The Church certainly did provide. As soon as Mary stepped inside the grand space, a rough blanket was draped around her shoulders by one of the sisters. They told her to sit, to warm up and make sure she didn’t get a cold. The Mother hobbled off through a side door, leaving Mary to be tended to by hands that touched her too much and voices that spoke too loud and carried far, far too much worry for her than she deserved. They dried her hair and forced a mug of hot tea into her hands and asked where she’d gotten a few of the faint scars she had on her cheek and neck, of which Mary simply blushed and shook her head.

Their care was overwhelming, and Mary could hardly stand it. She loved candy and honey and sugar, but this was the kind of sweetness that made your teeth ache and your throat pain. And Mary felt as if her entire body was just one big cavity, being eaten away by their worrisome hands and conversation. Speaking to her as if they were friends. As if… Mary realized why it was so strange; she’d forgotten how it felt to be cared for, if cared for at all. Spartans weren’t considered people, so they didn’t have people's rights. She wasn't even sure if they had animal rights. That’s what she understood. Flashing memories of being thrown out of orphanages, spat and kicked and sworn out when she begged for food, played in her head.

Discreetly blinking away stinging tears, she focused on what the nuns were saying. They spoke like chirping birds, melodious and continuous.

“Your hair,” one said, her fingers slicing through Mary’s black locks. “It’s so full. How did you get it like this?”

Before she could answer, another nun said, “And your skin is so smooth!”

“Your arms are toned!”

“Such strong shoulders!”

Mary felt as if she was being suffocated. Everywhere she looked she saw a golden cross around a neck, almost as if god was saying, see the care I could give you? The love? And it would only come if she simply just… stopped. If she laid down her weapons, her aggression and instinct and being, she could become more than just a killer. Than just a hound hunting her kind. She dearly wanted to let it all go and genuinely smile, instead of plastering on a smile that felt as if two meat hooks pulled at the corners of her mouth.

Regardless of what I do, she thought, smiling and nodding and acting surprised at what the nuns said, I will never know peace.

She simply wasn’t built for it.

She simply didn’t deserve it.

A sharp clap silenced the sisters. An older looking woman came forward, dark circles around her eyes, a tired smile on her face, and stress lines on her dark forehead. “Enough. You all sin in the house of God so freely?”

They shuffled uncomfortably, avoiding her eyes. “Sorry, Miss Talupa,” they murmured as one.

She softly chuckled and shook her head. “My, my, you girls don’t change.” Moving aside, she said, “Unless you’ve finished your duties, it is time for prayers and then sleep. We have a busy day tomorrow.”

Before they shuffled away, Mary was greeted by something strange. Smiles and the words of goodnight. It was bone chilling. It made her stomach feel strange. But she liked the odd warmth it brought into her veins that pulsed throughout her entire body until… Mary gave them as real a smile as she’d given anyone in years and waved as they left.

Miss Talupa turned to Mary, who had finished her cup of tea and was beginning to shiver. “There’s a bath ready, if you’d like.” She gestured towards a door; a door beside the one the Mother had gone through. Undoubtedly, the guns had to be there. Unless they didn’t house them within the church. Then again, Mary had felt the occasional sharpness of guns strapped to thighs and the prick of sheathed knives strapped to forearms when the nuns had fallen upon her.

She’d somehow have to get into the Mother’s chamber. Or if that were a passageway to a storage room, then she’d take that. If all else failed, there was always the nun’s weapons. Though, so few and so much weaker weapons would hardly do any good against a Spartan of Canary’s caliber, let alone the Russian Mafia. But she’d have to take her chances, and she didn’t necessarily like them. Even Mary had her limits, and fighting off around fifty nuns at a go with weapons at their disposal didn’t seem favorable.

She was lying to herself; Mary just didn't want to kill the first people who had shown her any sort of concern in decades.

Today sucks, she thought, standing up and following Miss Talupa.

They passed through an unremarkable door, squeaking on its hinges and opening up into a stone hallway. Old, naked bulbs hung from thin wires above Mary. So spaced out, so few and far between, that, at times, she was drenched in complete darkness, only guided by Miss Talupa humming a hymn Mary vaguely recognized.

Mary noted the scuff marks on the stone. The inexperienced would have thought age or decay, but the telltale signs of knives against stone, of bullets biting into rock, told Mary all she needed to know about the church. She quietly watched Miss Talupa walk in front of her and wondered how dangerous she really was. If this was all a rouse. If they knew who Mary was and what she was, and were leading her to her death.

She silently undid her belt buckle and slid it out, tightly clenching onto the leather as she wrapped it around her fist, the buckle acting as a cuff on her knuckles. Mary didn’t hurt innocent people unless they tried to kill her, and then it was all instinct past that point. And those long, powerful strides of Miss Talupa, her squared shoulders and powerful neck; the way Miss Talupa kept her hands in front of her and out of Mary’s eyesight. The woman was smarter than she'd thought, and it scared Mary.

