Scene One

Blackout. Glass breaks.

LEONA
Nice shot. Boost me up.

Lights up on a back alley of a large, 1920’s-style mansion. A young Tyler boosts a young Leona up to a broken window and she rummages through what’s inside. Unnoticed by either, Elijah watches them for a moment from the mansion’s upper windows, then exits to the right.

TYLER
(straining) Anything good?

LEONA
Nothing to eat, but definitely stuff we can sell. You think we’ll have time to make it Tio’s pawn shop before he closes tonight?

Elijah enters right, opposite from Leona and Tyler and calmly approaches the pair.

TYLER
If you’re quick—

ELIJAH
And just what do you two think you’re doing?

LEONA and TYLER
(in unison) Shit!

Tyler bolts to exit left, leaving Leona dangling precariously for a moment. Leona falls back out of the window and scrambles to her feet to take off after Tyler.

ELIJAH
(as he chases after) Get back here!

Sounds of a brief struggle come from off-stage. Elijah re-enters, dragging a struggling Leona and Tyler by the arms. He throws them both to the ground. The pair tries to run away the other direction, but Elijah holds up a glowing hand and a magical wall appears, blocking their exit. Leona and Tyler face Elijah, trapped.

Beat.

ELIJAH
You two looking for work?

Leona and Tyler look at each other.

LEONA
W-What?

ELIJAH
I have use for a couple of young lads like you.

Leona looks like she’s going to correct him, but doesn’t.

TYLER
What kind of work?

ELIJAH
I don’t see how that matters right now. It’s that or I turn you over to the cops and you end up as human batteries for magic users to drain.

Leona glances at the magic wall behind them, proof he probably isn’t kidding. She looks to Tyler, who grimaces and shrugs.

LEONA
Guess we don’t really have a choice, huh?

Elijah snaps his fingers and the magic wall lowers, but he rests his other hand casually on the gun on his hip.

ELIJAH
Run again and this time I won’t bother negotiating. (gesturing to the mansion) Right this way, boys.

Reluctantly, Tyler and Leona follow Elijah off-stage. Right before she exits, Leona pauses, casting a longing look in the other direction, debating running one last time. She doesn’t.

 
 

Scene Two

 

Lights up on Leona’s room. It’s sparse, only a few shabby clothes strewn about for decorations. The bed is unmade. Leona sits in the center of the room, books and weapons spread out in front of her.

 

            Tyler was being uncharacteristically cagey. Elijah had taken him on a drive somewhere—just the two of them after dark—a few days ago and Tyler wouldn’t say a word about it to me. Well, anything beyond “Elijah said not to talk about it.”

            At this point all the pieces I could put together were these: Both Tyler and I had our first contract next week. Elijah had taken Tyler somewhere. I’d seen Elijah loading something into the car’s trunk this morning.

            It was almost sunset now and I’d chewed my nails down to nothing on one hand and started on the other. Even in my drafty room, which usually had me shivering by this time of night, sweat gathered on the back of my neck. I’d spent the day practicing anything I thought might help me during whatever was in store tonight, all the things Tyler and I had learned the past few years. Swordplay, shooting, stealth exercises, hell, I even went over my runes. Not that I expected Elijah to let me use those. “Batteries are expensive,” as he was fond of saying.

            The knock on my door made me jump out of my skin, and rip a piece off my thumb. “Leo.”

            I gulped. “Yes?”

            “Meet me out front.”

            Taking a breath, ribs straining against the fabric wrapped tight around my chest, I grabbed a coat and a hat and made my way to the front of the mansion.

            I had for a time planned on correcting Elijah about my gender. But I quickly noticed there were no other girls under his watch. I decided if this is what he did to boys who stole from him, I didn’t want to find out what he did to the girls.

 

Leona exits, lights down. Lights up on the front of the mansion and a chrome-lined car. Enter Elijah and Leona from opposite sides of the stage. Elijah is as unbothered as Leona is nervous.

 

            Elijah was waiting by the car out front. He opened a door and motioned for me to get inside. Wordlessly, I obeyed.

            He said nothing as we pulled out of the gates around the mansion, or on the rest of drive. In the confined space, I could smell the cigarette’s Elijah always smoked. My leg bounced nervously the whole way. I tried to ignore that whenever we stopped at a light, I could hear muffled shouts and banging coming from the trunk.

            Elijah slowed the car as we approached a riverbank on the outskirts of the city. He considered me in the rear-view mirror. I did my very best to stay perfectly still.

            The car rolled to a stop, gears grinding as Elijah put it in park. Without a word, he got out and opened my door again. My legs felt like they were made of lead, but I made myself get up. Elijah had his hands behind his back and I flinched reflexively when he moved one. But instead of a blow, he pressed the cold metal of a gun into my hand. It was heavier than I was used to and I knew instantly this wasn’t one that fired dummy bullets, like we used for practice.

