This is a Prequel to my Valoryn Universe series, where I and my brothers are the main characters.

    Life passed Emily in slow motion. She was standing still and everyone else was moving. Their well wishes and prayers fell on deaf ears. The skeleton in the mirror was the only person she could trust. The sickness had taken its toll on Emily, zapped most of her anger and left an empty tired shell. She was asleep to the world around her.

    That was a side effect to chemo they didn't talk about. She didn't want to live life to the fullest. She wanted to stare at the wall with dull eyes. And she wanted to sleep, if she woke up yay. If not, oh well. She ran her hand across her bare scalp, the peach fuzz tickling her palm.

    "Partna play your six."

    Emily moved the six off her Skip-Bo pile and turned up the next card.

    "Cheaters, it's not your turn." Melody, Emily's mother moved the six aside and played her own. "We win." She high fived her partner.

    Emily and Ryan slapped aside their hands and bumped fists. "We win."

    "You do not." Melody said.

    "My Partna has cancer and cancer always wins." Ryan said.

    "Cheaters." His sister Rachel said.

    "Winners." Emily smiled.

    "You're so full of crap if I squeezed your head it'd come out your ears." Melody said.

      "My eyes aren't brown." Emily collected the cards.

    Ryan held the box open for her.

    "I gotta bail." Emily glanced at the clock and yawned.

    "Text me when you get home." Melody said.

    Emily nodded and stepped outside into the dark, the summer heat enveloping her. She hated to lie to her mother but she wasn't going home. It wasn't safe.

    The deep shadows of the bedroom Emily had chosen curled around her. No one she cared about knew she'd been staying in an abandoned house since she'd seen someone watching her at one of her cock fights, she did her sleeping at chemo. She waited with her back tucked into a corner, her sword scraping against the wall every time she breathed. Her tired body begged her to fall asleep but she couldn't if she wanted to die fighting. A dark figure snuck past her and plunged a sword into the pillows she'd shoved under the sheet as herself.

    Emily slipped up behind  them and held a knife to their throat. "You're terrible at your job."

    "How did you know I was coming?" He asked.

    "I saw you watching me. What kind of coward waits for their mark to fall asleep before sneaking in to kill them?"

    "I may be many things Madame but a coward I am not."

    "I may be a lot of things Sir, but a Madame I'm not. I run a cock ring not a brothel."

    "You run a business of ill repute. It makes no difference what it is."

    "Is that how you justify my death?"

    "I only do what I'm paid to do."

    "Paid by Dale." It wasn't a question. She knew he was cowardly enough to send an assassin after her. "Look I have no quarrel with you, just your client. And right now I'm too weary for even that. Walk away now and we're square."

    "I always complete my jobs."

    "Is this job worth your life? Because I can slit your damn throat right now if you want. Up to you."

    "You're going to have to trade me for your life." He said.

    "Yours for mine. I am the one a hair away from slitting your throat."

    "Perhaps a Megalodon."

    "Okay genius. Where do I get one?"

    "The ocean duh."

    "You're such a little shit."

    "Do you feel that, my secret power of mind control is forcing your knife away."

    "I'm not susceptible to your nonsense. Do I kill you or what?"

    "Okay a real trade. I need some...sensitive material slash equipment that I can't be seen...lets use the word acquiring. You get me that and you'll never see me again."

    "What kind of sensitive?"

    "You're really going to agree?"

    "By all appearance yes." She was bored, so why not steal him some random equipment. Her life had lost its spice and she could sense it was time she wake up.

    "Why? You could just kill me now."

    "I can't kill a man with his back to me."

    "What if I turn around?"

    "So you don't want the equipment."

    "I think instead I would like to fight you. My client said you were handy with a sword."

    "I doubt that was the phrasing he used. However, because of obvious health reasons I'll have to take a rain check."

    "Fight me or die."

    Emily laughed. "You're pretty cocky."

    "I'm a savage."

    "I'll show you savage." Emily pushed him and drew the sword from her back.

    He turned and his rapier flashed in the pale strip of moonlight that glinted through the window.

    Before they could commence the fight a knock sounded on the door. Emily glanced over her shoulder and kept her other eye on the assassin.

    "Emily." The door busted open.

    She couldn't make out the face in the dark but she recognized his voice. "Mack, what are you doing here?"

    "There is something that needs your attention."

    "I don't do that anymore." Her discussion with the assassin had been light but her voice had taken on an edge when her old coworker entered.

    "How can you not."

    "I was fired by the Colonel for getting Cancer. I seem to recall you sitting at the foot of my hospital bed when that happened. Maybe I'm wrong. The chemo fog has that effect."

    "I've never known you to be one to pity yourself."

