Just before dawn, we had one extra passenger.
The older woman who had lured me in.
She came back to the house expecting business as usual and found her son—the bald man—half-dead with terror and the other two gone forever.
Mother and son.
That explained a lot.
She wanted to run.
He wanted to collapse.
I put them both in the car anyway.
The son drove. The mother sat beside me in the back with the point of my blade resting lightly against his neck from behind the seat.
“Don’t try anything,” I said.
He nodded so hard I thought his neck might snap.
We drove for two hours.
Far too long for twenty-five miles.
I knew what they were doing. Stalling. Looping roads. Pretending confusion. Waiting for a chance.
I asked the son, “Are we there yet?”
“N-not quite,” he said. “My brother used to come more than me. I don’t really remember the road.”
I turned to the mother. “You?”
She glared at me. “I’ve never been.”
Lie.
I didn’t need a confession.
I only needed a pulse.
The whole drive, I kept hold of her wrist like I was restraining her.
Really, I was reading her.
When the car approached the right turn—the one place her body betrayed what her mouth wouldn’t—her pulse jumped.
“There,” I said coldly. “Cross the stone bridge.”
The son’s face shifted in the rearview mirror. Just a little. But enough.
A village appeared on the mountainside ahead.
Remote.
Steep.
One narrow access road.
Easy to guard. Hard to escape.
Perfect for monsters.
I told him to stop the car before we reached the village.
“Thank you for bringing me here,” I said.
The son started crying.
The mother started bargaining.
I sent them both on their way before sunrise and hid the vehicle off the road.
Then I rested for a short while in the driver’s seat, reset my breathing, adjusted my backpack, and walked toward the village alone.
From that moment on, I was no longer Sierra Yu, assassin.
I was just a backpacker who had lost her way in the mountains and needed a place to stay for the night.
The village sat on a slope with mountains on all sides. Men were gathered near the entrance smoking, talking, staring.
The second they saw me, the whole place changed.
Conversations stopped.
Bodies straightened.
Eyes locked.
There were older women around, a few elderly men, and lots of bachelors.
What I didn’t see were women my age walking freely.
That told me more than any sign ever could.
A narrow-eyed man in a gray coat stepped forward when the others called for him.
Village chief.
He smiled at me with tobacco-stained teeth and held out his hand.
“Welcome to Maple Ridge,” he said. “We’ll take good care of you here. Right, boys?”
The men around him laughed softly.
I put my hand in his.
He held it too long.
Rubbed his thumb over my skin like I was livestock at auction.
My smile never changed.
Inside, I was already wondering whether I should cut off that hand or burn it.
He assigned me to stay at a man’s house on the far side of the village.
His name was Hank.
Pockmarked face. Filthy nails. Eyes that looked hungry in a way that had nothing to do with food.
I followed him in.
And the moment I stepped into his courtyard, I saw a little child kneeling beside a giant basin, washing clothes with red, chapped hands.
Eight. Maybe nine years old.
Too thin.
Too quiet.
Too numb.
“Say hello to our guest,” Hank barked.
The child looked up and whispered, “Hi, sis.”
Not daughter, I thought immediately.
Not by blood.
Not by anything.
I asked where his wife was.
He stumbled over the answer, corrected himself awkwardly, and claimed he’d never married.
That made the child’s presence worse, not better.
At lunch, the child wouldn’t sit until Hank barked again.
I gave the kid a piece of soft-centered chocolate from my bag. A habit from childhood. Something I always carried.
The child took it like it was treasure.
When I touched the top of that small head, my fingers found old raised scars hidden under the hair.
Something inside me tightened so hard it hurt.
A thought came out of nowhere.
When I leave, I’m taking this child with me.
It was a reckless thought.
A stupid thought.
I was there for one target.
One mission.
But once a certain kind of memory wakes up, it does not go back to sleep.