The Academy (The Academy #1)

Chapter 1

My knife plunges into his chest as he gasps out his final pleas, a desperate attempt for the mercy I have been trained not to give.

Warm blood oozes into my palms as I twist the knife in his chest, hearing the familiar crack as the blade collides with bone, fracturing the rib.

I’ve become bored; each kill is the same. Why people can’t just learn to obey our protectors is beyond me. Our government keeps us safe and protected. Those who defy the law are sentenced to capital punishment.

It’s the reason The Academy was founded; we protect the innocent.

The target’s blood spills down my hands as I pull the knife from his chest. I don’t know his name, I don’t need to know it.

His code name, Target 105, the name The Academy assigned to him is the only detail I need. Wiping my knife on his shirt, I clean the blade from hilt to tip, watching the crimson stain his white dress shirt.

“Target 105 expired,” I say into my Academy-issued earpiece before walking around the target’s office to his computer.

Turning on the machine, I plug in my hard drive, watching the loading bar fill before a bright green 100% flashes on the screen of the device. Once it’s extracted all the information, I pull it out and place it in the pocket of my cargo pants.

I look out the penthouse windows to the blue sky above. It’s very rare that we get to see such a luxury when most of our time is spent in the underground training or on another mission.

Sometimes I swear I can see shapes in the clouds, but I don’t allow myself to dwell on it.

“D, come on,” Lauren, my assigned partner, calls from outside the office door. The sound of her heavy footsteps makes its way towards the door of the office. Lauren comes on all my missions with me; it’s the whole reason for an assigned partner.

The agency pairs you when you’re ready, and then you train together until you can predict your partner’s moves before they make them.

I suppose she is what normal people would’ve called a friend before the war.

“Yeah, coming.”

Unplugging the hard drive from the computer, I roll up the cord and place it in the Velcro pocket on the side of my pants, fastening the straps before walking out.

Lauren’s eyes immediately meet mine as we scan each other. We’re trained to ‘Always scan your assigned partner for injury’. If your partner is injured, the Madam sends you both to the chair for two days for being weak, failing to protect your partner.

Lauren is the exact opposite of me. Long, blonde hair that is tied back into The Academy-mandated plait and light blue eyes that remind me of the sky. She is also one of the smallest girls in The Academy, standing at 5’2.

Sometimes, I hate how small she is, considering the disadvantage it gives us. But what she lacks in height, she makes up for in speed, giving her an advantage our targets usually don’t see coming.

“You okay?” Her voice is sweet. Somehow, after eleven years in The Academy, they still haven’t broken her down to be as cold and emotionless as the rest of us.

Another thing I hate about her, considering in our world it’s kill or be killed.

“Package is secure, let’s get out of here.”

I don’t look back as we walk towards the exit, the target lying dead in the chair as the elevator dings. Lauren and I step inside and stare back out to the bodies staining the carpets with blood.

The penthouse, a luxury only afforded to Zone Three, is now filled with a trail of blood and lifeless bodies on the ground. There are nine bodies left behind from the mission as the doors close, and we’re returned back down to the ground floor.

This is all normal, our normal. It’s what we were born to do.

Standing outside in his Academy-issued all-black suit is our Commander, Wolvrin Handler.

The Academy has three Commanders, though we’ve only met one, Wolvrin, since he is the Commander assigned to Lauren and me.

The Academy is very strict about who we can and can’t meet.

The more faces we know, the more risk we bring if we’re captured.

The less we can identify, the safer we and The Academy are.

Wolvrin opens the SUV door, letting Lauren and I enter before sitting down in front of us.

After the war, the government produced specialty SUVs for The Academy, and, as you would expect, the front two seats faced forward.

The back seats, however, are separated. There is a divider between the front and back seats, and the two seats behind the driver are facing the back of the car.

Instead of facing the driver, they face the Commander.

It’s designed for debrief after each mission, but also as surveillance.

There have been cases of girls panicking after a mission, struggling to handle their role.

It’s the Commander’s job to make sure we aren’t weak, which I’m not.