Suddenly all too tense, the leather creaked as she gripped onto it further. Out of her arm’s reach, a few steps behind, but not too far as to give her the advantage of a gun, but close enough to lunge and break it out of her grip, maybe dodge the swing of a blade, or---

“Here we are,” she said. Mary finally saw what she held—a key to a heavy wooden door, of which she opened and stepped aside so Mary could go in first.

Mary hid her clasped belt buckle and smiled, slinking into the room and not allowing Miss Talupa to disappear from her eyesight. Right in the corner of her eye. Right at the very edge of Mary’s reach.

Her room was small and saddening. With one metal framed bed by the far wall, a desk with the Bible and documents scattered over it, a picture of herself and the other sisters, and a small wardrobe, Mary felt ashamed for even suspecting the kind woman. Even the lighting was weak, as the only illumination came from a sole candle just beside her bed.

Through another door, a small bathroom with a bucket full of hot water, a sponge, and a bar of soap greeted Mary, as well as a towel and robe.

“I can take your clothes for you,” she said. “They’ll be put by a fire to dry them as quickly as possible.”

Mary, still suspicious, pulled off her tie and undid her top button. Her eyes remained on the woman as she slowly undid each button. Miss Talupa remained placid, with that same flat smile on her lips and soulless eyes looking Mary over, searching for something. Mary didn’t know what, but it made her viscously uncomfortable as she took off her shirt. Left in a bra, she shivered in the sudden cold.

The woman’s eyes didn’t leave her as she undid her slim trousers’ top button.

Mary paused before she took them off. Could you turn around? she signed.

The woman sly chuckled. “Dear, I have grown up amongst women my entire life. There’s nothing to hide.” She plucked Mary’s shirt off the floor. “Besides, I… have a lover. I would not dream of doing such to you.”

Mary didn’t trust her one bit.

Miss Talupa sighed and turned around.

Taking off what remained, she quickly stepped into the bathroom and shut the door. But the door was flimsy, and hardly a door at all. Mostly just wooden planks nailed together on hinges past their best days. Naked, cold, and her heart beating, Mary searched for anything she could use as a weapon in case of an emergency. The bucket could be good. With its sharp edges and thin wire for a handle, she could deal enough damage. The water was simply an asset, and the soap could be useful as a gag. Maybe a few of the cobbles could be jostled loose, now those could be very useful.

A squeak from the room told her Miss Talupa sat on her bed, and Mary inwardly cursed as she began washing. She was sitting directly to her right then, and that wouldn’t give Mary all that much time to attack her if—

“May I tell you a secret, dear stranger?”

Mary paused, clutching onto the bucket. Her heart raced. Her ears rang with roaring blood.

“I am in love with women.”

Confused, Mary paused. She’d been so tense and ready, she’d nearly smashed the wooden door with the bucket. But now she stood, bewildered and suddenly a little too exposed to unseen eyes.

Miss Talupa sighed. “And, frankly, I don’t know what to do. I have been since I was a young girl. And when a Spartan, Lord forgive me for mentioning their name, killed my parents, seemingly in cold blood, maybe because they could and everyone was too afraid to do anything towards them, I was lost. Angry. So, so bitter. But then I found the church. Tell me, are you lost?”

Mary placed her hand to the door and ever so slightly nodded.

“Whether you are or not, I doubt the church is the way, and I despise myself for thinking such. God is not always the answer, and when you carry a weight on your shoulders so heavy it feels as if your spine will break at any moment, you grow tired. Infuriated after a while. I want to let go of the weight, but I would lose everything. I would lose who I am.” Miss Talupa paused, and the silence, for once, wasn’t what Mary wanted. “I don’t remember who I was before I became a nun, and, frankly, I’m scared to find out who I could be.”

Frozen stiff, Mary clenched her fist and pressed it against the door. Her chest burnt, and her throat ached with words she wanted to speak but couldn’t. She wanted to say she knew, that she understood how heavy the weight a person could carry was. But all she could do was remain still, her hair dripping wet and the scars all over her body redder than usual on pink skin, reminding her that no, she couldn’t relate. She wasn’t like Miss Talupa. She was a human being, but not wholly. Not entirely in tune to the world.

Miss Talupa cleared her throat. “But… I’ve found a way. I found another nun of whom I can share my passion with, and I can be myself.” She laughed. “My, isn’t it strange? When you find a love so pure you forget who you are, forget about your worries, and simply fulfill who you are, it’s as if life opens a door to a paradise you can finally exist within. Love is a key that opens that door; the door to a paradise where the weight falls from your shoulders and you can soar high, high into the sky.” She had a dreamy quality to her voice, and maybe for her it was simply just that; a dream.

