4. Ruby
four
The early morning air is heavy with fog. It lingers over the expansive grounds, ominous in its own right. I walk quickly, my boots disappearing in the grounded clouds and reappearing every few steps when they dissipate. Shivering, I pull my sweater tighter around me. The barn sits about five hundred yards from the main house. You can’t see it from the driveway, and it doesn’t show up on the internet or GPS. It does not exist to the world, even as large as it is. From the outside, it looks like your stereotypical barn, right down to the peeling red paint in desperate need of repair. It even has white boards in the shape of an X on the large doors. At the smaller entry door on the right, I hold my wrist to the scanner. The red laser casts over my skin and beeps when it finds the chip, unlocking the door.
I enter the barn and walk along the path at the edge of the room, careful not to step onto the training floor with my outside shoes. It’s empty, the room pristine, having not yet been touched this morning. Throwing knives glisten on a stand in the corner, a mannequin with more holes than a pin cushion stands opposite, and combat dummies fill one wall, waiting for their daily beating.
I follow the sound of voices up the stairs, past the dormitory wing and showers, to our meeting room. The murmurs quiet when I enter. It is not as much a meeting room as it is a sanctuary. This entire compound is a sanctuary. We’re not a typical company, and therefore the meeting space is not typical. The room has been designed to be relaxing, full of lush pieces of furniture, warm soft throws, and an absurd number of pillows. Comforts that many of the girls and women who pass this threshold are not familiar with.
We are an army of misfits, and I am the queen of this kingdom. Like Legion, we are many. We exist everywhere and nowhere. Across the globe and back again. An empire ruled by queens and forged from death. Framed photos of my predecessors line the wall behind me. Someday my face will join them, and a new Ruby will take the throne, but for now I rule this Kingdom of Loyal Reds. It is not for the faint of heart, being queen. It takes a killer. And killing is what I do best.
Each kingdom serves a purpose, ours is to train the next generation of Reds. From here they are dispatched to other kingdoms, to serve under other Rubys. We recruit girls who come from similar backgrounds to our own. We are the abused, the broken, and the neglected. Our childhoods could haunt the devil himself. There are currently six recruits, girls ranging in age from six to fourteen. Occasionally we require their service prior to them becoming full-fledged Reds, but for the most part they only train until one of us retires or dies. Except for me.
My replacement must be chosen by me. And I have not yet selected. None of our recruits have skills comparable to my own yet. I was twelve when my predecessor named me as her successor. I could walk into a crowded room and slit a man’s throat without anyone seeing a thing. Replacing me will be hard, and I make a mental note to start actively searching for a new Ruby. I can’t live forever. Even the best die.
I take my place in the oversized chair in the front of the room. Instantly, I’m enveloped in the soft red velvet. The high back sits well above my head, a black iron crown adorning it. I used to love this throne. I would leave our meetings with a high that could only be rivaled by slaughtering a poor soul, but that high has been missing for months, replaced with unease.
Crossing her legs like a young girl, Rowan takes the seat next to me and presses a button on her tablet. An LED screen descends from the ceiling at the side of the room.
“Good morning, Loyal Reds,” I begin. “Girls, your objective during this meeting, like in the last five meetings is to tie this ribbon,” I raise the red satin in my hand, holding it out toward the young girls, “in a Red’s hair without being caught. If you succeed, we will start our knife training. If you fail, we will continue our stealth and teamwork modules until you successfully pass this objective.”
The youngest girl steps forward to retrieve the ribbon. Her steps are sure, her posture ready for battle. I offer her a smile, which she returns with a toothless grin of her own before resuming her position along the wall.
“Okay, let’s begin. Unfortunately, we do not have a lot of time this morning as I have a high court meeting shortly.” I am greeted with nods from around the room. There are nine Reds including myself in our Kingdom. We work well together, each with our own strengths. One of them has a medical degree, another designs our disguises. We all have a job here.
I gesture to Riley to begin as always.
She stands, bringing herself to her full height. Riley towers over most men, which draws attention. Because of this and her nurturing nature, she plays the role of housemother. She takes care of us. She keeps us fed, keeps us in clean clothes, and keeps the girls under her strict gaze. Her strength though is grifting. It is from her that the girls learn how to play their roles.
“The girls are making progress. Their table manners and social cues are in excellent shape, but we continue to work on body language and accents. We have been working on multiple things at once, and I think it’s been a bit confusing for this group.” She smiles warmly at the girls, and I am reminded why she is perfect for this role. The rest of us would have simply pushed them harder. “I would like to break it into one role at a time and see if we can master one before moving on to another. Is there one in particular you want them to start with?” She looks pointedly at me, waiting for my instruction.
I shift my gaze to the girls and try to remember their backgrounds. I know at least one of them has been sexually abused, and another, the eldest I think, survived the massacre of her family by playing dead. I have to tread carefully. So often our minds still require mending long after the physical wounds have healed.
“Let’s go with Amelia.” She’s the one that saved me when I needed it most, maybe she will save one of them too.
Riley smiles appreciatively. “Girls, from now until further notice, you are all Amelia, a posh British girl who goes to an all-girls boarding school. Her family comes from old money. Da died when she was a wee babe, and Mum is a socialite. Everything you say, everything you do, every movement you make, must be as Amelia. Understood?”
“Yes, Miss,” all six girls say in unison.
“Okay let us move on to our current marks. Reagan, could you please give us an update on Mr. Davis?” The girls take this as their cue to begin the work on their objective. They spread themselves around the room, a plan in motion.
Reagan stands, her dark hair pulled back into a tight ponytail. She’s been a Red almost as long as Rowan and I have. She taps on her tablet and a man’s face fills the screen.