Lauren worries me, though. If the Academy hasn’t broken her yet, they might never.

Or maybe she’s just a ticking time bomb, waiting to explode.

Either way, I’m worried about the fallout.

Adjusting the straps on my thigh, I loosen my sheath, letting my knife fall down my thigh.

Before every mission, I always tighten it impossibly so.

On my first mission, I hadn’t tightened it enough.

Then when I needed it most, the sheath slipped down to my foot.

I refuse to make the same mistake twice.

Wolvrin watches expectantly as I make myself comfortable, taking out the tight braid my hair has been in all afternoon and relaxing into the seat.

I counted how long it took to arrive this morning, so I know we have an uncomfortable twenty-minute car ride ahead of us.

He can wait one minute for the mission report.

“Mission successful. Target 105 is expired and the information was retrieved, sir,” Lauren says when I don’t immediately respond, always so respectful.

You would think becoming one of the deadliest people on the planet would give her some personality, or at least a little confidence, but no.

Hope is what she clings to, and what the Academy sets out to destroy.

We are taught very early not to get attached to our assigned partners. Or anything, for that matter. Considering our jobs, it’s always a possibility we will leave for a mission and not return, so I made a rule never to become attached to anyone. There’s no point when everyone I know is expendable.

Reaching into my pocket, I grab the hard drive and hand it to the Commander, who quickly pockets the device inside his suit jacket.

“Good work. You will be expected to give a debrief when you return. The Overseer and Madam are already waiting.”

As the car continues to drive through the city, I stare out the window, watching the old buildings and the rare sighting of a car pass us.

Cars are a luxury of Zone Three and the elite, normal citizens don’t have that luxury.

I wonder what our world looked like before the war. I’m sure it was once beautiful.

Sometimes I try to picture what it would’ve looked like when there were no mandates, no rules, but every time I’m reminded why the New Order took over.

I don’t remember anything from the world before. The Academy took me when I was four after my mother had died from the starvation she put herself through to keep me alive. Now I refuse to die for her. Or maybe I’m just stubborn.

The buildings from before are still around, but are now abandoned, broken. I’ve seen them once in one of my missions; they had houses that stood on their own, gardens they could use for whatever they wanted.

And yet they still rebelled.

They had it all, privacy and the respect to do whatever they wanted, and it still wasn’t enough. They still wanted more. It’s a good thing the New Order took over when they did.

The war created famine, homelessness, unrest.

Now we have order. There is a system for everyone and everything. We house the homeless and feed the starving; the new order protects us. The only thing the New Order asks for in return is order and balance. Most of the citizens of the new society stick to these requests, there is peace now.

However, for those who don’t adhere and try to challenge the new regime, there is punishment. The Academy only sends one of its agents in the most extreme cases.

I am the best in The Academy. I train the hardest out of the remaining seventy-six girls, and our Trainer always expects more from me. I don’t know why they chose me; maybe it was because I was one of the first girls to arrive, or perhaps because I was so young.

They had time to craft me. To make me deadly.

Our job is to keep the citizens of the new society safe from the criminals, and that’s exactly what we do. By taking out any threats to the new society, we prevent the fear that they once knew. We stop any future wars that could break out.

We keep our citizens safe.

I never understood why they picked girls until my sixteenth birthday.

I was tasked with Target 72 and sent to a ball in formal mission attire, which I have always hated.

Formal mission attire is a long black dress that clings to our bodies, making movements restricted.

It also makes it impossible to hide my gun and sheath.

And when you’re being sent to fight and kill, it’s pretty stupid to send us with restricted mobility. But it is helpful in gaining information.

We get the information we want far quicker by acting interested in our targets than by torturing them. The Academy taught us early to seduce when possible instead of torture. It’s cleaner, less hassle. Though I would much prefer the second option.

I’m sure the men of Zone Three are quite lonely; they seem to be the easiest to charm. Probably because Zone Three citizens are mostly men, unless they had a family before the war.

The car stops outside of the security gates, and the back windows are rolled down as a guard taps his gun on the door

“Wrists.”