Cage of Thorns: The Assassin's Redemption

Lina's POV

"Orphan."

Those two words struck me from behind just as I was looking down at my math textbook.

I couldn't understand those symbols. They were like some kind of code I'd never learned, harder to decipher than any cipher.

"Hey, I'm talking to you."

A book slammed down hard on my desk.

I looked up and saw three faces.

The leader was called Blair—long blonde hair, lips painted the brightest rose red. When she smiled, her eyes didn't curve; you could see the meanness at the bottom of them.

Behind her stood two followers, one tall and thin, one short and fat, both wearing this aristocratic university's custom uniforms, with golden family crests embroidered on their chests.

I remembered the admissions handbook stated this university's full name was "St. Herman's Academy for Nobility," and most students were descendants of New York's Upper East Side families.

And I wasn't one of them.

I was just an assassin, a... assassin being hunted by the organization.

Thanks to Luca, I could wear this well-tailored, soft-fabric uniform.

When I first put it on, I looked at myself in the mirror for a long time.

This body had only ever worn combat gear and cheap disguise clothing before. Being suddenly wrapped in such exquisite fabric was like a blade being placed in a velvet-lined sheath.

"Are you deaf or mute?" Blair was dissatisfied with my spacing out and deliberately raised her volume. "Say something, Lina. Why are you so rude? Didn't your parents teach you?"

"Or is it—you don't even have parents?"

I didn't react.

Or rather, I'd trained myself not to react.

Dmitri had once warned me: emotions are an assassin's greatest weakness.

A true assassin isn't without feelings, but can lock those feelings in a cage under any circumstances.

I'd spent many years learning this skill. At this moment, that cage stood firmly in some corner at the bottom of my heart.

"She's just an orphan." The short, fat one laughed, voice sharp and cutting.

I lowered my eyes and turned to the next page of the textbook.

Blair stared at me for a few seconds, then slowly curved up the corners of her mouth.

I'd seen that kind of smile too many times—on hunters who thought they'd already caught their prey.

She bent down close to my ear and said in a volume only we could hear: "You know what? I hate bitches like you who pretend to be innocent the most. You think if you don't talk, we can't do anything to you?"

With that, Blair straightened up and gave her two followers a look.

The tall, thin one snatched away my math textbook. The short, fat one picked up the glass of water on my desk that I hadn't had time to drink yet and slowly, without spilling a drop, poured it over my head.

Ice-cold water trickled down along my hair, sliding over my forehead, nose bridge, and chin, dripping onto the collar of my uniform. The deep navy blue fabric bloomed with a dark water stain.

I didn't close my eyes, nor did I fly into a rage.

I just sat there quietly.

Snickering erupted in the classroom.

Dozens of eyes watched me—some gloating, some sympathetic but not daring to speak up, some purely curious, curious about what reaction a person would have after being humiliated like this.

I had no reaction at all.

I lowered my head, took tissues from my bag, and slowly wiped the water off my face.

Then I stood up, took back my math textbook from the tall, thin girl's hands, sat back down, and turned to the page I'd just been reading.

Blair's expression changed.

She probably expected me to cry, or scream, or rush at her to fight.

Any of those reactions would have satisfied her, because it would mean she'd successfully pierced through my shell.

But I didn't.

My calmness wasn't endurance, but a complete indifference, as if everything that just happened had nothing to do with me, as if the person who'd been doused and bullied wasn't me at all.

This made her feel slighted.

"You just wait." She dropped this line and walked away on her high heels.

The classroom quieted down again.

I swept my soaked hair behind my ears and stared at those incomprehensible symbols in the textbook.

I realized with some distress that I truly didn't understand mathematics.

Even though I understood human skeletal structure, the twelve vital points for a killing strike, the symptoms and antidotes of seven different poisons, how to dismantle a bomb in thirty seconds, how to escape from any form of restraint.

But this knowledge was useless here, just like me.

The bell rang for break. I packed up my things and walked out of the classroom.

The hallway was long. Soaking wet, I walked forward slowly, like an animal that had just struggled to crawl ashore from water.

I heard someone behind me say in a low voice: "She's the one Luca Moretti sent here?"

"I heard she's an orphan. Don't know what her background is."

"Don't mess with her. I heard—"

The rest was carried away by the wind.

Luca Moretti. I silently repeated this name.

A week ago, he sent me to this school.

Before that, I was an assassin.

Before that, I was a child taken from an orphanage by "Raven."

Before that, I was a nameless, past-less existence that no one cared about.

Fifteen years.

In fifteen years I'd learned twenty-seven methods of killing, carried out forty-three successful assassinations, gotten blood on my hands that even I couldn't count.

I thought leaving "Raven" meant freedom, but on the first day of freedom I discovered I had nowhere to go—because besides killing, I knew nothing else.

Then Luca appeared.

He gave me an apartment, a bank card, a student ID, and one sentence I still couldn't understand: "Didn't you want to escape 'Raven' and live a normal person's life? Then start by going to school."

I didn't know why he would do this.

Why would a mafia boss go to such lengths to send an assassin to university?

He didn't lack bodyguards, didn't lack muscle, much less lacked pitiful creatures who needed his charity.

What use was I to him?

Perhaps he just wanted to tame me. Turn me from a dangerous beast into an obedient dog.

Perhaps he was just making an investment. Once I learned to "live normally," he could plant me somewhere he needed to infiltrate.

Perhaps, perhaps.

I hated perhaps.

I walked out of the academic building and stood on the steps, watching students walking past in twos and threes across campus.

They laughed, joked around, discussed which restaurant to go to on the weekend, what dress to wear to next week's party.

They lived in a completely different world from mine.

That world had parents, had friends, had exams, had dates, had all those things I'd never possessed and would never possess.

"Orphan."

The echo of those two words still buzzed in my eardrums.

It's alright, I told myself.

You've survived in worse environments. This degree of humiliation is nothing but a passing cloud.

You just need to endure.

Endure until graduation, endure until Luca is satisfied, endure until the day you're truly free.

Endure.