Mary had no clue what love should have felt like. Couldn’t even begin to guess how someone would react to a hug or a kiss or even sex. Those were foreign things reserved for real humans, not humans playing pretend. Maybe if there was an afterlife for Spartans, she’d… No. She’d be targeted by the hundreds she’d killed. Two hundred and ninety-five. She had to remember how many. No matter how sick of an act it was to count the lives she’d taken, Mary had to remember, lest she forgot that life was not the fictional place she tried to make it out to be, filled with music and laughter and joy.

Toweling down, she put on the robe and came out to find Miss Talupa with a gun in her hand.

Her eyes were sharp and dark, her lips thin, and her hand steady. “You are a Spartan.”

Mary’s stomach dropped.

“From the way you walked, the strides of someone who’s seen combat more times than she can count. Those darting eyes, as if you’re being hunted, or you’re looking for chances to become the hunter.” She stepped forward, and Mary tensed. “From the smell of death oozing out of your pores. I knew.”

She vigorously shook her head and waved her hands in front of her.

“Do you think I would forget?” she said, her voice sharp and precise. “I’ve dreamt for years of your kind. From that day my father’s throat was slit and my mother was disemboweled, I’ve dreamt of killing one of you.” She chuckled. “And now look at you; wet, afraid, and alone. I thought you were all powerful. All of you animals. But all you are is a mistake the devil plagued this world with.”

Mary’s back pressed against the cobbles of the wall, and she swallowed as the gun’s muzzle tracked her. One bullet wouldn’t kill her, but it would alert the other nuns. Were they already out there, just past the door? Waiting to butcher her as she tried to escape?

Her mission was just, and she couldn’t die now. Not so close to the end. Not when all the blood that tarnished her own still burnt her up at night and made her feel so empty.

Mary ducked, and the gun barked. She grabbed her wrist and twisted, popping the gun out of her hand and flipping her over her shoulder. The woman cried out when she hit the floor, and Mary stepped over her arm, tightly clasped her forearm, and twisted. An audible crack filled the air, and Mary reached for the gun as Miss Talupa began wailing and shrieking in pain, holding her arm where the bone had split through skin.

Forcing a pillow over her face, Mary fired off one shot. Feathers erupted from the pillow, and the sounds of anguish were swallowed by a cloud of soft white feather raining down around Mary. And for a second, Mary considered leaving the pillow over her face, but she pulled it away, and forced herself to look at the mangled face of the woman she’d killed.

One more voice in the shadows, she thought.

Mary put her clothes back on, cold and empty and hollow as she straightened her tie. With the gun in her fist, she crept towards the door and waited, listening to the corridor. Nothing. But that didn’t help her rising and falling stomach.

Quickly checking the clip, she mouthed a swear word. It wasn’t full. Five left, and around fifty to fight. Not killed unless they had to be killed. No point in knocking them out; they’d just come back again later.

On her toes, she opened the door and squeezed through a gap in the door. The corridor was uncomfortably silent, but the shadows not touched by light gave her a chance to stop, breathe, and listen for any sounds. Quiet murmurs of talk from the nuns, the tap of water from a broken pipe, and the howl of the storm outside was all that came to her sensitive ears.

By the time she reached the end of the corridor, her knuckles were white and the gun in front of her shook with anticipation.

The nuns were in the church, just beyond the door. Heavily armed and undoubtedly trained.

But Canary was right down the hill in the Poppy Hotel, and she was the hardest of all the Spartans to catch because of how much she travelled. Now or never, and Mary swallowed her fear and narrowed her eyes. The gun clutched tight, her feet squared, and her free hand hovering over the handle, Mary prayed for forgiveness.

She threw the door opened and blew apart two heads. Mary dived behind a row of seats as the nuns screamed. Sounds of cocking guns and knives sliding out of sheaths greeted her. A sort of harmony to the background of thunder clapping outside.

A nun leaped over the seats and slammed her feet into the side of Mary’s head. She stumbled, and the woman advanced, swinging and stabbing at Mary with a double-edged blade. Slamming the butt of the gun into her wrist, she jabbed her throat, grabbed her veil, swung her around, and slammed her head into the cross. Mary silently cried out as her leg buckled; a knife stuck out her thigh, and she yanked it out as three more darting blades sliced through the air towards her.

She rolled, only to be kicked in the side. Tumbling down the church steps and squarely in the aisle, Mary groaned as she tried to get up off the floor. A blade slammed into her palm, cutting straight through. She screamed, no sound escaping her mouth, and she was flipped over and smashed into a wooden bench.