            I didn’t realize I was staring at the gun until Elijah cleared his throat and I had to move my head to look at him again. “I’d like to have a talk, if you’ll indulge me.”

            “Okay,” I squeaked.

            He put a hand on my shoulder and steered me to the back of the car. This close, the lingering whispers of cigarettes threatened to choke me. “I’m a businessman. And you boys that I train up, you’re an investment, you understand. Feeding you, clothing you, training you.”

            Stomach queasy, I tried talking to see if that would help. “That makes sense.” It did not help. Bile burned my throat with each word and I swallowed hard in an attempt to cool it.

            Elijah nodded to himself. “And I’d be a bad businessman if I didn’t make a return on my investments.”

            “Which is why I’m going to work for you.” Little had Tyler and I known all those years ago we were trying to steal from the head of an assassin’s guild. I wished we’d just decided to go hungry that night. “I’m going on a job next week.” I hoped making it sound like I was doing so more willingly than I was would help. Somehow.

            It sort of did. Elijah cracked a smile, not that it was a comforting sight. “Exactly. And I’d be doing a disservice to my customers if I didn’t test the merchandise first.” He popped the trunk.

            Inside was a figured bound hand and foot with a ratty sack pulled over their head.

            Elijah didn’t have to say what he wanted me to do. I knew.

            My throat, which had already been building a sizable lump on the drive, closed up entirely. I knew what we were being trained for. I knew what the work would entail. I’d tried not to think about it, if I could kill someone. I was scared of the answer. But now, face-to-sack with what it meant to be an assassin, I had it. I shook my head. “I can’t.”

            Elijah scoffed. “You can. I’ve spent the past few years making sure you could. The question is will you or won’t you?”

            I shook my head harder, backing away from the trunk. “I-I… I’ll do other work for you.”

            “There’s very little other work that pays as well. I’m not interested in pennies.”

            The person in the trunk writhed around, trying in vain to free themselves. Every movement made my stomach creep higher up my throat. I couldn’t have moved if I’d wanted to.

            Elijah sighed. He fished around in his pocket and pulled out a palm-sized metal circle and a lighter. He flicked the flame into being, casting shadows in the brush, and held it up to the circle. An intricate rune bloomed to life. “Do you recognize this one?”

            I mustered the will to move my eyes to look at it. A few of the intersecting shapes were familiar. Transfer, power. But the rest were foreign. I shook my head.

            “This,” Elijah said pointedly, “is my other way of making my money back. The rune marks the bearer as a well for others to draw energy from. Batteries are expensive, but that also means they sell very well.”

            I didn’t think I had any breath to catch, but I did.

            My breathing, which had been coming in dregs, suddenly came in rapid gasps.

            “Your choice, Leo.”

            I didn’t move.

            Elijah held the lighter to the brand again. “Five.”

            I looked to the rune, glowing a painful orange. I looked to the person in the trunk, all of the sudden painfully aware they’d just been lying their listening to us this whole time.

            “Four.”

            I wanted to run. To bolt for the riverbank and take my chances with the current. But I couldn’t move any more than whipping my head between the brand and the body. Brand body.

            “Three.”

            Brand, body, brand, body, brand, body, gun.

            “Two.”

            Elijah grabbed my arm, yanked up my sleeve—

            “One.”

            I raised my other arm and fired.

            The world was still, save my still-raised, shaking arm and the growing pool of blood in the trunk.

            Elijah let go of me. He waved the brand back and forth a few times and pocketed it again. “Good choice.” Taking the gun from my limp hand, he made his way back to the driver’s door. “Get rid of that and we’ll go.”

            My arm still hung frozen in the air. What did I just do?

            “Now, boy!”

            I jolted back into my body and the lingering panic waiting there propelled me into action, reaching for the body in the trunk. Straining, I hauled it onto the grass, dragged it down the riverbank and dumped the body into the river. Then my stomach along with it.

 

Lights down on the riverbank. Lights up on Leona’s room.

 

            Huddled in a ball in the corner of my room, I bit down on the side of my hand to keep quiet, but it did nothing to stop the tears. I’d managed to keep it together on the drive back, but now that I was alone, I could barely breathe for the guilt squeezing my chest. Why did I do that? traded places with What have I done? with each high-pitched gasp.

            Because of my wheezing, I didn’t hear the knocks right away, until a voice called out hesitantly, “Leo? You back yet?”

            I wiped my face with the back of my hand, a flicker of anger steading me for a moment. I took my other hand out of my mouth—skin broken when my incisors had sat but only red otherwise—to snap, “Oh, now you’ll talk to me.”