“For those who weren’t here last week, a quick background on Mr. Davis,” she begins, her voice steady with years of practice. “Mr. Davis is a pro bono case. He is a white male, forty-one years of age. He’s a divorced father of two. We received intel two weeks ago that Mr. Davis has a drug problem. Which in and of itself is not a big deal. It became a big deal when he started to take inappropriate photographs of his children in order to pay for his habit.”
Normal women would react to this statement. Normal women would be visibly and audibly outraged. We are not normal women. If any of us feel the need to react to cases such as this one, we do so in private. We do not show weakness. Ever.
“And where are we in his timeline? Have you scheduled my services?” I ask, nudging Reagan along. While all of us are capable of taking out a mark, it is my responsibility as Ruby to perform such tasks, if only to keep the rumors alive.
“Per your instructions last meeting, we delivered the letter, and then we plastered his car with pictures of him in his underwear while he was at work. We also laced his wine with a laxative while he was on a date. The kiss print on the toilet paper in the bathroom was priceless.”
Reagan updates the screen to show pictures, and collectively we show emotion. Laughter fills the room, and I can’t help but think about what we would look like to an outsider. Maniacs I suppose.
She continues. “We delivered his kiss of death a few days ago. He is so far on edge that if we don’t act soon, you won’t get the chance to end his life before he takes matters into his own hands. I have scheduled your services for this week.”
I nod, and we move on to the next mark. This one is a nurse who works with elderly patients. Photos fill the screen once again. We sit in silence as Reya explains the complexities of this case. We have been hired by a victim’s son, who tried and failed to bring Ms. Whitlock to justice. Ms. Whitlock does not appear to be taking the threat of yours truly seriously. The abuse continues and, in many cases, appears to increase in intensity after we make my presence known. With her kiss of death being delivered last night, I don’t want to run the risk of her hurting anyone else. I make the executive decision not to wait any longer. She dies tonight.
There is some shuffling and a scream ripples through the room. Rawlings has one of the older Amelia’s faces down on the ground with the girl's wrists pinned to her lower back, the red ribbon clutched in her small fingers. Rawlings removes the ribbon from the girl’s fingers and helps her up.
“You need to work on keeping your hands steady,” she tells the girl standing in front of her. “Your hands were so shaky, it sounded like a fly buzzing in my ear.”
Amelia huffs, pushing her shoulders back and her chin up. “Wait until my mum hears about this,” she retorts, and then she turns her back to Rawlings and walks with purpose to her place along the wall.
“We got a new one this morning.” Remy, the youngest of all the Reds, uses her tablet to bring a young man's face up on the screen. “This is Bentley Drake. We, I mean Rowan, hasn’t really had time to dig yet, but we know he’s currently a college student, and it looks like his hit may have been ordered by an ex-girlfriend.”
The room nods collectively, as if we understand the dynamics that would bring a woman to this—hiring an assassin. But none of us know intimate relationships beyond the act of sex, so how could any of us actually understand?
“Okay, Rowan do what you do best and go digging for dirt on Mr. Drake,” I say before turning back to Remy. “Rowan will share the information with us and then you and I will arrange a meeting to discuss where to go from there, yes?”
Remy nods in agreement, and then my case is the only one remaining.
Cassius.
I stand, and his gray eyes stare back at me from the large screen.
“This is an anonymous kill for hire. But honestly, even if it wasn’t, I believe he would have made it onto our pro bono radar in due time. His name is Cassius Cross, he’s twenty-eight years old, and he owns the club on 16th Street downtown.”
“He runs the casino,” Reya interrupts. “I recognize him from tracking other marks.”
“Correct. Which makes him a tricky mark. He will not go down easily; he will fight back. Hard. Rowan has not dug too deep on Mr. Cross yet, but I have no doubt that he has a closet full of skeletons, including the kidnapping of a local girl and paralyzing her brother. I’ve got it under control for now but will call upon you if necessary.”
I catch Rowan’s eye, and she nods almost imperceptibly. I neglected to tell the group about the phone call and the alarms. Some things are better left unsaid. Some things are better left private.
With a wave of my hand, the meeting is dismissed. Rowan and I exit together, leaving the remaining Reds to mingle as they deem necessary.
“Do you plan on filling me in on what’s going on in that Red head of yours?” She asks when we’re out of earshot of the others. “Do I need to be concerned about you Rubes?” She nudges me with her shoulder and if it was anyone else, I might slice them from navel to nostril without a second thought. But Rowan is different, for a long time we were a team, inseparable even. As children, we were recruited around the same time, and she was my first friend, my only friend, until I became Ruby, and everything changed. But Rowan’s never stopped trying and in a weird kind of way, she’s still my friend, even if I don’t know how to be hers.
“I’m not sure what you mean,” I lie, not meeting her gaze, afraid she will see through my mask.
“Rubes, you’re taking on too much. You have two hits in the next two days, and now you’re taking on Cassius Cross on your own.”
“You know that I’m capable of the hits. It’s nothing that should worry you. And besides, Mr. Cross is proving to be interesting, and he threatened to kill me. I can’t leave him to the devices of others. Have you made any progress finding the girl?”
We enter Rapunzel’s tower, Isabella’s face lights up every screen.
“She’s haunting me,” Rowan admits. “I can’t find her. I see her in my dreams, only they aren’t dreams, they're nightmares, and in them, he’s hurting her.”
“We’ll find her, Rowan,” I reassure her. “I will cut off pieces of him until he reveals her location. Meanwhile, get me a list of all his properties and all his associates. Can you also arrange to have his car replaced? I think we should force him to drive something a little better on gas, don’t you?