Jenna climbed through her window. She spent three minutes lying on the floor, trying to pull herself together. That was the most fun she’d had in a month! She was also getting paid twice as much as she ever had been. 20 thousand dollars! For one guy! She pulled herself off the floor — she was exhausted from running from the cops in her high heels. Maybe she should change her footwear — or maybe she shouldn’t. It was so much easier to beat up guards in high-heels than in sneakers or any other type of shoes. She pulled off her suit, then her mask, then her shoes. She climbed into the bed and she fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow.
Jenna was a selfish person. She didn’t care what anyone else needed. She didn’t care what people thought of her. She stole from people, she killed other people, she acted like a child, except when she had to act like an adult. She did her job, came home, ate candy, played video games, and read kids’ books. Those were fun, and they took her mind off things. The things that scared her the most were the people who tried to tell her to change. She was scared she would listen. She knew what she did was bad, and she knew she was a bad person, but she didn’t want to be a good person. If she became a good person she would have to care about other people. She hated other people. Other people had killed her parents. Other people had made her this way. Sometimes she would curl up on her bed and pretend she was 14 again, before her parents died. She would pretend they were outside the door, talking about how their little girl was ‘growing up so fast.’ They didn’t know how fast.
She taught herself to shoot a gun and fight, in the foster home. The people in foster care hadn’t wanted her to, so they were her first victims. She needed money, so she used her talent to make money. Killing gave her peace, and it was fun. She loved to have fun.
Jenna woke to the sound of a loud jackhammer drilling into the sidewalk. Her sidewalk. She would have thrown a knife at that ***hole, but too many people were watching. They would call the police, the police would arrest her, she would end up in jail, and she would have to spend however long in a cell with other people. And she wouldn’t have her weapons to kill them with. If she had to share a cell with a man, he would probably try to ‘impress her’ by being strong. He wouldn’t understand how strong she actually was. Then one day she’d kick his *** and he’d get mad and attack her. She’d then kick his *** again, then break his neck. And she’d enjoy it.
She stood and stretched. She was getting paid today. First thing she’d have to do was buy more bullets for her gun. Then some more knives, then food. Work always came before personal needs. What she wanted more than anything was to buy her own little island and live there with no one but one servant. Away from all the other people who hated her and wanted her dead just like her parents.
She walked out of her room to make breakfast for herself. She turned the TV on. She always enjoyed watching people react to her jobs.
“Last night, Matthew King was killed as he lay sleeping in his bed. His children, 15-year-old Annie, and five-year-old Jason, found him this morning when he wouldn’t come down for breakfast. Who killed Mr. King? Wherever you are, I hope you can’t sleep at night with what you’ve done.” Jenna had had enough. She changed the channel to the Cartoon Network. One of her favorite cartoons was playing — Adventure Time.
She never really paid attention to family of any of her targets. If the person had 50 kids that all needed him or her, Jenna didn’t care. This was mostly because a lot of her targets didn’t have kids, only spouses, and sometimes siblings. This was probably the first time her target actually had a family.
She didn’t care. The other people hadn’t cared, and neither would she. It wasn’t her job to care, it was her job to kill.
She heard knocking at her door. As fast as she could, she turned the TV off, and was at the door. The man standing outside had a smile on his face.
“Thank you, Ms. Johnstone,” he said, reaching out a hand to her. She shook it and invited him in.
He declined and took out a nice leather wallet.
“Your money’s in there. Check if you want. I know you can find me and I won’t try to cheat you out of your money,” he said with a smile on his face as she reached her hand into the wallet and counted the 500 dollar bills that filled it.
Exactly the right amount. She put the wallet on the table right by the door, shook his hand again, and said she hoped to see him again. She was lying. She hated the man — she hated everyone.
She closed the door behind him and locked all ten of the locks she had installed. She fell onto her couch, smiling. She turned the TV back on. She laughed along with all the characters as they made awful jokes with their stupid humor. They were funny to her – it didn’t matter what anyone else thought of the show. If she liked it, she would watch it.
She heard screaming coming from outside. At first she ignored it — people were always screaming outside. It would stop eventually. But the screaming didn’t stop. It just got louder and louder until Jenna couldn’t hear the show anymore because of all the noise.
She paused it and ran to the window, throwing it open.
“Shut the f*** up before I come out and murder you myself!!” she yelled angrily at the men under the window.
“S-sorry Miss.” They looked like they were trembling.
She had scared them. That was the first time she had scared anyone when not wearing her suit. It felt amazing. She placed a threatening smile on her lips and they trembled harder.
“If I hear you again, I will come out there and break both your necks,” she said darkly, with the same smile on her face. She then slammed the window closed and continued to watch her cartoon.
This episode was about Finn and Jake finding a scavenger hunt that Jake’s father had left behind for them. Jake’s family had taken Finn in when he was a child. This episode made Jenna think.
What she had done last night felt like this episode. Two kids, one adopted and one genuine. She had taken their father from them. She was just like the other people — the people who had taken her father. She had done the same thing to two kids, one who was only five years old.
For the first time in six years, Jenna started to feel something other than sadness, or hatred, or the cold fun that came from killing. She felt regret. She was a murderer. She had ruined a family just like her’s. Maybe they weren’t exactly the same, maybe the Kings were rich and only had one parent, but they had still been a family. And she had ruined it.
She turned her attention back to the cartoon, but it didn’t make her feel happy. It made her feel worse. She changed the channel to Boomerang. Yogi Bear was playing. It didn’t cheer her up. How? She loved Yogi Bear. It just made her feel like a kid.
She wasn’t a kid, was she?
She certainly acted like a kid. She felt like a kid. She did things little kids do. She ate too much candy and got stomach aches, she read picture books, she played video games, she watched cartoons. The only difference she could find between her and a normal kid was that she didn’t have parents to tuck her in at night, or read the picture books to her, or tell her to turn off the TV, or to stop playing video games, or to tell her not to eat so much candy.
Annie and Jason King had that, until she showed up.
She had been paid 20 thousand dollars to destroy a family. And she never failed her jobs. What was going to happen to Annie and Jason? Would they be separated? Were they going to a foster home, just like she had? Would they run? Would they end up like her? Looking for revenge, and enjoying hurting others? She didn’t want that.
She quickly changed the channel back to the news.
“Matthew King left it in his will that his children will stay with their butler. They will be taken care of, and kept safe until Annie grows old enough to inherit her father’s money,” the announcer said.
Jenna gave an audible sigh of relief. They weren’t going to foster care, and they weren’t going to run away like she had. People in foster care rarely cared about the children they had taken in. At least the Kings wouldn’t end up like she had.
She didn’t want anyone to end up like her.
She was a monster. All the people who had told her that she didn’t have to hurt them — they had been right all along.
And she had just realized it.