            Tyler sighed. “Are you gonna let me in or not?”

            I wrapped my arms around myself, bitten hand stinging, and said nothing. A few moments later, I heard the telltale clicking of a lock being picked, but didn’t stop Tyler as he unlocked my door and stepped inside.

 

Enter Tyler, guilty.

 

            I had to wipe my tears away again before I glared at him. “Why didn’t you tell me!”

            He ran a hand down his face, then threw it out to the side in a flippant gesture. “Because I knew you’d be weird about it.”

            “Be we—I just killed someone!” I didn’t mean to shout and I instantly clapped both hands over my mouth, eyes wide as reality hit all over again. I swore I could still smell blood on my palms, even with all the times I’d washed them. Quieter, I repeated, “I just killed someone…”

            I didn’t know them, I couldn’t even see them, really. How was I going to be able to do that again when I could see them? I knew the answer: I couldn’t.

            I shook my head and braced a hand on the wall as I got to my feet. “I can’t do this,” I breathed. “I need to leave. Now.”

            Tyler went rigid. “Leo—” He glanced over both shoulders, then slammed my door shut and hissed, “Leona. You can’t say shit like that. If Elijah hears you—”

            “You should have told me!” Hands in fists, I took a step towards Tyler. “If I’d known, I could have been long gone by now!”

            “This is exactly why I didn’t tell you, because you would’ve gone and done something dumb like that!”

            Ignoring Tyler, I began grabbing what few things I’d managed to acquire over the years and shoving them into a bag.

            “Leona, you know you can’t leave.”

            I shot him a cutting look. “Are you going to stop me?”

            The question caught him off guard and he stammered nothing.

            Shaking my head again, I continued packing. “I can’t stay here, Tyler. I can’t,” I took a shaky breath and swallowed down what would have been my fourth mouthful of bile, “I can’t do that again.”

            The words brought my mind back to something Elijah has said. Will you, or won’t you? It wasn’t a question of can or can’t. It was a question of will or won’t. And I was wrong at the river, like I was wrong now. I could kill someone. And worse, when it came down to it, I would. What kind of monster did that make me? I shook myself out of my thoughts and hurried my packing. I won’t then. Never again.

            “Leona, would you stop and think for a minute?” He grabbed me by the shoulders and forced me to stop. “If you run, all Elijah has to do is pass over the gun you used to the cops and they wave their stupid,” Tyler scrunched up his face, hands gripping my shoulders tighter, “cop wands or whatever and trace it back to you. Then what happens, huh?”

            My forearm burned with a phantom memory of the brand hovering above it and an invisible noose tightened around my neck.

            Tyler’s gaze drifted down to his own arm. “You clearly wanted to avoid that enough to kill someone for it.”

            I had to circle Tyler’s words several times before they sank in. Barely I whisper, I said, “We’re trapped here. I’m trapped here.”

            Solemnly, Tyler nodded. He offered me a poor attempt at a half-grin. “At least we’re stuck here together.”

            My face, which had been hanging slack, was overcome with a scowl. I shoved Tyler away. Hard. “Get away from me.”

            “Hey! What gives—”

            “You should have told me!” I shouted again, hands in fists at my sides and tears in my eyes. “You knew, you could have told me, I could have left before I was trapped here!”

            Tyler’s shoulders creeped up. He grabbed his arms as his bottom lip quivered. “I didn’t want to be here alone.”

            I blinked at him. This was calculated. “Get out.”

            “Leona, please, listen, I just—”

            I scooped a sword off the floor and swung at his head. “Get out!”

            Cursing, Tyler bolted out of the room.

 

Exit Tyler, guilty.

 

            And I was left alone, panting.

            The sword clattered to the floor and I followed soon after, crying even harder than before. My hands gripped my short hair. I won’t stay here, I promised myself. I won’t.

Scene 3

Lights up on the interior of a brothel. Workers and their clients lounge around on couches, one of which Leona sits on, leg bouncing and biting a nail.

 

            The brothel smelled like moonshine and sweaty bodies. But it was the only place this Roy fellow would agree to meet me. “I don’t mess around with Elijah’s toys just anywhere,” as he put it.

            I was working up the courage approach one of the women in pink dresses like I was told to, when a practiced hand danced along my back and around my shoulders. “Hey, handsome,” the woman cooed, looking me up and down with an appreciation I knew was faked, but didn’t make me squirm any less. “First time?”

            “Ah—No, er—I mean yes, um, but I, uh, I’m here waiting for…” I trailed off as I took in her dress. What I was sure was an uncomfortable lack of fabric, but pink. “Someone. Or looking for someone, I mean.” I felt silly as I continued, like a child speaking in code, “With… blue hair? Though I supposed I was at least one of those things.