As her vision cleared, she reeled at the sight of the nuns descending onto her as if they were wolves in the wild, hungry and starving for a kill. Knives and guns and even brass knuckles were in hands, and all Mary had was a slick throwing knife in her palm, and her gun long gone.

But the fire in her gut wasn’t to be doused so easily.

She leapt up, backhanding a woman and slashing through the side of her face with the knife sticking out of her hand. Punching another, she grabbed a tall woman’s throat and threw her into a trio. Grabbing a knife, she forced it into the throat of another, spraying scarlet blood into the air. She gargled and choked, and Mary barred her teeth and soundlessly roared.

Mary worked on savage instinct. Breaking bones and pulling them out of their bodies to use as weapons. She pinned nuns to the floor with their own broken ribs jammed into their arms. She tore out their throats with her mouth, spitting arteries and veins and forcing her hand deeper into their exposed necks, gripping onto what she could of their spines and using the women as shields against bullets and knives.

Eventually, the guns emptied, and all that was left was Mary in the center of a bloodbath. She kicked and punched and snapped necks in fluid motions. Crunches and snaps and gristly sounds of shredding skin were all she could hear. No screams. No thunder. No voices. Only the sound of an animal killing the innocent, and deep, deep down, she enjoyed getting out her frustration and anger and bitterness for herself. She nearly smiled when she smashed two skulls against each other, showering herself in brain matter and skull fragments. Her rage was raw, her actions unbridled, and Mary was extinguishing whatever goodwill remained with her. She wasn't going to heaven, anyway. She would kill herself one day, when she was cold and alone and nearly insane with the voices in her head screaming for her punishment. So she killed, just like she was designed to do. Because one day, when her quest was over, she deserved as much hate as the world had to offer. Let fate take the reigns of my life and put me through hell.

By the time she was done, Mary stood in front of the cross, looking at the church littered with bodies. Mary caught a glimpse of her face, and she blinked, thinking she was looking at someone else. Blood covered her from head to toe, and she quickly looked away before the image burnt itself into her memory. The pews were broken, with bits of them sticking out of nuns splayed on the floor. The wooden floor was drenched in blood. And the only place not touched by crimson was the Bible holding a wine glass, proudly facing Mary as if to scold her.

She ached all over, with cuts and bruises and what she was sure was a few broken ribs. Her fingers were twisted, facing the wrong way. More than a few bullet wounds littered her sides, pulsing warm blood down her torso, to her leg and then the floor. Mary had always found it ironic how warm the blood of others made Her, especially now when she felt so, so cold. The feeling left her exhausted and disgusted with herself. With the person her younger self had sworn she wouldn't bcome. Blood was painfully sticky, and it never left. But the rage she had felt began receeding, leaving a hole in her chest that was always empty. She was only ever complete when she was truly being a Spartan, and when she wasn't... she was only partly human.

The Mother’s door opened, and she gasped. Mary, with her fists clenched and panting, watched her drop a box and gingerly step forward. She appeared to float on the surface of it all, as her gown dragged blood behind her. Her hands trembled. Her breaths caught. Mary realized she was praying, and as she came onto the aisle and faced Mary, looking up at her with half her face bathed by shadows, the other half reflected by lightning, the Mother barred her teeth and her nostrils flared.

“You!” she shrieked. “You’re a Spartan!”

Mary pulled the Bible off its stand and walked down the steps, her feet heavy and trudging towards the Mother.

The Mother pulled out a large gun; a desert eagle, glimmering silver in the clouded moonlight. It wobbled, just as her voice did as she said, “I built this island for your kind! So you could be free! And all you are… I created an island of devils.” She was crying now, and Mary kept her eyes low, her hair hanging over her face as she approached. “I should never have given your kind a home!”

She’d heard that before from more nuns who owned orphanages than she could count. She’d heard that from people who’d adopted her and had thrown her into the gutter a day later. Mary had told herself that more than anyone else had ever said that to her. She kept moving. She kept hunting. A home was for those who deserved it, for those who loved and cared about others.

I’m all alone. Mary stepped towards the Mother. They’d reached the end of the aisle, and the heavy gun was pressed against her chest, right above her heart. Please, she thought. Do it.

But the Mother didn’t pull the trigger, so Mary took the gun from her and sent the Mother to the man she believed in. Crumpled at her feet, Mary looked up at the dark ceiling. Crystalline tears cut through the blood on her cheeks, and she couldn’t even feel them. Fighting a sob, she turned to the cross and took off her cross necklace, dropping it on the Bible she laid atop the Mother’s body.

Canary, she thought, dragging her feet through corpses. Canary, Canary, Canary. Sing for me and silence the voices.

Walking through faceless voices, through figureless shadows, Mary opened the Mother’s door, and found the tools to her destruction. To Canary’s or hers, she didn’t know.