    "Well you can take your report back to team leader. I have a duel to get underway."

    "He didn't send me and neither did the Colonel. I'm here as a friend."

    "How did you even get clearance to leave Egress One?"

    Egress One sat below the ocean and once stationed there you were stuck for an undefined amount of time with no chance of leave.

    "You remember that incident in Phoenix?"

    "I don't have time for this. Tomorrow I'm accepting poison into my body like it's the elixir of life like I do every week."

    "The child lived."

    "And you risked a desertion charge to come tell me."

    "Excuse us Sir. We were just about to settle a dispute." Alejandro said.

    "Who the hell is that?" Mack clicked on his light.

    Emily held her hand in front of her face. "An assassin."

    Mack drew his gun.

    Alejandro raised his hands.

    "If anyone is going to kill him it's me." Emily stepped between them.

    "You're in no shape. Move." Mack said.

    "He's harmless." She sheathed her sword.

    "Standing right here."

    "Do you want shot in the head?" She half turned to him.

    He shrugged.

    "Then keep quiet. Now what are you doing her Mack?"

    "The boys and I are stuck at Egress One."

    "Then how did you get out?"

    "Nick is pretending to be both of us." He smiled. "Do you want to know where it is?"

    Emily shook her head and sat down on the floor. "I don't ever want to remember Egress One."

    Her last station before Cancer, she was convinced it was the reason she'd gotten cancer.

    "Look I know you're tired."

    "Never mind that. Tell me about the child. How do you know it's alive?"

    "It's raising a little hell."

    "It's not my problem."

    "People will die."

    "People die every day."

    "Has being sick really made you that cold? Or was it the way Jaxon let you go? He's started a letter to you a hundred times."

    "I don't care." She stood. "I've always been this cold. I just used to hide it better."

    "Clayton tried to kill it. What if it goes after him, his family. You going to let that happen to team leader?"

    "Am I going to let that ass fend for himself? Why shouldn't I? He left me in that hospital and never looked back. And all because I agreed with Colonel Jaxon that I shouldn't be working while I was sick."

    "Then do it for your Country. I know you at least still love it."

    "I never loved him."

    "Maybe that was the problem."

    "Get out Mack. Take your problems with you."    

    "Look I'm sorry Em. That was uncalled for. But our hands are tied where the child is concerned."

    "I'm sure Dale's team will handle it. Just like they always wanted."

    "You fought for it's life once. We just thought you'd like to know it's in danger."

    "What did you expect Mack? I have no team. And I'm not strong enough to beat it on my own." She hadn't worked out since before she'd received her pacemaker. She wasn't allowed to do any heavy lifting with either arm.

    "You're the only one who can stop it."

    "Why?"

    "It's radioactive. Who knows, it might even help you."

    "I don't think that's how it works."

    "I've arranged for you to meet up with help."

    "Who?"

    "No one you know."

    "I'm not going. I don't care about the world's problems anymore."

    "I don't buy that. I'm sorry for what happened to you. For how the Colonel handled it. But it doesn't mean you get to stop doing what's right."

    "Leave her be." Alejandro said.

    "Mind your own business." Mack said.

    "The lady and I have a duel to return to."

    "I'm not a lady I'm a woman."

    Mack grabbed Emily by the arm and pulled her outside. "What the hell is your problem. The Emily I know and respect would have jumped at this chance."

    "I'm not cut out for it Mack. If I ever was."

    "You are not a quitter."

    "There are people better equipped who can stop it. Why me?"

    "Because you my friend need purpose. Or you won't wake up one day. Or perhaps you'll let that flamboyant fellow best you with swords."

    "That's insulting."

    "The entire team has called in every favor we had. You get one chance."

    Emily looked into the night. She appreciated their friendship and what they were trying to do for her but she didn't think she had it in her. The fight had seeped out with the weight.

    "You need this."

    "I'll take her." Alejandro stepped outside.

    "You were just about to kill her." Mack stepped between Emily and Alejandro.

    "If she dies doing whatever you want her to then I'll never prove I am better with a sword."

    "Ha. You're never going to prove that anyway because it's a lie." Emily said.

    "Is not."

    "Em, for us, will you go? Please."

    "Why are you guys so worried?"

    "We don't agree with what Jaxon did. And we don't think he does either."

    "I don't care what he thinks." His dismissal had hurt more than the diagnosis, or the treatments. He didn't think she was cut out for it.

    "If he sees how well you handle this, he might just reinstate you."

    "It's not fair to get my hopes up."

    "I know. But hope is all you have."

    "When do I meet the help?"

    "She'll be by tomorrow."

    "She? You know I'm too much of a dick to get along with other women."

    "You'll love her. I promise."