Picking out a playlist to fill Mary’s head before she began dissolving the body took much more time than she thought was necessary. She continued to scroll, her colorfully painted fingernails tapping frustratedly on the operating table, a centimeter away from the man in hysterics. Her phone screen illuminated her face, and she hummed to herself as she paused on a few songs, thinking whether or not they’d be the right pick. It was a long, hard job getting rid of a body, especially the body of a Spartan, so it was paramount she picked right.

“Please!” the man cried. “We’re the same, right? Right?! Goddamit, just listen to me!” He started screaming, and Mary frowned, lowering the phone to look at him. The flashes of lightning outside the warehouse were the only way she could see him–in split second flashes when God wanted to peek inside the darkness and check out what his children were up to. Some dad he was, too afraid to give Mary enough light to make out the man’s features.

She shrugged, hastily going back to scrolling through the songs downloaded on her phone as he continued howling. Was he howling in pain or fear? She couldn’t tell. For one, she’d ripped his dog tags off him because, well, he wasn’t a dog. He was a human being. But she kept them safe, putting them in a box along with hundreds of others. And the fear… Mary had forgotten how that felt, so she couldn’t say for sure if it was.

“What number are you?” he said, panting. It was a demand, and Mary hated demands. “I asked you a fucking question! What number are you?”

Mary picked a song: Easy by Lionel Richie. She put in her ear buds, but the man shouted over the opening melody.

“I’m number six! You see the tattoo on my wrist?” He strained against the leather straps tight around his hands. “I’m higher than you. Part of the Six. You know—“

Mary increased the volume as she picked up a meat cleaver. She mouthed, you know I’ve done all I can/ You see I begged, stole/ And I borrowed. She slammed the cleaver into his skull, but he’d twitched, and she’d missed. The cleaver’s edge had wedged itself into the side of his head and not gone completely in; she scowled as he started screeching in pain. Idiot. She’d written him a note specifically telling him not to move, and now look what happened.

I’m easy like Sunday morning/ That’s why I’m easy/ I’m easy like Sunday morning.

Mary, calmer, put a hand on his sweat layered chest and yanked the cleaver from his head. Blood spurted over her black t-shirt and white tie, ruining her day a touch. But she knew she’d get messy, so it didn’t bother her too much.

Why in the world/ Would anybody put chains on me/ I've paid my dues to make it/ Everybody wants me to be/ What they want me to be/ I'm not happy when I try to fake it! Mary raised the cleaver, gave the man a pleasant smile, and beheaded him. No!

The rest of the night was spent severing his body and making sure he didn’t put himself back together. Her kind was very hard to deal with, and Mary was the very best at dealing with them. But there was a time, about an hour or so in, when his arm had reattached to his torso and tried to strangle her. That hadn’t been nice of him. Ever since she’d lost her vocal cords, her throat had been overly sensitive, so that pissed her off enough to put her playlist on shuffle and dump him in acid before she could say sorry to him. Or ask whether he had a family she could send flowers and chocolate, too. People liked flowers and chocolate. They both masked the smell of death and brightened your day. Mary couldn’t think of anything better than chocolate as she watched his sole remaining body part, a blue eye ball, fizzle and pop and eventually sink into the depths of the clear liquid.

It’s not like she enjoyed killing her kind; slaughtering them like they were animals wasn’t… good. It wasn’t right. Even she knew that, and she was a Spartan–a biologically enhanced animal that went around killing her kind, and to the people who didn’t know why, she just did it because she enjoyed it. Which was wrong. She only smiled at her victims because it was better for them to see her smiling in their final moments than anything else. That way, they’d have some sort of happiness to them. Who’d want to die with the sight of a scowl? Mary knew she wouldn’t.

Mary’s stomach rose as the smell of dissolving flesh filled the warehouse’s stuffy interior. She stepped away, turning around and walking towards the giant rusted doors. She was bloody from head to toe; catching her reflection in a puddle of grease, she frowned at the rivulets of blood running their way down her face. She brushed her sleeve against it, but only smeared it more. She couldn’t get rid of it that easily.

The first patters of rain startled her. Drumming against the sheet metal far above, she found them hypnotic after a while. Sounds were always so calming, especially nature’s fantastical orchestra. God wasn’t much of a great guy in her opinion, but he was a great musician, and she couldn’t help but look up into the heavens, standing in the bone chilling rain, and sway in the gentle breeze–dancing to music only she could hear. Music that everyone in the universe took for granted, but music that touched her soul, regardless.

Checking her silver watch, she nodded and looked back up into the falling crystals. Ten more minutes, and they’d be nothing left of Bluebird. His callsign was strange, and she’d have asked him, but she couldn’t speak to the dead. Although she was surrounded by them. The ghosts of two hundred and ninety-five of her brethren stared at her, untouched by the rain washing off the blood.

She didn’t pay them any attention as she turned on her heels, kicking off her shoes. The mud underneath her squelched as she wriggled her toes into the earth. She shivered at the strange sensation, her body awesomely excited by the purity of it all. She wanted to dance and play, but she was exhausted. Ten in one day was a new high for her, but the Hunter of Artemis were getting close, and she couldn’t afford to back off now. Not when she was so close to completing her—

Pausing, she cocked her head and looked down at the ground. Tucking a strand of black hair behind her ear, she crouched and looked at the yellow flower at her feet. She’d trampled it. Bent and broken, its beautiful petals scattered around it. She got onto her knees and collected its petals, gently placing them on her palm. When she was done, she tentatively scooped up the flower along with the surrounding earth and hurried back into the warehouse.

Setting it on the floor, she realized the flower wasn’t completely yellow. Droplets of the blood washed off her hands had ruined its fresh beauty, making it all wrong. Making it seem as if the flower was deformed. Inferior to its kind.

Mary had killed it, and… Her next breath was shaky, and the one after that brought stinging tears to her eyes. She roughly wiped them away, sniffling. The silent shadows with forgotten faces drew closer, choking the air. She swallowed as they murmured her name, each repetition slamming a nail of guilt into her skin, pinning her to this earth. To the floor where she’d brought so, so many to die. She shut her eyes and forced herself to breathe, rhythmically tapping her muddy fingernails on the cracked concrete floor. The voices subsided, leaving her alone in the pale light coming from her phone next to the vats of acid. All alone, just as always. But she’d made this decision, and she had to walk the path she chose, hot coal or gold as her way she had to endure. Pain was a currency in her life, and she was wealthy.

Though she wished she were destitute.

She’d try her best to save the flower. And all of them watching... all the people who weren’t actually people who stood in the shadows, not once touching the light, would be proved wrong. For once, Mary would save a life. Just after she finished her mission, that would rid the world of her people.