erase any trace of our presence.

“Let’s go home,” she says. We drive off, leaving this stretch of road behind.

When we get back into town Hollyhock stops at railroad tracks while a train comes along. We’re the only ones on this side of the track. It blocks the sun as we wait.

“I remember you said you’ve seen someone die before. But you never said how or why,” she observes.

Floribunda comes to mind. Whenever death is mentioned she always appears in my thoughts.

“I…..it…”

“You don’t have to talk about it now if you don’t want to. I don’t know if talking about stuff really helps. But if you ever want to, you know where to find me.”

“Bleeding out on some stairs somewhere?”

That gets a laugh from the assassin.

“Oh sure, not in the apartment you’re not paying rent for.”

“What’s ‘rent’?”

“Ironhenge sounds like a paradise.”

We sit in silence and watch the train go by.

“I know that this isn’t the tour experience you were hoping for. Abandoned churches, back room meetings, and orchestrating accidents in isolated roads. But that’s how this world operates. And these might be bad people, but I don’t enjoy killing them. I never have. It’s never been personal, and now that it is...I still don’t. I just wanted you to know that.”

I hold her tighter.

“You don’t have to defend yourself to me. Not now, not ever. I don’t have the right to judge you. I just wanted you to know that.”

The train passes. The gates rise. The sun lands on us again.

“You ever have a cheeseburger?”

“Can’t say that I have.”

“Let’s get a couple.”

Hollyhock revs the engine and we go back into Oleander City.

Ch. 7 End.