Chapter 16

16

Eva

I spend two hours building the perfect face. I'm obsessed with makeup. I have more makeup and wigs in my suitcase than weaponry. In my free time, I watch makeup tutorials. I check for makeup drops multiple times a day. For me, makeup is fun. It's a way to disguise myself, true, but it's also a way to revitalize myself, to recover.

With all that Jonathan business on the train, I haven't really had time to process Florence. I was there because of my fiancé, Andrew—my late fiancé. It was the second anniversary of his death, and my first time back in Florence. I've been running for two years.

I went back to bury his ashes. I should've done it a long time ago. I knew Andrew wasn't on good terms with his family, but I guess I hoped that if I left his ashes at the mortuary, someone might forgive him and pick them up. No one did. They were still there two years later, now with a pricey holding fee.

I buried the ashes in a cute little cemetery overlooking the Arno. On the way to the train station the next morning, I passed by Andrew's old apartment and was surprised to see his curtains still hanging crookedly over the window. I realized that not only had no one picked up his ashes, but no one had cleared out his apartment either. His landlord might not even realize he was dead. Like me, Andrew traveled a lot. Like me, he paid his rent in advance, in cash, to avoid background checks.

The responsible part of me said to skip the train, stay in Florence and iron everything out, but that seemed a little risky. My job basically requires me to avoid anything that involves paperwork, and death involves a lot of paperwork. So I didn't stop. I jumped the train. I pushed Andrew out of my mind in favor of fucking the bulky weapons enthusiast. I like to think Andrew would have understood. He always hated paperwork, too.

I didn't love Andrew the way you're supposed to, the way that love is described, but I do miss him sometimes. He made me feel like less of a weirdo, which is kind of the nicest thing a person can do for you.

I force myself to stop thinking about him. I have a job to do.

I sit in front of my mirror and I watch my face transform. My past and my trauma disappear under layers and layers of smooth, flawless makeup.

Normally it's my job to be forgettable. It's easy. I was born forgettable: the girl whose name you can't remember, whose face you can't quite place. Who looks oh so familiar but it could just be that she looks like someone else. That's me.

But not tonight. Tonight I have to be gorgeous, the kind of woman you would follow to the edge of the earth, or at least to your death.

Men don't know the difference between makeup and reality; it's one of their biggest blind spots. Another woman would see a cake face, but men see what they want to see. They appreciate the nod to the unattainable beauty standards they created.

I pull up reference points on my phone. Dove Cameron. Brigitte Bardot. Hitchcock blondes and femmes fatales. I mean, this is France after all.

Tonight's kill should be an easy one, because it's a Fall Guy Kill, which means someone will get blamed. Not me, of course, but murder is so much easier when you don't have to make it look like an accident or an act of God.

The agency I work for kills the bad guys. The dangerous, the wicked, the truly unforgivable. There are a lot of them out there. It's my job to take them down.

The agency is based out of London, as is my handler, Sherri. According to Sherri, the agency has been around since time immemorial, making the world a safer place one murder at a time.

I trust Sherri. I have to. My life is basically in her hands.

Sherri also happens to be my best friend. She took the Eurostar down from London this morning to help with the recon for this job. We're meeting for drinks tomorrow, at around ten a.m. We always drink during the day. It prevents hangovers.

Sherri has been my handler since day one. Long enough that I can't say she has never steered me wrong. We all make mistakes, but the great thing about her is that when things go wrong, she still has jokes. I almost die and we laugh about it. That's true friendship.

Sherri has assured me that the man on the menu tonight is really, really bad. Bad to women. Bad to children. The worst kind. It's easy for me to get fired up about people like this. On a subconscious level, I'm killing the people who killed my parents. Again.

I used to believe that I could not let what happened to me when I was a child affect my life. That I had a choice. Growing up, I'd been determined to be like any other girl: pretty, sweet, lovable. And I was, for a very long time. Makeup helped. It wasn't until I met Andrew—and Sherri—that I realized something was missing. I was pretty, sweet and lovable, but I wasn't me.

I was running away from my trauma. I was hiding my true self, but not anymore.

Now I'm preventing the tragedy of a kid like me. And I'm looking damn good while doing it.

I purse my lips at the new face in the mirror. I don't smile—she wouldn't, this character I have created to do the killing for me.

She has epically long white-blond hair, pale skin, wide-set eyes. Only her lips are red. She wears a long black dress and long black gloves to hide any bloodstains. She carries a silver purse, and a Glock, and a prayer.