prologue

Rule number five: Stay hidden

I jerked as I heard another loud bang followed by a scream of pure agony.

Rule number four: Trust no one

I clasped my tiny hands around my ears in a pathetic effort to drown out the noise.

Rule number three: Show no weaknesses, never cry.

I felt my vision begin to blur with tears.

No. I must never cry.

I widened my eyes to prevent myself from blinking as the tears threatened to drop.

Rule number two: Always be one step ahead.

The memory of my Aunt Ophelia teaching me that rule flooded my head. Her beautiful blue eyes. Her kind smile. Her aura that seemed to make all those around her feel at peace.

"Prime, your whole life people will come after you. They'll want to use you for...bad things." She said.

"Bad things?" I asked in a tiny voice.

She nodded. "Yes. You're special so people will always want you. You must be smart, vigilant and always be one step ahead." Her eyes left mine as she turned around to write the five words on the blackboard behind her and circled the words a few times to lay emphasis on them.

She turned back to me and said "This will be rule number two, my dear."

Always be one step ahead.

A loud scream dragged me out of my train of thought.

I had a feeling Aunt Ophelia had failed to follow her own rule.

"Tell us where she is and maybe we'll reward you with a quick death." A deep menacing voice said.

Even with my hands trying to block out the noise as much as they could, I still heard it. Her voice. Heavy breathing. Wheezing in pain.

"Death..." She croaked out. "Whether quick and painless or slow and.... agonising... " I heard a cough followed by a spluttering sound and image of her coughing up blood ripped out my heart and shredded it into a million pieces.

I knew the end of this sentence. She had said to me once during a lesson and I hadn't understood it then.

" It is what it is and what it will always be..." She paused to take another breath.

"A beautiful dream." I mouthed the words with her.

I get it now.

"Death is our duty as mortal beings, prime." She had told me after reciting the phrase.

I remember furrowing my eyebrows in confusion at that. "If that's true, then what's the point of living?" I asked.

She smiled at me. "To live."

A burning sensation filled my chest as I knew what was about to happen to my beloved aunt. Her screams pierced my ears only seeming to fan the flames within my heart.

I can stop this. I can do something.

I began to move in my position but froze when I heard it.

"Stay right where you are prime!" My aunt's pained voice screamed in my head.

Was I imagining it? No. That's impossible. It was too real.

Imagination or reality the voice was right. I had almost forgotten.

I relaxed back into my position. With my ears clasped back around my ears, knees pushed against my chest and eyes widened, filled with tears I willed not to fall in an effort to not shame my aunt as she took her final breaths, I rocked my body back and forth in the small space as I repeated what would later become a mantra.

Rule number one: Never show them what you're capable of.

As I repeated it, the sensation in my chest slowly began to fade as I began to feel completely numb.

"I love you, prime."

And then there was silence. She was gone.

Shuffling was heard a few seconds after followed by heavy footsteps and hushed tones.

"They must have hidden her somewhere else, sir." I managed to make out from their hushed tones.

I jerked as I heard a distant noise. It was annoying and repetitive and in this state of mind it took me a few seconds to make them out as sirens.

"They can't hide her forever." Another voice replied. "We have to go now but soon, the girl will come out and play."

I felt goosebumps all over my body and I reflexively shivered at those words.

I heard an alien sound I couldn't quite compare with anything and soom they were gone and silence reigned once more. Slowly, I began to climb out of my hiding position -a hidden cupboard in a secret underground basement- and made my way upstairs. I took a deep breath to brace myself for what I was about to see.

There I found a dagger sitting comfortably in my uncle's chest and beside him lied my aunt. No stab wounds or bullet holes but her entire body was covered in blue veins, once bright blue eyes had turned a dull grey, her nose was broken and her face was all shades of black and blue.

A beautiful dream.

She was always destined to die for me. What broke me was that she died in agony. She was a beautiful person who didn't deserve this pain.

I stood there for a few more seconds looking at how it seemed like her life had been drawn out of her. Her mouth was slightly opened as if she had held on to that last breath with all the strength she could gather at her weakest, and her finger tips were stretched out towards the love of her life. Almost there but just out of reach.

I didn't cry. I wasn't allowed to cry. Instead I crawled between them, staining my white nightgown in the pool of blood that flooded the wooden floor and gently curled into a ball. As I rested my head on the ground I felt the blood sipping through my thick red hair and crawling into my scalp but I didn't mind. I shut my eyes and slept peacefully, dreaming about the revenge I would take one day.

One of our neighbours had been the one to call the cops that night after hearing all the commotion but being too afraid to actually step in.

When they arrived all they found was a sleeping redhead, snuggling in between a dead couple.

Prime.