            The woman straightened, which gave me some much-needed breathing room, all business like a switch was flipped. “Oh. I see. Right this way then.”

            Looping an arm through mine, the woman led me into another, smaller room in the back. A man, Roy presumably, was waiting inside sitting casually on the bed. He gave Ali a wave and she sat in the corner of the room, facing the wall as Roy snapped a shimmering barrier around her, then a second one around the room.
           I wiped my sweaty palms on my pants, fingers sore from my biting. “Why did we have to meet here of all places?”

            Roy gave an easy grin and held his hands out in an oddly showman-like gesture. “Can’t beat the privacy.”

            I eyed the magic barrier around the woman. “She really can’t hear us with that?”

            “Hey, Ali!”

            Ali didn’t react.

            “See?” Roy braced one hand on his knee and gave me a once-over. “Now, what can I do for you?”

            Taking a breath and damning it all, I said, “I need to fake my death. I heard you could help?”

            Roy leaned back on the bed with a long stream of air. “That’s a tall order.”

            My stomach dropped as my voice pitched up. “Can you do it?”
           “Can you afford it?”

            Movements clumsy with nerves, I took off my hat and pulled a pile of bills out from inside of it. Roy gave it a quick look and was unimpressed with the amount.

            I held the money and the hat out more forcefully. “Please, this is all I have.” Each word came out faster than the last, like my heartbeat controlled the speed. “Everything I’ve managed to sneak and I-I sold everything else I had, this was all it got, but please.”

            Roy rested his elbows on his knees, looking between me and the money. Eventually, he took it, counted it, and pocketed it. “Alright, kid, I can help you out. It’ll work, but for what this can buy, it won’t be pretty.”

            My next words came out hoarse with a mix of desperation and relief. “As long as it works.”

            “Here’s what you’re gonna do.”

Lights down.

Lights up on a street. A hooded figure leans against a lamppost. Leona approaches them.

ROY (offstage)
I have a buddy who can get you what you need. Meet him and ask for—

LEONA
A drought of unseeing thistle?

The figure passes Leona a small vial in exchange for money. She hurries off stage. Lights down.

ROY (offstage)
This is the tricky bit. The drought will slow your breathing and heartbeat enough you’ll seem dead. It’ll last about twelve hours, should give you lots of time.

Lights up on Leona sitting on her bed, finger rapidly tapping the vial in her hands. A sword lies on the bed next to her.

ROY (offstage)
But if there’s not a clear cause of what “killed” you… people might get suspicious. You get what I mean?

Leona rests her head in her free hand, breathing heavily as she stares at the vial.

ROY (offstage)
I said it wouldn’t be pretty. Just be careful not to do too good of a job, hey?

LEONA
As long as it gets me out of here.

Taking a final deep breath, Leona throws back the vial in one gulp, takes the sword and holds it up to her neck—

Blackout and the sound of a slicing sword.

Lights up on half the stage, showing Tyler and Elijah in the hallway outside. Tyler is nervous, Elijah looks mad. Elijah nods Tyler towards the door.

TYLER
(knocking) Leo?

Nothing.

TYLER
Leo? You in there? Elijah wants to talk to you. He noticed you weren’t at shooting practice this morning.

Nothing.

TYLER
I’m not playing around Leo—

Tyler tries the door and finds it unlocked. As he swings open the door, the lights come up on the other half of the stage. They show Leona splayed out on her bed, covered in blood, with her throat apparently slit.

Tyler cries out and falls back out of the room, collapsing with his hands covering his mouth. Elijah enters the room and even he is surprised at what he finds. It quickly turns to contempt. He rounds on Tyler.

ELIJAH
Did you know about this?

Tyler shakes his head.

ELIJAH
Nothing?

TYLER
She— She said she was going to run away.

Elijah gives Leona one last disgusted look and then leaves.

ELIJAH
Inconvenient. (to Tyler) Get rid of it.

Alone, Tyler doesn’t move for a while. Shakily, he gets to his feet and enters the room.

TYLER
Leona? (he slowly approached the bed and shakes her shoulder) I’m sorry, don’t do this. (he shakes her harder) Come on, don’t leave me here alone…

Leona doesn’t react. Tyler lets his hand fall. Sniffling, he picks her up. Lights down.

TYLER
I’m sorry.

Lights up. Leona lies lifeless on the stage. The light slowly changes from morning to afternoon to dusk. Her fingers twitch, then her leg. Then—

With a gasp, Leona bolts upright, alive. She whips her head back and forth once, gets to her feet, and runs.